backwoods success story

jasper_gein · EVDO Newbie Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 2

I live in a heavily wooded area in the northwest chicago suburbs.
Only small patches of sunlight penetrate the canopy.
I've had to deal with dialup for a long time.
In the end EVDO has worked out to be a great solution for me.

Over the years I've investigated different solutions to break 28.8k speeds:

DSL
I'm close enough in street distance to the CO.
But the phone lines take some contorted path to my home so I can't get it.

Wireless
I had a couple local WISPs come out but they can't deal with the trees.

Satellite
There is no sky at all at the angle where the satellites are.

Cable
There was no cable on my street until a year ago.
Actually I'm not sure if that really happened or not...
So I'm going to call it "cable" because I'm not sure if its really there.
My cat told me that its INVISIBLE CABLE.
I would call prior to seeing the "cable" and ask them when it would come.
The responses I would get were just estimates like: sometime next year.
They said they would call when it became available.
Yeah right...
One day I saw technicians putting up the "cable" on my street.
I was excited and got out of my car to talk to them.
They said that this is the "cable" and I can get fast internets with it.
I knew it was fast because I did some softwares for a cable modem.
They took my information and said they would hook me up!
I didn't get any calls back...
When I called the company they said there was no service at my house.
I told them I can see "cable" hanging up there in the street.
And that I talked to technicians who said I now have the "cable".
Doesn't matter.
If I'm not on their map then I don't have it and they are right.
So I went to try and find the local cable company office.
I'm pretty good with maps and stuff but could not find it.
No local phone number to call.
I gave up.
Sometimes I wonder if I should call them to see if I can get "cable" tv.
But I never do and its because I hate them very much.

EVDO
I decided to go to Sprint and try EVDO.
I walked into the Sprint store and the people there were helpful.
They sold me the Merlin S620.
I wasn't very optimistic because of the foliage issues.
But since there was a good return policy I was ok with trying it out.
I stuck the card in my laptop and was getting good speeds.
On average around 900kbps.

Then I got a KR1 router from 3Gstore.
I positioned it in the spot that had the best signal - the basement.
The basement is a walkout but still I wonder why the best signal is there.
It worked great.
The only problem was I had to powercycle the KR1 once a week.
But this was fixed later when I upgraded the firmware.

Recently I wanted to go Rev A.
I walked into a couple Sprint stores asking for the Merlin S720.
They didn't have it and were not very helpful this time around.
I went to the Sprint store because I thought it would be the quickest way.
But then I ordered it from 3Gstore and didn't have any problems at all.
Now I'm getting an average of 1.5Mbps.
Some speed tests are close to 2Mbps.
I still haven't gone out to investigate which tower I'm using.
But I bet I'm the only one on it out here.

So I'm very happy with the whole setup and its working flawlessly.
The Sprint network is very reliable.
They have let me use the intarwebs unrestricted and I thank them for that.
I'd like to say thanks to everyone at 3Gstore and the people in this forum.

jackrodgers · EVDO Addict Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 1127

I'm a bit jealous of those speed tests but love your story.

I was thinking maybe you could use a pay phone, call the cable company and report yourself as a cable pirate.

Then when they come out and discover you are not, you might then be able to convince them to hook you up... Twisted Evil

Alex · Site Admin Joined: 19 Sep 2006 Posts: 1893

h8rain · EVDO User Joined: 16 Jan 2007 Posts: 28

Wow I would have gotten very angry at the cable company.

"I SEE THE FRICKIN' CABLE FROM MY WINDOW!!!!!!!!"
Laughing

djheath · Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 9:00 am Post subject:

I am mad at the cable company. I'm helping my Mother in Law move and I'm trying to get her cable hooked up. I call the cable company from her new house and try to schedule an installation and I get told it will be a week for them to send someone out to see if her house is close enough for cable. I tell the person on the phone that the cable is run to the house and just needs to be activated and they tell me that since the house isn't in their computer they don't believe it currently has cable run to it and it will be a week for someone to come out and verify. And then once verified they'll send someone else out later to activate it.

I mean one would think they would want a customer here. Especially since they read the addresses of the six houses around my MIL's house as being in the system.
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Dave...