ques for you current home owners in canaan... whats the best option for residential internet access? canaan cable or frontier?

Is there actually another provider outside of Frontier in that area? I was working in Mt. Storm at the new windmills last week and there is nothing in that area at all, not even Frontier.

I did do a search for Canaan Cable and while cable internet in most cases is better than DSL by far, I noticed a few things on Canaan's Cable website. The thing that stands out the most is the fact that Canaan Cable *CAPS* the bandwidth at like 5gb downloaded per month and a fee of $10 overusage per month. Where ask Frontier has no cap limit with DSL. If you plan to do wireless and have folks over sharing... I'd lean towards DSL in this case for that reason.

When I got my DSL about a year ago from Frontier, I don't think Canaan Cable was offering internet access. I would agree with Brad, I would rather have unlimited DSL than metered cable. I get about 1M downstream (well, 990k) and don't recall off-hand what I get upstream. I am using wireless and my son plays online games with no problems. I was up there every weekend last ski season and a few this spring and I have never had it go down (knock wood).

Clay

cool thanks... i called em and its like $49/mo but I need a phone line for it too which is another $13/mo, so i think im gonna go with the canaan cable $34/mo deal, since basic cable is already paid for by the HOA fees. I really just need something to be able to have the ability to "telecommute" on the days im up there. so i want the cheapest I can get

Good luck with the cable. Just remember that if the cable is still metered/capped that you may run into alot of overusage issues later on. Everything from gaming to telecommuting and email receiving will eat away at your monthly bandwidth usage. On my Frontier DSL I can go through 1GB in about 2 days flat. So if you are doing alot of file work you may find yourself adding in another $10 to your bill each time you go over your cap. Just be careful with it.

... don't do cablemodems ... doooooooonnnn't doooooooooo caaaabbbllleee mmmooooddeeeemmms!!!

I'll bet everybody and their two-headed brother in the area will be on your segment. Go DSL.

I'm agonizing over this question myself. $50 for unlimited DSL or $30 for metered cable (Timberline Realty cut a special deal). I was ready to pull the trigger on DSL with Frontier's triple-package (DSL, phone, DISH TV) but we have too many trees for DISH to work. This is in a rental unit where a renter could potentially blow out the alloted cable bandwidth in a single evening, so I'm leaning towards DSL, especially given the feedback on this thread.

We need to think creatively on this board. Lots of homeowners who are interested in broadband access but recoil at the price. We need to set up a community wireless network that will blanket the valley. I heard a PBS report on an organization who was doing that very thing in WV and it sound both innovative and relatively inexpensive. Hey, if Philadelphia can do it why can't CV.

This is not out of the realm of possibility. In fact I find myself thinking along these lines all the time due to me living in a rural area of how best to get it saturated with internet.

There are many types of wireless technology that would allow for a community wide internet service with a tower or two that are completely invasive to the surrounding community. In order for that to work a transmitter would have to be installed (per any FCC and county laws) and then subscribers would have a receiver and co-transmitter for the signals. Also in order to get internet service to the tower to begin with, several T1's or DS3's would have to be installed to the site. This is because companies like Canaan Cable and Frontier will NOT allow the resale of their services. Thus having Verizon or whomever install T1 lines would be mandatory. For a single 1.55mb T1 line, the costs (for wardensville anyway) are around $2000/mon with around $1600 in setup fees. Yup, you heard right. I checked that out myself last month.

In the end... it's possible. Esp if people pooled their money together to accomplish it.