Kaj Haulrich wrote:
Right now my municipality is digging trenches all over our tiny village and burying thick, orange snakes in order to shine some laser light into our humble homes. The contractor (local power company) says that I need a fiber optic modem, but as usually they know jack shit about decent operating systems. Recommendations, please :
It sounds like the cable-TV connections that are very common here in the US. (If not, then what follows should be piped to the bit bucket.) I've been getting my service through Time Warner (cable TV guys) since the end of May, and my ISP is Earthlink. I was concerned about having two companies involved, but so far it has worked out very well.
1. If light comes in at one end, what comes out in the other ?
Electricity. In my case, it flows through an RJ45 connector, although some modems use USB.
2. What do I need at the box end (card ,cables) ?
Well, following the excellent advice from this list, I connected the other end of the CAT cable to a Linksys router. It feeds two Linux systems via CAT cables and a miniMac via wireless.
3. They offer 100 Mb/sec for around $80/month, which is a bit more expensive than my present DSL at 4 Mb/sec... Is it worth it ?
Wow! Sounds high to me, but it may be a question of units. Are those bits or bytes? Whenever I test my connection, I get numbers between 2100 kbps and 3500 kbps.
As for whether or not it's worthwhile economically: In my case, very much so. Before upgrading, my wife and I had separate dial up accounts at $23 per month, and a separate telephone line at about $18 per month. The cable access is $43 per month. Net savings: $21 per month (about 3 six packs of good beer).
TIA Kaj Haulrich.
-- cmg
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