TorilMUD Forums

I'm kind of lost on what the new internet options are, and when I get linked back up I don't want to have to deal with dial-up. Cable is not an option where I live. What do you guys know about the other options... satellite, and that newfangled contraption they have that'll use your cellphone connection? Anybody use these and have opinions? Would they be too frustrating to have to deal with if they're used way out in the country, or would it matter? I get good cellphone connection where I live, but I don't know if it's the same thing. Thanks!

Too bad the cable company won't bend over backward to 'service' you!

Ashiwi wrote:I'm kind of lost on what the new internet options are, and when I get linked back up I don't want to have to deal with dial-up. Cable is not an option where I live. What do you guys know about the other options... satellite, and that newfangled contraption they have that'll use your cellphone connection? Anybody use these and have opinions? Would they be too frustrating to have to deal with if they're used way out in the country, or would it matter? I get good cellphone connection where I live, but I don't know if it's the same thing. Thanks!

I don't know anything about satellite. You might want to try for DSL if you have a landline phone.

The cell phone thing can work, but you'll probably find that to be more expensive. I'm pretty sure it works off the same signal your calls do, so as long as you get reception you should be fine.

Cell phone internet is not pleasant. Ask about DSL and power-line broadband in your area.

If you can't get cable, 3G isn't really an option for you either with your cellphone. My parents use satellite internet and they say while its not like their old landline its not too bad.

Avoid satellite if you can. The latency issues for gaming are not fun. We're talking 1+ second here.


BTW HI!

DSL is the best option if you can get it. Ask your land line company.

satelite sucks because of the latency. It might be ok for mudding, but expect 250+ milisecond pings to everything. Thats just the physics of beaming a signal up to a satelite and bacn down. The mud processes commands every 250 ms so you're going to feel slow. "Twitch" games like first person shooters are basically unplayable; you'll get kicked from servers for "lagging" and you'll miss everything when shooting.

cellular basically sucks for 2 reasons, one "unlimited" really doesn't mean unlimited, you use it too much, you end up a list of people they ask to cancel. They might overlook mudding since its relatively low bandwidth especially with the growing popularity of surfing Internet from your phone, but scrolling text does add up. I have a several 200+ mb capture logs. With cellular you also generally have a much higher upload than you would expect, but your downloading sucks. This is reverse of how most people use their Internet (emphasis on downloading). Its because of how they built the cellular network based on the characteristics of a voice conversation works (equal up and down).

Ashiwi lives out in the sticks, I'd think that the 3G network is pretty unreliable if it even exists out there. As I understand it, she can't even get dsl out there so she's kinda stuck.

3g is the 3rd evolution of cellular access. First there were cellular modems, then there was "broadband" cellular on the normal network (the kind I'm talking about), now there is 3G cellular which is still in the process of building out (focused on large markets and expanding from there).

I had 3g in Japan in 2001 and they were in full swing of pushing fiber to houses.

Yeah I live really close to downtown and there are still some areas where 3G coverage is poor. Its growing fast, but its still barely in its infancy on a national scale. I know this is off topic, but here's a cool TED talk by Kevin Kelly of Wired magazine on the growth of the web and connectivity.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/kevi ... e_web.html

TED rules.

Personally, I live out in the sticks and have a 3G cell connection that works decently well. My laptop with a built in card picks up about two bars of signal, while for my desktop I have a small antenna on my roof and a booster to get a constant 4-5 bars of good signal. This is in an area that is considered to be fringe by Verizon.

In my experience, Verizon's wireless broadband service is pretty good. It's pricey for what it delivers, but in terms of usefulness, I would compare it to being on par with satellite in terms of latency and download speed.

Thank you all. I don't want to deal with anything that means I have to turn on my landline again, if I can at all avoid it, because it was such a major hassle the previous time. I may just go with satellite, since I'm not really a gamer. I've always been curious about games like Warhammer, but I doubt I'll ever get into them enough to worry about it.

Appreciate the words of advice!

The mud basically processes commands 4 times a second or roughly every 250 ms. I notice the difference with satelite (and even slower cellular connections) particularly in solo work. You really have to think about how to stack your commands on dangerous operations and expect "unlucky" outcomes as well.

I hope you don't have line of sight issues either. That's a big one when they're installing a dish in your yard. One of the guys I'm graduating with actually uses HughesNet (garbage), and his latency is around 1100 ms, and the only way they could get his dish set up is planting the thing right smack in the front yard due to all the trees here in the Pacific Northwest.

Kiryan, I hope you aren't saying cell connections are slower then satellite connections. Depending on load of the tower and the number of players in a city in WoW, I keep anywhere from 230-400ms lag. Satellite tends to be worse then that as far as I know.
Also, last I checked into it.. the equipment fees for satellite were around 500-700 bucks, and another 60-70 per month for service. Thats been awhile ago, so I'm sure its likely gone down.
Nationwide broadband through verizon runs 60 bucks per month, and it just depends on what kind of a card you get as to what that part costs you. To use it with a desktop, you can find a mobile broadband router, or use an adapter that the card plugs into and then plugs into a usb port on your computer.

no, marth, I may have indicated that satelite latency was only a factor in "twitch" games. It makes those outright unplayable, but the 250+ ms latency with satelite connections can have an impact on playing toril as well... just not as profound.