If anyone here needs help setting up and finding good spots or fixing dead zones with their USI service please feel free to let me know. I can swing by, if you wish, to see what can be done. My day job involves doing a lot of PTP, PTPP, Mesh, AP/CPE (which is what the USI configuration is - CPE = customer premise equipment or your transceiver), etc. Thanks, Ryan On 1/17/2013 11:56 AM, Erik Mitchell wrote: > I used USI Wireless at my old house and was very happy with it. I had > one of their "modems" with an external antenna, and always had strong > signal strength. I had clear line of site to a node, however, and > placed my antenna in a window so there was nothing obstructing the > signal. > > One thing they mentioned at some point was that laptops typically are > not transmitting as strong a signal as their stations, and this can > lead to problems. Your laptop can receive their signal just fine, but > sending packets is a different story, and your signal strength > indicator doesn't show this. > > -Erik > > On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 11:47 AM, Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> wrote: >> I have CenturyLink service, again. It was down for awhile and it was not >> easy to get service when I had to deal with their call center in the >> Philippines. They seemed like really nice people and they spoke great >> English, but when they ordered a service for me, it never happened. They'd >> give me a tracking number, but the system would still have no record of my >> order and no record of the tracking number! >> >> Anyway, while I had no CenturyLink, I used the USI Wireless internet system. >> They charge $10 for one day, which is ridiculous, but they charge $18 for a >> week and $25 for a month, or $20 for monthly recurring. >> >> I had huge problems with lots of disconnects and dropped packets, but I was >> grateful that I could get something while my CenturyLink was down. When I >> first signed up, I chose this WiFi connection... >> >> City of Minneapolis Public WiFi >> >> ...opened the web browser, got a username/password for login and ordered a >> week of service. After a few days, I realized that I had other options like >> these: >> >> usiw_secure >> usiw_secure_S06N139T1 >> USI Wireless >> usiw_secure_S01N129T1 >> >> I used usiw_secure with the username/password established above, and that >> made things work a *lot* better. I had been getting highly variable ping >> times to my office machine, lots of dropped packets, lots of stalling of VNC >> connection, but now I was getting 30 ms pings, good consistency, no dropped >> packets, smooth operation of VNC -- everything better. Now it could be some >> confounder like the time of day, but I'm pretty convinced that the >> usiw_secure just worked tons better. A speed test showed 1 Mbps both up and >> down. >> >> Another thing -- I tried to figure out where in my home I had the best >> reception. So I started pinging my office machine, once per second (the USI >> WiFi router didn't respond to ping) and I walked around the house looking >> for patterns. It seemed best toward the southwest of my house. Is there a >> better way to test signal strength? Is there a better way to improve >> reception? >> >> Anyway, thought I'd put that out there in case it helps anyone, but I also >> wanted to hear if anyone has any ideas on how to deal better with some of >> these issues. Thanks. >> >> Mike >> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > >