Well on a plus side, pretty much all the carriers are dumping 2G/E by the end of this year. Whether that means the towers will all be 3G/4G/LTE is up to the carrier and could be anyones guess. Hopefully we shouldn't see speeds drop below 3G anymore.
I was sorry when the carriers in Canada dropped analog cell phone service (although I understand that there still is some in the U.S.). It was very useful in certain types of terrain, such as mountains (of which there are plenty in British Columbia).
I remember when Analog cell service would get to places Digital just could not. AFAIK analog service in the USA is no more maybe American Roaming may use it, but again I don't even think the new Galaxy phones even have Analog enabled.
I think there is ONE Analog carrier I was reading about not too long ago.
And now as predicted, customer service is showing their disapproval.
I spoke with TVS Cable tech support over the phone, they insisted that the trouble is caused by too many devices in our home, that we have used 8 GB of our 6 Mbps internet connection and that is why their servers have locked us out at random intervals.
Say What?? Their policy says nothing about bandwidth limitations, they say nothing about throttling our connection, nor do they mention turning our internet connection off.
This is what happens when customers demand better service, don't receive that better service and then call the FCC in to handle things. This women i spoke with tried to change gears and say something in our home was shutting our modem down, YEAH Lady!! It's the modem shutting us out! It's your DNS, don't mess with customers that are also well versed in electronics, internet services and one of which is IT!
We will continue to have problems in the future, i can see that already.
Barry of BBR Worldwide
P.S. To rule it out as being our fault, the internet died when no one was online and I shut down transmitters just to see if that was a possible culprit as well. I've told these people that obviously the trouble is on their end, of course they deny this.
The only effective way I found to deal with these guys is to research alternatives (hopefully there are some) , then threaten to cancel your service if you don't get satisfaction (and be prepared to do so).
I used to use Shaw Cable as my ISP. Their rates went up dramatically, but they had a special for new customers - basically half price. I asked for the special, even though I had been with them for a long time and was refused - so I just said to cancel the service. I was immediately put through to a 'customer retention agent', who gave me what I wanted.
The next year, my rate was going to double once again. I asked for the same deal, they said no, and again I asked to cancel. That time they let me. However, I ended up with a service (that I was prepared to move to) that is faster, has unlimited bandwidth, PLUS a static IP for Artisan Radio, all for still less than what I would have paid for a severely limited bandwidth connection with Shaw, with no static IP.
If you have no other service options, though, you really don't have much other than to do what you're doing and deal with them.
I had some of the same issues when I lived in Elizabeth City and dealt with Time Warner. Over and over my internet kept slowing down especially the upload speed. We're talking speeds of less than 756 KB /s. Of course this is very unacceptable especially when I was supposed to get 50 megabytes per second down and get at least 4 megabytes up. When I got the technicians to come over and they saw Sam broadcaster immediately they said well that's your problem you're not supposed to be broadcasting on the internet. they then told me that I would have to get business class service if I wanted to continue running a internet radio station from my residence. I argued the point because I was only up screaming at 128 KB /s and I told them that that was far less then what Netflix or any other video service would take. I argued and argued finally I got so upset that I cancelled Time Warner and went with CenturyLink. That works better for a while but the problem with CenturyLink was is that their service went down quite a bit. But when it was up the speeds were relatively the same all the time.
From the providers standpoint I can see why some have issues with internet broadcasting. 128kbps doesn't seem like much but when its running 24/7 the bandwidth really ads up. My streams at 32kbps and 48kbps push a little over a gig of transmitted data every 3 days or so. Thats about 10gb all by streaming per month, not much but thats a noticeable load on the weaker home networks. Added up my streams are 90kbps, So my estimations put 128kbps closer to 15 or 20 gigs. All that being said, its mostly just a money grab and to any good network that would be a seriously negligable load.
So out of the blue, TVS Cable shows up with a new modem and after nearly 30 minutes of waiting for a tech to enter the new modem into the system we are back online, but for how long? Will it be reliable?
I don't know.
Apparently this company has been upgrading but didn't bother to replace modems at customers homes. They bascially wait until someone has trouble then decide to say "hey we are upgrading our system and you need this new modem so everthing works"
Derrrr~
So after fighting with this new Arris modem, i think i have the ports open for my website.
Can i get members to visit http://www.bluebucketradio.com
and http://thefreeproject.no-ip.org ?
If you do visit my website, please let me know here or by email how fast it loaded or if it loads at all.
Meanwhile we will wait to see how well the connection fairs as we have had cold nights dipping down to freezing temps.
Thanks
Barry
It loaded fast. Perhaps you have this problem beaten back for the time being!
Those Arris modems can be really good. Site loaded fast for me in Texoma.
Well that's two reporting fast speed's and your locations give a good indicator of what to expect from visitors to the website in other parts of the country.
Maybe, just maybe i can start streaming the station again.
Barry of BBR 1620
Here is TVS Cables letter to the FCC, does it sound like they put the blame on us or not?
I feel like they did.
Barry of BBR World Wide
I transferred the website to an online host until this garbage is resolved with my isp.
Alternative web urls:
www.geocities.ws/bbrcomms/
www.bluebucketradio.com
bluebucketradio.com is a redirect to geocities.ws
thanks
Barry
Loads fast down her in NZ Barry