Who has Road Runner internet ?

[TurquoiseDuck]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

Heck yeah.

If dial-up's good enough for you, I always recommend FlexNet, which is just ten bucks a month and reliable as can be. FlexNet boasts that for this great deal, you will get absolutely zero tech support, but you don't need it -- you've got all the tech support you need right here at HawaiiThreads. I'm sure Adrian would be happy to come to your house to set it up for you, too.

We had dial up before we got DSL. It was unreal slow. Are all dial up connections the same as far as speed ?

[TurquoiseDuck]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

Just remember, with DSL, you get your own straw. When you use RR, you're sharing a huge straw with multiple people.

(I just love that commercial.)

LOL !! I am trying to read all these answers and still undecided what to do.

[TurquoiseDuck]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

I've used RR for over five years now, both on the Mainland and here in HI. Other than the long wait time to have it installed, I have no complaints. No outages (here in Waikiki and in Columbus, OH), they've helped me every time I've had a problem, and though they are expensive, I guess I've never known anybody else and am reluctant to switch to something less expensive, due to my positive experiences with RR thus far. (Knock on wood).

The only thing that caused me alarm was when the service technician came to my house once and couldn't figure out something about the externals on my new computer. He figured it out eventually though.

What do they install ? At your house or in thier office ? How long did you have to wait ? Thanks for your response.

[TurquoiseDuck]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

I have Verizon DSL and love it. While I'm still a lava.net fan and continue to hang on to my dial-up account...just in case...it looks like kimchee.net does repackage and resell DSL like lava.net does. DSL is so much more expensive that way and in the case of lava.net, you're paying for customer service and tech support...an area where they shine. Can't say the same for Verizon! I pay a total of $54./mo. for both accounts. That does not include the monthly phone bill. It would cost me another $40./mo. for commercial DSL at the office which, eventually, I'll do thru Hawaiian Telcom.

Verizon DSL is supposed to be 'plug and play'. Yah! Right! I spent one entire week-end getting it to a point where I could use it and that was with some phone help from some very techie friends. Verizon's off-shore tech support was completely clueless. That's when we could understand what the other was saying!

Is anyone familiar with satellite broadband? There's a 'hot spot' in my office but, wow, is it ever tempermental. Not just for me but for everyone who's tried it with their laptops. I'm wondering if it's that tempermental for the actual subscriber.

Thank you for your response. We had a lot of trouble getting the Verizon DSL to work, too. I still have trouble with it once in a while. At least now I do not have to call them and be put on hold for an hour. I think that my cat could get a job working for them as tech support.

[pzarquon]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

The installation process with Verizon DSL is a bit of a challenge. For geeks, it's close to plug-it-in-and-go, but for your average customer, they'd prefer not having to deal with any plugs at all! Our neighbors were happy to swtich to DSL, but I had to go over to help get it set up.

The question is, is the "modem by mail, do it yourself" model still the prevailing one, now that supposedly Hawaiian Telecom is on the case and based here in Hawaii? Is it going to remain until Verizon DSL is truly a Hawaiian Telcom service?

[TurquoiseDuck]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

for what it's worth, i've been using road runner for something like 8 years now and i've never had a serious problem. download times are fast for me; don't know if it's just the area i live in.

that's not to say that i like rr, tho. even though you pay a little at first, the price goes up pretty quickly (introductory rate vs regular rate). also, when i moved from one apartment to another in the same building, they insisted that they had to hook me up and they charged me for it. that's such bs.

Where do you live ?

[adrian]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

We had dial up before we got DSL. It was unreal slow. Are all dial up connections the same as far as speed ?

Aunty Lynn's dialup seems fast compared to my DSL (probabably because the connection is being shared by 5 other computers networked together.) I didn't believe it was dial up until I had to reconnect to it after I rebooted the computer.

[mel]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

The installation process with Verizon DSL is a bit of a challenge. For geeks, it's close to plug-it-in-and-go, but for your average customer, they'd prefer not having to deal with any plugs at all!

LavaNet was pretty much the same. Free modem in the mail. Disconnect phone from jack, add on some filter thing and splitter I believe (I'm too lazy to look now), reconnect phone, connect modem, connect router, connect computers. Set network preferences, was done in about 10 to 15 minutes.

As I recall Oceanic Cable was fairly simple to set up too as I did help my former Honolulu friend set her's up to a Power Mac G4 and laptop.

I'm not as geekly as some of you here. I still use OSX 10.3.9 and Mac OS9 and 8 (on an older computer). Geeks tend to use the latest of everything, Mac and/or Windows or even Linux.

[TurquoiseDuck]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

Aunty Lynn's dialup seems fast compared to my DSL (probabably because the connection is being shared by 5 other computers networked together.) I didn't believe it was dial up until I had to reconnect to it after I rebooted the computer.

Oh ! Well, that does answer my question, in a way. However, I have no way of knowing how fast your DSL is, or how fast Auntie's dial up is.....know what I mean ? I also have heard that Road Runner is as fast as DSL or even faster. I do not see how that could be ? Also, on the web site for Road Runner through Oceanic there is a page that shows the requirements. Now I have no idea if my computer is even compatible. My definition of RAM is ......Aires. I do not know what any of the terms mean. Obviously, we did not set this computer up ourselves. Before any one tries to teach me what computer terms are, let me clue you. I still some times call the monitor my tv screen. It took two people over the internet more than an hour to teach me how to open more than one window at a time. It took several people to teach me how to copy and paste. This was in a chat room and one by one they all gave up.

*LOL* How fast is fast and how slow is slow. Guess we all have different definitions of fast and slow.

I see that most people that posted here about Road Runner are not too happy with that service. I just hate to pay all the fees etc., and then find out that I do not like Road Runner either.

What to do, what to do......I have to decide in a few days. Or, just throw the computer and all it's components (is that the right word ?) down the trash chute ! Ha ! I need to find some humor in this situation.

[adrian]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

Oh ! Well, that does answer my question, in a way. However, I have no way of knowing how fast your DSL is, or how fast Auntie's dial up is.....know what I mean ? I also have heard that Road Runner is as fast as DSL or even faster. I do not see how that could be ? Also, on the web site for Road Runner through Oceanic there is a page that shows the requirements. Now I have no idea if my computer is even compatible. My definition of RAM is ......Aires. I do not know what any of the terms mean. Obviously, we did not set this computer up ourselves. Before any one tries to teach me what computer terms are, let me clue you. I still some times call the monitor my tv screen. It took two people over the internet more than an hour to teach me how to open more than one window at a time. It took several people to teach me how to copy and paste. This was in a chat room and one by one they all gave up.

*LOL* How fast is fast and how slow is slow. Guess we all have different definitions of fast and slow.

I see that most people that posted here about Road Runner are not too happy with that service. I just hate to pay all the fees etc., and then find out that I do not like Road Runner either.

What to do, what to do......I have to decide in a few days. Or, just throw the computer and all it's components (is that the right word ?) down the trash chute ! Ha ! I need to find some humor in this situation.

On Aunty Lynn's computer, the speed it connected at was about 53kbps (53 kilobytes per second), and the last time I did a speed test on a website on my DSL, I clocked in at about 1mbps (1 megabits per second), but that was when I was the only person on the network (but I shut off access to the router for everyone else just incase)

And about RR's customer satisfaction, here's a local forum that shows similar feels about RR and VZDSL. Also at that forum link, you can check out other internet-related problems (VZDSL has been going up and down for me lately, as you'll see in one of the threads [I'm under the username "y.likebeef"]).

Oh, and with your computer illiterate problem, pay someone to go to your house and walk you through it. My Mom was like that until I sat for a few hours with her, and now she knows a bit more.

[Miulang]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

*LOL* How fast is fast and how slow is slow. Guess we all have different definitions of fast and slow.

You're probably too young to remember when modems were first on the market. We thought 128k baud was superfast back then (of course, the alternative...no modem at all...sucked, which is how it was when I got my first dual floppy drive IBM PC) . I still have a 56k modem on my puter to use for the times when Comcast broadband isn't working (quite often, it seems).

The faster the speed, the less productive you become, I think, because the human body can only work at a certain pace. So if the speed at which the data is delivered exceeds the human brain's capacity to comprehend it, why are we asking for more speed all the time? Sometimes it's refreshing to watch the hourglass take a few more seconds to refresh the screen. Since I'm not a gamer, I don't really need the super high speeds that one can attain with broadband most of the time. And if broadband or DSL was so widespread, why hasn't the price for service gone down? What happened to "economies of scale"?

Miulang

[1stwahine]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

I just got off the phone with Jerry and Kennedy of Hawaiian Tel. Per Jerry @ 643-3456. Hawaiian Tel bought out Verizon DSL. The only things Verizon gives is technical support and billings in regards to customer services till Feb. 2006.

DSL annual fee comes out to $ 49.99 per month. The package deal is
$ 29. 95 per month. When I asked about the $ 15.00 less in the commercial, he said that applies to Cable companies like Oceanic (RR).

There is a one time fee for installation of $ 19.95. No and's, if's, or but's.
The equipment comes free of charge but if you cancel within one year you will be charged.

I subscribed. The installation is by Friday. The equipment should arrive by Monday.

Oh! Per Miss Kennedy, Online and Phone oTechnical Support for Hawaiian Tel will be from the Islands and not from some "distance land!"

Auntie Lynn

[shaveice]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

in answer to your question (tourquiseduck), i live in a condo in town near central union church/punahou/beretania. download speeds have been general fast for me. as an example and a test, i just went to the blues podcasting site at http://www.roadhousepodcast.com/ and downloaded roadhouse_031.mp3 which is about 41.5 MB; i had a consistent download speed of 400 KB/sec and so downloaded the entire file in about a minute.

if verizon charges about $50/month, that's about the same price as cable/roadrunner. i've never tried verizon so i can't really compare the two but like i said, so far no major problems with roadrunner....

[malapua]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

My parents are moving from Michigan to Ewa Beach in October and I've been given the task of finding high speed internet for them. My mom has a Powerbook and is not very computer savvy. My dad couldn't turn on the computer if his life depended on it. Since I live in Michigan too I am not familiar with what internet providers are available for the Ewa Beach area and I was wondering if anyone could give me advice of what services to check out?

Thanks, in advance!

[TurquoiseDuck]

Re: Who has Road Runner internet ?

in answer to your question (tourquiseduck), i live in a condo in town near central union church/punahou/beretania. download speeds have been general fast for me. as an example and a test, i just went to the blues podcasting site at http://www.roadhousepodcast.com/ and downloaded roadhouse_031.mp3 which is about 41.5 MB; i had a consistent download speed of 400 KB/sec and so downloaded the entire file in about a minute.

if verizon charges about $50/month, that's about the same price as cable/roadrunner. i've never tried verizon so i can't really compare the two but like i said, so far no major problems with roadrunner....

Thanks so much. Road Runner is not sounding as evil as it did earlier today.