A couple months ago I moved from the city to the country so I had to drop my DSL internet service since it's not available here. Well I decided to try out the wireless internet that at&t offers sice a couple buddies at work appraised it's quick loading speeds but this crap is rediculously slow where I live. It litterally takes five minutes to get online then takes approximately the same time to load pages on this forum. It takes about ten minutes of load time just towatch videos on youtube. The only time my internet has a decent load speed is around midnight. I guess cause less people are trafficing the cellular towers. I have a 30 day return policy on the service so I have sent that crap back to them i'm not paying $60 a month for internet that's slower than dialup. Any input is appreciated. Thanks!

 

I've got two wireless cards, AT&T and Sprint. I use my AT&T phone tethered or a dedicated wireless card for Sprint.

I've had both going on two years now, each works well in different areas. I seem to have the best luck with sprint. You don't provide a zip code so we can see where you are and see what networks have what speeds.

I've also had to call Sprint (we're a large customer of theirs) and they have come out and cleaned the towers which has helped.

Here's sprint network. See if they have coverage in your area. Plug in your address and see what comes up.

Sprint Network Map

 

do you have to go wireless? or do you have cable modem available in your area?

 

My zip code is 71282. I'll check out that link in a couple minutes. Thanks for the help.

 

I'm only familiar with At&T's internet services and I can't have a cable type internet service unless it's dialup which is stupid in my opinion. I do have satellite service through Dish Network and i've heard about their internet service before but haven't tried calling them yet. Just for reference I have a desktop computer and it's nothing fancy but with DSL internet my internet was fast a page would almost load instantly so I do know it's not my computers fault.

 

the sprint Air card works really well just make sure if you do go that route to get an unlimited plan

 

Thanks for the input.

 

just an thought http://attwb.net/
i have not used it

 

I have the Sprint card and do better with that than I do with my Nextel phone. It does seem to be slow sometimes, but that could be (is probably) my computer. $60 for unlimited useage here just about beats the local DSL carrier, is almost as fast and totally portable.

 

Check with Verizon and Sprint for 3G coverage in your area. That's the only way to get any kind of speed. If you are not in a 3G area, speeds will be terrible. You are probably not even in a Edge (2G) AT&T area and are in fact getting low end dialup speeds.

Note that "unlimited" is not unlimited - there will be a monthly usage cap.

If you can't get 3G, you might as well get satellite - and online gaming will be almost impossible due to latency. You can also check to see if you are in range of any local fixed wireless towers.

 

From the looks of the map your in a good spot. Not sure where you sit but it looks like a good area with lots of dark green. I see great streaming speeds in the great areas such as your zip code. I've never had to let a video pause, then load to view the video.

 

With AT&T, did you have the same problem in your old location, or did you not have it there.

Is it the Sierra Wireless aircard ? I had problems at the last company, next to ORD I would have painfully long connect times, and the latency was horrid once I did get on ( signal confirmed as 3G ).

I removed the AT&T supplied card software and installed the Sierra Wireless watcher software for the card I had, and it was much better. Connect times were quick, and the latency was not as bad.

The other thing to check prior to changing the software, is are you in a 3G area now ? The AT&T software should show signal and type ( 3G/UMTS, EDGE, GPRS ) on the main connect screen ( been some time since I used it, thought it was on the AT&T, the Sierra Wireless has it ).
Could be you are not in UMTS signal range, and you are using EDGE for the connection ( which will act more like an ISDN-BRI line ).

SAT internet service might work for you, but the delay on SAT can get pretty high under high usage loads, that your throughput will fall off.
A quick load has to do with getting enough data in flight, and the longer the reply to confirm the data got there, the less data will be in flight.
This can be band-aided with changing the TCP parameters on your computer, but this is just duct tape fixing a broken water pipe type of cure for you problem.

If you can, try a carrier that was CDMA ( VZ, Sprint, etc ) as the cell tower foot print they used before was much better than a TDMA/GSM carrier. This would be if they have the 30 money back deal.