Fusion service in Mountain View?

[Dave]

Hey folks,

I'm moving to Mountain View in a few weeks and would reeeeally love to use Sonic.net for my internet service. According to the site, I'd be around 10,670 wire feet from the CO. I'm wondering:

1: What sort of upstream/downstream speeds can I realistically expect? The apartment complex is on Sylvan Ave off of El Camino if that helps.

2: Assuming 3mbps (as others at ~10k wire feet have said) does Netflix streaming work well enough?

3: How does AT&T promise 24mbps with their U-Verse service? I know Fusion and U-Verse are different for a multitude of reasons, but I'm not sure how everything works. If AT&T service is spotty in the area, would any Fusion service be spotty as well? Or could Fusion possibly work more reliably than vanilla AT&T?

Thanks!

[dane]

Hey folks,

I'm moving to Mountain View in a few weeks and would reeeeally love to use Sonic.net for my internet service. According to the site, I'd be around 10,670 wire feet from the CO. I'm wondering:

1: What sort of upstream/downstream speeds can I realistically expect? The apartment complex is on Sylvan Ave off of El Camino if that helps.

2: Assuming 3mbps (as others at ~10k wire feet have said) does Netflix streaming work well enough?

3: How does AT&T promise 24mbps with their U-Verse service? I know Fusion and U-Verse are different for a multitude of reasons, but I'm not sure how everything works. If AT&T service is spotty in the area, would any Fusion service be spotty as well? Or could Fusion possibly work more reliably than vanilla AT&T?

Thanks!

At that distance, the statistical average speed is around 4Mbps - but there is wide variance, so the one way to really know is to try it. Here's a chart, if it's helpful: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r269108 ... ance-chart

Netflix should work fine at 3Mbps and above.

The UVerse service is delivered from equipment located closer to you, so faster speeds are possible. Note though that as you turn on more televisions, or have shows scheduled to record, the video streams can use a chunk of the bandwidth.

[Guest]

I'm surprised to see that people are even able to get Fusion at 10,000+ ft. When I enter my phone number at the Fusion ordering page, I get:

We are currently unable to provide you with Fusion because you are 6399 feet behind a remote terminal, which blocks the Fusion signal.

Or is remote terminal different than a CO?

[Guest]

Did some research and found this page: http://fremnet.net/article/216/adsl-the ... calculator

I entered my downstream attenuation value given by the modem and it says that I'm 1448 meters/4750 ft from exchange, is that the CO? Why is that number lower than my distance from RT?

If there's a mistake in the phone number checker and I actually am able to get Fusion that would be awesome.

[virtualmike]

Yes, a remote terminal is different from the CO (or "central office"). It is a device that allows AT&T to "extend" the CO out to the field. Unfortunately, AT&T does not allow other companies access to the RTs, meaning that only AT&T's services are available through the RT.

The numbers are different because both are estimates.

[Guest]

So if the pre-qual page says I'm behind an RT, not CO, then it's correct about Fusion being unavailable?

[dane]

So if the pre-qual page says I'm behind an RT, not CO, then it's correct about Fusion being unavailable?

Yes, afraid so. For more on the regulatory background on this, see:

http://corp.sonic.net/ceo/2011/09/02/am ... d-duopoly/