Technology moving fast

[Donald]

I support the WIFI at a church camp. Last year we had 50Mb for the whole camp. A max of 62 clients at once. When I called Comcast in the fall about the business phone they said they retired 50Mb and now the minimum was 75Mb. Same price. Just called to add a second business phone and they retired 75Mb and the new minimum is 200Mb which we will get at same price.

Most of our hardware is 1Gb. So good for now.

An awful lot of unused capacity since the camp is closed for the winter.

What will be the new minimum by next summer?

 

[Quattro Pete]

Around here, AT&T still offers a 5 Mbps plan.

 

[cpayne5]

Comcast will allow you to put your residential service into "vacation" mode for people like snowbirds who go south for the winter. The account remains active, but service is cut off and there's no bill. Not sure if you can do that on the Business side, but it may be a way to save your camp some money.

 

[Andrew1972]

200 or 250. I had same venture of 5 to 10(6 years) to 25 to 50(6 years) to 100 to 150(4 years) and now 200+ recently.

It depends on locale competition and also if the lines get upgraded.

 

[Donald]

We know about the vacation mode. This winter we are seeing if the WIFI hardware will work during the winter in unheated buildings. So far so good. The switches that power POE remain at over 40C. According to the Unifi management software.

 

[itguy08]

You'll probably be good down to 32F or so. We regularly put standard business class (Aruba or Cisco) APs in food coolers (a little over 32F) without incident. Down below that it will probably work if it doesn't get too cold. Outdoor APs should be good to below that but if you need cooler like an industrial freezer you'd need a heated enclosure.

 

[Ws6]

Lol, I'm on 10 down, 2.5 up. $125/mo, fastest plan available.

 

[Donald]

Running WIFI all winter even with no users lets me know ahead of time what surprises the winter/snow/ice will bring as I can see everything from a phone app.

An access point would not be a big deal to replace, but the 125m of fiber would be a real pain to replace.

 

[mk378]

Electronic devices tend to work better and last longer the colder they are. Unless water condensation happens.

 

[Andrew1972]

Originally Posted by Ws6
Lol, I'm on 10 down, 2.5 up. $125/mo, fastest plan available.


Living the dream of rural small town 'Murica.

 

[Ws6]

Originally Posted by madRiver
Originally Posted by Ws6
Lol, I'm on 10 down, 2.5 up. $125/mo, fastest plan available.


Living the dream of rural small town 'Murica.


This is true. It's absolutely worth it 100x over, though.

 

[Blaze]

I'm still on dial-up. I also don't even own a cell phone.

 

[JimPghPA]

I remember in 1980 when the company I worked for built their own 92,000 modem and thought that was fast.

 

[dareo]

Originally Posted by Ws6
Lol, I'm on 10 down, 2.5 up. $125/mo, fastest plan available.


Ouch! I hope 5G rolls into your area and busts up that price gouging.

 

[Ws6]

Originally Posted by dareo
Originally Posted by Ws6
Lol, I'm on 10 down, 2.5 up. $125/mo, fastest plan available.


Ouch! I hope 5G rolls into your area and busts up that price gouging.


I don't even have cell service with my 4G. I hear 5G signal is a lot stronger, so mayhap?

 

[ondarvr]

5G doesn't carry as far, so more towers are needed. That's one of the slowdowns in implementing it, the infrastructure takes time to build.

 

[Ws6]

Originally Posted by ondarvr
5G doesn't carry as far, so more towers are needed. That's one of the slowdowns in implementing it, the infrastructure takes time to build.

Well, we don't have towers that will get 4G to me, so I'm guessing that's a negative, ghost rider.

 

[dlundblad]

Originally Posted by madRiver
Originally Posted by Ws6
Lol, I'm on 10 down, 2.5 up. $125/mo, fastest plan available.


Living the dream of rural small town 'Murica.


Our country living antenna internet has been down since Sunday night's high winds. The tower that feeds the tower that feeds our house fell over. Lol

 

[Ws6]

Originally Posted by dlundblad
Originally Posted by madRiver
Originally Posted by Ws6
Lol, I'm on 10 down, 2.5 up. $125/mo, fastest plan available.


Living the dream of rural small town 'Murica.


Our country living antenna internet has been down since Sunday night's high winds. The tower that feeds the tower that feeds our house fell over. Lol


Oof. Mine is buried cable, but that doesn't mean it doesn't die often enough.

 

[dareo]

T-mobile's 600mhz 5g is supposed to spread quite far, but if your remote enough to not even have 4g signals your probably stuck with what you have.