DSLRUsers.com

Hi All,
I'm still on my quest for faster internet. I decided against satellite after reading the whirlpool forums and with the cost. My next option is going with Helstra for ISDN. I don't know much about it but want to know if it's reliable and if you are able to do video/voip over it (it's 128k connection). I have never had faster than dial up so I really have no idea.
Has anyone used it and is it worth upgrading from dial up to ISDN considering that I am unable to get broadband.
Thanks,
Lee

Try satellite.

ISDN is great, it's a business product - what's the cost of it?

The cost is $89 per month for 128k unlimited downloads. This includes telephone line rental. The satellite plan I was looking at was around $100 for 512/128 and 5 gig download. Locked in for 18 months.

ISDN is expensive and is geared toward commercial uses. I'd recommend DSL or cable as better alternatives, cost-wise.

Wow, ISDN has certainly gotten better since I looked at it.

I'm guessing ADSL / Cable is not an option for you? I'd recommend ADSL if you can get it

T*lstra has a ISDN home option. If you can't get decent ADSL/cable/wireless in your area then it's worth considering. Satellite can be better for bulk data transfer, but the latency makes it feel sluggish. ISDN is much more reliable and the low latency is much nicer for interactive tasks. ISDN for home use is much more affordable than it used to be. With ISDN Data over Voice, you can simply pay a flat voice rate to connect to your ISP instead of the nasty timed data calls that T*lstra tries to push.

I'm unfamiliar with what cheap ISDN routers are available for home use. Another option might be to buy a Traverse Netjet card for your computer. I've built some routers with these cards, they work fine. I imagine they should be easy to use under Windows. I usually use Cisco gear for ISDN, which isn't so cheap..

VOIP works fine over ISDN. Realtime video is a bit of a stretch (low quality - ok, high quality - no).

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions about the "turbocharge" internet advertisements on TV recently?

they offer faster internet connection at a very cheap rate.

What exchange are you on? ISPs are installing DSLAMs all over the place, DSL might be an option in the near future. It might be better to wait a bit in that case. If DSL is not an option in the known future then ISDN is ok, it feels much faster than dialup.

i use ISDN as its the fastest i can get here [apart from satellite]
reliability is good but you have to get it installed which means different type phone.
telstra supply a modem and a new phone.
you can still make phonecalls at the same time but it drops the speed to 64.
costs to install and costs to uninstall which you have to do if you change billing name.

Thanks guys.
No, cable or ADSL is not an option for me - we are unable to get it where I live.
We have about 1000 people in our town and we need 130 households to sign up for broadband on the demand register. At the moment we have 108 and it has been stuck at that for ages. So, I am very unsure as to whether it will ever get here or not. I can't seem to find anywhere that is installing in our area (Paringa in SA). I've had one lot say they were looking at wireless but they never got back to me.
I am SOOOOO sick of slow internet!
Lee

I had ISDN for a few years as thats the fastest i could get here thru telstra country wide
I now have broadban satelite
when you have broadban satelite installed you have isdn upload & satelite download so you get the best of both worlds & 2 telephone lines
My deal with telstra is only 20 dollars more with satelite than it was with just isdn so ring them & ask you will be pleasantly supprised
warren
I live in Port Vincent 200 klm north of Adelaide
warren

keep pluging away get people to sign up, they dont have to put broadband on right away. do a letterbox drop explaining the situation.
cheers pa

If you can't get anything else, ISDN is great. If you've got an ISP who does multilink PPP, it's all good. It also got a lot cheaper than it used to be. With an NT1+2 you can use standard phones and that is what Telstra will install these days. Even dial up over it is faster.
I've got a Traverse external ISDN modem which does DOV if you decide to go that way. It was rather cool to shaft telstra with.
http://www.traverse.com.au/productview.do?product_id=13

Read up on ISDN on Whirlpool. There is a lot of good info there.

Marvin wrote:We have about 1000 people in our town and we need 130 households to sign up for broadband on the demand register. At the moment we have 108 and it has been stuck at that for ages.

Talk to your local MP. Impress upon him or her that it's holding your region back, and that the 130 requirement is an artificial and contrived impediment to what should be, in this day and age, an essential service.

Dug wrote:Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions about the "turbocharge" internet advertisements on TV recently?

they offer faster internet connection at a very cheap rate.

If you're talking about the dialup that is faster than normal then what they do is point you to one of their servers, when you request a web page it checks their server and if that webpage has already been loaded then their server compresses the image so it loads quicker for the end user. So for a photography forum you'd be looking at very blocky and compressed images.

If all you browse is text sites then you'll see no difference in speed.

(I'm basing this off something I trialled a year or two ago - it could be completely different!)

Try Boardernet 2 way Sat. If there is no broadband in your area the government pay for most of the installation costs.


Cheers

MATT

Thanks guys!
I am still confused! I think I will end up going for ISDN as satellite is too expensive (even with the HiBis subsidy) and has some latency issues as far as I can find out.

Gary - good idea. I might just talk to the MP. She is quite good in this area. The 130 requirement sucks because we only have about 300 households in the town, so it's basically 1/3 of people have to take it up.

BUT... we only just got filtered water a couple of years ago (used to come straight from the Murray - all brown and full of sediment) so I may be dreaming on this one!

Dug wrote:Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions about the "turbocharge" internet advertisements on TV recently?

they offer faster internet connection at a very cheap rate.

are you talking the modem stuff that dodo was pushing?
its basically caching software for your machine, and it also tries to preempt what page you will hit next and start leeching it while you read your current page. giving you the feeling of speed if you do go to the page it selected.
it just works on the principle of using the maximum bandwidth of your connection when its not being fully used by you.

We have a meeting about wireless braodban in our town today a isp company is building a tower outside town as wee speak
i will keep you informed about whats going on with it maybe it will help yr cause too
in our town we only have 600 permanate redidents
warren

Thanks Warren. Our town is on a list which says wireless is coming but when I rang the company (skyoptic/onewire) they knew nothing about it and couldn't give me any timeline or ideas.

try Argyle Internode that is the company that had the town meeting today
Is very very intersting & will be in my town in 8 weeks
the instilation is subsidised by the federal government till the end of this finacial year
I will definatly be getting it once my ncurrent contract with bigpond satelite runs out
warren