Broadband

Nancy lives in a mobile home park, but can't get any broadband cable installed due to park regulations. So she's stuck with 4g wireless hot-spotting. She doesn't want to get stuck with overages. Leo suggests using Virgin Mobile, as they don't have data caps on their service. T-Mobile has data caps but they can't charge for overages, they just would slow her down a bit. There could be some Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) in her area.

Arlene lives in a rural area and is stuck with dial-up. Leo says that one option is satellite internet from WildBlue. She'll have to pay for more equipment up front. The other option is cellular. If there's 4G access in her neighborhood, then that could also work. If not, then dial-up will be as good as it gets.

Yureal is a gamer and he's got cable internet. He's cancelling the service because it's too expensive ($70) and they want to charge him because "they have to leave the line in." Leo says that's nonsense. If he's having issues with his cable, it could be because of how far he is away from the office. If there's no competition in the area, he'll probably have to pay more for less. The only other choice is a wireless provider.

Michael is going with DSL Extreme and he needs a WiFi router for it. Could his old AT&T Wi-Fi modem work instead? Leo says it could act as a router, but it has to have Ethernet into it. He should make sure that he's enabled it for bridge mode. It'll either work or it won't, but Leo says that Michael should just get a wifi router instead. Leo recommends Dlink.

Richard lives in an area that doesn't give him either broadband or cellphone coverage, and is wondering if satellite internet is a viable option. Leo says if it's all he can get, then that's the only option. The equipment is expensive, though, and the upload speed is very slow. There's latency that's pretty bad so gaming and VOiP such as Skype would be an issue. There's also serious bandwidth caps. If that's not important, then it'll work. Leo recommends Exede, also known as WildBlue.

Frankie is moving to a rural area and would like to have an alternative that's similar to FIOS. Leo says that rural areas are hard because there's not enough in population to justify laying down broadband cable. So that leaves Satellite and 4G. Satellite has the downside of being expensive and that there's a lot of latency. It's also slow and subject to weather. The chatroom also recommends Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs). Exceed is the best satellite Internet provider.

Sam's internet connection is costing him $100 a month. Why is it so expensive?! Leo says that Sam didn't realize that they set him up with a super fast, high cost internet plan. He should contact Time Warner and tell them he wants to cut it back, because Sam is overpaying! He should tell them he wants to cut the cost in half. It shouldn't cost more than $50 with cable.

Doug would like to dump his AT&T phone line, but keep his DSL Extreme broadband connection. Can he do that? Leo says yes, it's called "dry loop DSL." AT&T has to allow it by law. He'll have to get DSL Extreme to fight for him on it because AT&T will do everything they can to make it difficult for him to keep it.

Steve is getting DNS errors and his internet connection is slowing to a crawl. Leo says it's likely a flakey cable modem. He advises taking the modem to the Comcast cable store and telling them it's broken. Ask them for a DOCSIS 3. It's fast and more reliable. Or, he can just buy a modem and avoid the monthly rental fee.

If that doesn't fix it, it could be malware. It is not unusual for malware to modify DNS. If he can't get to an antivirus page, that's often a sign of malware.

David has heard about ClearBand wireless internet called OMGFast for $29.99 a month for 50MBPS. Leo says it's essentially WiMax and suggests going to BroadbandReports.com to find out what others think and get reviews. Users are reporting a constant 45-55mbps down, 4mbps up consistently. Latency isn't great for real time gaming or VOIP.