A little help with broadband Internet service providers

This is the place to discuss the latest computer hardware issues and technology. Please keep the discussion ON TOPIC!
Post Reply
User avatar
unfaithfulsfan
Legit Extremist
Legit Extremist
Posts: 761
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:52 pm
Location: Buffalo NY

A little help with broadband Internet service providers

Post by unfaithfulsfan »

As y'all probably know, I support the municipal government of our community with both its web site and its computers. Honestly, there's not a lot involved in providing such support. However, this is out of my league a bit.

As it turns out, the Village of Sloan owns the land on which sits a cell tower. The owners of the tower pay rent to the village, and their contract is up for renewal. The tower people are now offering a package deal as part of the rent agreement. Apparently, they own Blue Wireless or vice versa, so in addition to cell service and handsets for the Board, they're offering three mobile data terminals for the fire department, telephone service for all three buildings along with 10/10 Mb Internet service.

In researching Blue Wireless, I could find no information about land line phone or Internet service, so I asked the mayor to try to find out who would be providing these services. The response to this question follows:
The provider would be Blue Wireless. They have a fiber pipeline through
level 3, and will be able to provide you with carrier grade dedicated
bandwidth for the internet connections. This is not normal consumer grade
internet with multiple people accessing nodes on a first-come demand
basis, but real, isolated connection, dedicated bandwidth. The fiber
backbone is located in Level 3’s switching facilities in downtown Buffalo.
Blue has a high speed microwave network that connects all their sites at
Gb speeds to two switch facilities for redundancy.
:-k

Well, that sounds mighty impressive, but what exactly does all that mean? It could very well just be gobbledy-goop salesman speak for all I know. The Village is currently using Time Warner Business Class for everything, including 10 Mb Internet, which just sucks. Even with one user online, it's next to impossible to even check email. Is there anything in that response that should reassure us that their 10 Mb/s service is less congested or faster than TWC's?

Thanks for the translation!
"A payphone was ringing and it just about blew my mind,
when I picked it up & said 'Hello' this foot came through the line"
~Bob Dylan
User avatar
KnightRid
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 4295
Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2005 5:21 am
Location: Dallastown, PA

Re: A little help with broadband Internet service providers

Post by KnightRid »

This is not normal consumer grade
internet with multiple people accessing nodes on a first-come demand
basis, but real, isolated connection, dedicated bandwidth
That should make you smile and giggle like a school girl. No sharing! With that service you should get full speed as long as the site you are visiting supports that much bandwidth. Only concern I would have is that it is only for the fire company? Might want to find out a price to blanket the city in their internet for use all over.
Remember, I am opinionated and nothing I say or do reflects on anyone or anything else but me :finga:
User avatar
unfaithfulsfan
Legit Extremist
Legit Extremist
Posts: 761
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:52 pm
Location: Buffalo NY

Re: A little help with broadband Internet service providers

Post by unfaithfulsfan »

Thanks!

Don't know if you were being facetious about the mobile data terminals but, in case you weren't—Sloan is less than one square mile in size and has an all volunteer fire department. The police department was dismantled in the late 70s/early 80s and law enforcement has been handled by the Town of Cheektowaga ever since. Sloan's fire chief, Al, has been jonesing for access directly to the 911 data feed to improve the department's response time, especially for out-of-village calls. Because of his hard-assed approach to training, Sloan FD has every nearby department fighting over who gets Sloan for backup.

As it turns out, Blue Wireless has approached Al two or three times in the last year about providing these terminals but the cost was prohibitive. So, in a couple of ways, this deal sounds good, but the deal breaker is the Internet service. Sounds like, as with everything else in life, 10 Mb is 10 Mb and that's it. There just is no magic solution.

It's really a shame because it's not like the Clerk's Office uses the crap out of the bandwidth. Team Viewer seems to work OK when they need support for the accounting software. I've got all backups and maintenance stuff set up for the wee hours and on weekends. It's just two people, sometimes only one. They should be able to check email without having to schedule it around eating lunch so the page has time to load—provided it doesn't time out.

Ah well. Bitch, bitch, bitch. :-({|= Thanks again!
"A payphone was ringing and it just about blew my mind,
when I picked it up & said 'Hello' this foot came through the line"
~Bob Dylan
User avatar
KnightRid
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 4295
Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2005 5:21 am
Location: Dallastown, PA

Re: A little help with broadband Internet service providers

Post by KnightRid »

I was being serious :) I did not know it was that small of a town!

Where I am at now we can get about 1.5mbps down and 768kbps up through a wireless provider that offers unlimited so I would jump at 10mb. Oh and that is MAX speed which I normally never see - no streaming, no downloading from the playstation store for my ps3, nothin.

If they are going to include that AND pay rent, snag it fast. If they want to give you that instead of rent, well you would have to determine cost wise which would be better for your town.
Remember, I am opinionated and nothing I say or do reflects on anyone or anything else but me :finga:
User avatar
unfaithfulsfan
Legit Extremist
Legit Extremist
Posts: 761
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:52 pm
Location: Buffalo NY

Re: A little help with broadband Internet service providers

Post by unfaithfulsfan »

OK, cool, and thanks again!! Honestly, I don't see how their 10 Mb service could be any worse than TWC's "business class" but, with the Mayor & the Board of Trustees looking to base their decision solely on my recommendation, I can't very well say that at the Board Meeting! And, it would save a nice chunk of change between the 3 locations plus the Fire Hall. I'm not privy to all the aspects of the contract—as far as if these services are in lieu of rent. I asked when the mayor first approached me but he changed the subject pretty quickly, so I let it go.

As an aside, I recently bought a Surfboard SBG6850 modem/router for my house. We have TWC's "Turbo" Internet, which is supposed to be 15/1 Mb/s. On the old leased modem I was getting around 7/0.7 down/up. With the new modem I'm getting an average of around 23/~1.4.

Sloan isn't very big but it's still pretty feisty! Hopefully, you can see in the attached photo the tagline "The Capital of Cheektowaga" above the windshields on the two fire trucks. It's on the hood of the EMT truck. I just can't get anyone to tell me the story behind it.
2015_18 - Copy.jpg
2015_18 - Copy.jpg (176.39 KiB) Viewed 11608 times
"A payphone was ringing and it just about blew my mind,
when I picked it up & said 'Hello' this foot came through the line"
~Bob Dylan
User avatar
Tech_Greek
Legit Extremist
Legit Extremist
Posts: 265
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2007 2:35 pm

Re: A little help with broadband Internet service providers

Post by Tech_Greek »

They are making claims of dedicated/guaranteed 10 Mbps connections versus TWC Businesses "maybe"/Shared 10 Mbps connection.

It's a win/win if you ask me as long as they get all of that PLUS get rent as well!
User avatar
unfaithfulsfan
Legit Extremist
Legit Extremist
Posts: 761
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:52 pm
Location: Buffalo NY

Re: A little help with broadband Internet service providers

Post by unfaithfulsfan »

Thanks, Tech! By the powers of sheer guesswork, based on amounts I know to be accurate and wildly guessing the amounts I don't, switching everything to "Blue," which I just learned is an acronym for "Buffalo Lake Erie" Wireless, will save the Village at least $5K annually vs what TWC is charging.

One of the laziest trustees sent me 3 pages of random information with no particular order to any of it. It's supposed to help me to determine Blue versus the "Big 4" but since it just appears to have been copied & pasted, it really is no help whatever. Of course, if you want to know what all the wireless acronyms mean, then you're golden. Ai yi yi #-o
"A payphone was ringing and it just about blew my mind,
when I picked it up & said 'Hello' this foot came through the line"
~Bob Dylan
DL126
Legit Extremist
Legit Extremist
Posts: 252
Joined: Tue Sep 25, 2007 6:15 am

Re: A little help with broadband Internet service providers

Post by DL126 »

The provider would be Blue Wireless. They have a fiber pipeline through
level 3, and will be able to provide you with carrier grade dedicated
bandwidth for the internet connections. This is not normal consumer grade
internet with multiple people accessing nodes on a first-come demand
basis, but real, isolated connection, dedicated bandwidth. The fiber
backbone is located in Level 3’s switching facilities in downtown Buffalo.
Blue has a high speed microwave network that connects all their sites at
Gb speeds to two switch facilities for redundancy.



Level 3 = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_3_Communications

Consumer Grade vs Dedicated = As I'm sure you know, typically, consumer grade connections will offer such speeds as 60 Meg down etc, etc.
While this sounds impressive, the fine print will tell you that this is "Best Effort" speeds. (Just call tech support and complain about speeds. They'll tell you so.)
That cable that's coming into your house or business is sharing the available bandwidth with every other house or business attached to that cable.
Your location, and everyone else's will get whatever is available after the connections upstream have sucked out whatever they're calling for. (Over simplification.)

What Blue is offering you is 10/10 guaranteed pulled out of a fiber cable that has the ability to carry MANY times that 10/10.
Who knows really what that fiber is actually hooked to? (Fiber hooked to a $100 Netgear switch would be like the proverbial "P1ssing in the wind.")
But I would GUESS that they could probably do it.

Is it a good deal?
How much would that connection cost to buy?
What is the rent bringing in now?

I have a customer paying Frontier Communications for a 10/10 with a /29 block of IP's on bonded copper.
$600.00 per month!!!
User avatar
unfaithfulsfan
Legit Extremist
Legit Extremist
Posts: 761
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:52 pm
Location: Buffalo NY

Re: A little help with broadband Internet service providers

Post by unfaithfulsfan »

Thanks DL! I started a response yesterday and got sidetracked.

Sat in on a quorum meeting of the board yesterday morning. After all was said and done, they decided against this deal. The broadband aspect was only part of the equation and I also had been researching the company itself. I was able to find next to nothing about Blue Wireless, its parent Buffalo Lake Erie Wireless, the group supposedly that is building the new tower nor anyone involved in the project. Blue Wireless primarily caters to low income and bad credit customers. Their own employees don't think too much of the company. It just goes downhill from there.

This group has approached multiple municipalities and has used a different consulting firm for each. After hearing from a couple of the trustees who spoke directly with the consultant, it sounded more like a shady deal than anything else.

The fine print states that Sloan is responsible for replacement costs of all the equipment it's getting at the outset. Cell phones are one thing but the data terminals are very expensive. That starts involving taxpayer dollars.

But the final blow was the concern over the company's longevity. If Sloan agrees to a 10 year contract and Blue Wireless declares bankruptcy or gets bought up by one of the "Big 4," Sloan could conceivably be stuck with a tower and with its maintenance, not to mention the liability ramifications.

So the Board voted to reject the proposal. And that's that.

Thanks for all your help on my broadband questions. Despite the final outcome, I still learned something.

GO BILLS!!
"A payphone was ringing and it just about blew my mind,
when I picked it up & said 'Hello' this foot came through the line"
~Bob Dylan
User avatar
KnightRid
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 4295
Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2005 5:21 am
Location: Dallastown, PA

Re: A little help with broadband Internet service providers

Post by KnightRid »

Wow, I never even thought of checking the company out! I would get fired lol

Good job man =D>
Remember, I am opinionated and nothing I say or do reflects on anyone or anything else but me :finga:
User avatar
unfaithfulsfan
Legit Extremist
Legit Extremist
Posts: 761
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:52 pm
Location: Buffalo NY

Re: A little help with broadband Internet service providers

Post by unfaithfulsfan »

:)
"A payphone was ringing and it just about blew my mind,
when I picked it up & said 'Hello' this foot came through the line"
~Bob Dylan
Post Reply