Last year I had my first run-in with Verizon’s FiOS internet service. I had heard much about it and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread as it was the first application of Fiber-To-The-Home available to many (albeit FiOS is still not in that many cities). FiOS service comes in various flavors but the key selling point is that customers get a fat pipe compared to most Cable/ADSL offerings.
I had come to live with the fact that Comcast was going to be my ISP just about forever until FiOS made its way down to the Southeast. When I moved into my new apartment a few days ago I was surprised to hear that Comcast was not available as an ISP in my building, but they offered phone and TV services. I asked around the building and was given a flyer for Purdigital.net. Purdigital also goes by the name of DirecPath and Biltmore Communications. They provide fiber connections to large residence communities/high-rises.
I signed up for their only Internet connection, rated at 10Mbps. After I got connected, I ran a few speed tests to see what kind of connection I was working with. I was a rather surprised when I saw the results.
After that I began uploading things to Flickr and Amazon S3 to make sure that the connection wasn’t just spiking/boosting for a few seconds. Fortunately it wasn’t and I was able to sustain downloads exceeding 3.5MB/sec and uploads around 2MB/sec.
Unfortunately, DirecPath’s Internet services seem to be limited to particular residences and won’t be offered nationwide anytime soon. It’s just what I’ve been looking for though. With such a connection, I can utilize online storage much more readily rather than only storing important files.
What would you do with a faster Internet connection? I have been considering something like a remote iTunes server so I can listen to my library wherever I am and not have to worry about taking up space on my laptop with a large music library.
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Hey, that sounds amazing! Now why is nothing faster than DSL offered just 30-mins east of Atlanta? I have no idea. I only get 186kbps and it’s miserable.
Just curious, how much is it per month for your new connection?
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It should be $40/month but there is a building special so it is only $20/month.
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I thought you had faster internet back at GATech. So why are you now saying “What would you do with a faster Internet connection?”
I haven’t lived in the dorms for a few years, so it’s kind of a different situation. The only fast Internet I can get on campus is when directly plugged into the network via Ethernet at the library, or using one of the open machines. Either way, I never had an upload like this in the dorms, that’s for sure. Thanks for the comment Mike.
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I pay $30 CDN for 5mbps and this is a nice new connection; for the past four years, all I’ve had is a 256kbps connection. A faster connection would be even better, but I haven’t really thought about what else I could do with it as 5mbps is as fast as I can get. :p Really, I’m just enjoying being able to watch YouTube videos without having to wait 10 minutes for it to buffer. :)
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It’s more like, “what wouldn’t you do with more bandwidth?” For one, I wouldn’t have carefully consider which of my media to add to my laptop when moving from place to place; I could just pull it from my server at home (or wherever it happpened to be), assuming that all the connections were reasonably fast. (I can do this now, but with a very slow upload, it makes it impractical for large files.)
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Paul, How much are you paying for such a great service? it must be through the roof?
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@Alex: http://paulstamatiou.com/2008/06/01/direcpath-better-than-verizon-fios#comment-162222
$20 / month
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I’d back up months of Canon RAW files to Amazon S3. Australia limits your GB per month and then “shapes” your bandwidth to 56k if you exceed. Hope the US doesn’t pick this up.
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I have 20/5 Verizon FiOS service. I back up my home directory (about 60GB) to S3 using JungleDisk. I don’t think that faster service would change a lot about what I do, as my service is pretty fast.
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I would love that kind of speed.
My ISP – Lexcom DSL – $49.95/mo (my only option that I know of)
440 kb/s up & 204 kb/s down (SpeedTest.net)
If anybody has another idea for an ISP let me know.
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I’m currently with a 4mb/600kb, but with a high upload speed, there’s so much you can do. Making a Mp3 server is a great idea. Long ago when I was traveling, I set a ftp server with all my files/musics, it worked, but due my slow upload speed, it wasn’t so pleasant, but was nice to have access to my files everywhere. So, another use for your cheap home server? :)
You could also use a proxy and you can encrypt all your web browsing traffic and redirect it through a trusted computer when you’re on someone else’s network. That’s a good one!
http://tinyurl.com/2zvqxr
Take care
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@Brendan “Australia” is a bit general, ay?
Generally, how the Australian ISPs work, you decide what you pay for- usage wise, whether it’s 10GB a month, 5GB, etc. Then, when you go over, companies either charge you for excess usage or “shape” the connection, limiting you to a ridiculous speed, like <56K.
As a single user uni student, 10GB (at 50$ AUD) a month was fine.
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good find Paul. I was just looking into upgrading to 6Mbps via BellSouth. Since we have DirecTV too, this may be good.
Here is a list of their territories w/ Atlanta being an operational headquarter.
http://www.direcpath.com/index.php?page=about-us/territory-markets
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Wow I’m mad at that… 20 dollars for that! Heck even 40 dollars for that speed! Comcast chargest us 60$ for our connection at home and we get no where near those speeds!
Be glad you live (presumably) ITP where their service is much better. Out in the sticks (Norcross) I had nothing but awful experiences with their services dating back to when they were known as Mediaworks. They are hands down the worst company I ever had to deal with and I regret ever having given them any money. No, I didn’t have the high-bandwidth line but they didn’t offer it. Only one flavor of cable modem … 2783 kbps down and an upload speed of 445 kbps.
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The fastest DSL I can get at my current house is 8/1, though my fiancée currently downloads at a healthy 2.3mb/s
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LOL That’s the problem with faster connections.. You then think up ways to utilize it to the MAX only to realize you want just a tad bit MORE =P
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Ironically a link just popped up on metafilter about this yesterday. It’s worth a look – http://ask.metafilter.com/92949/What-to-do-with-spare-download-bandwidth
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Its not about being ITP, its about being in a high rise that has DirecPath. I live right across the street from Paul, and I have tried bellsouth/ATT, speakeasy, and comcast and they were all terrible.. Comcast is the worst. they told me it was because midtown is so dense that cable slows to a crawl. Speakeasy and ATT were about the same (since speakeasy really just leases part of ATT’s CO), but speakeasy was unreliable. ATT is useable, pay for 5/1.5, get about 2.5/600 .
Oh well, eventually they will throw up a highrise here anyway.
Doh, I was hoping you were going to say FIOS is here now. I have DirecPath but my numbers are nowhere near yours. =\
I live up in Vinings.
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My comment about living ITP was meant to illustrate that in the burbs, DirecPath sucks. That is all. Or at least it does in Norcross.
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They don’t limit how much you can upload or download a month? Completely unlimited, or some “fair use” BS?
@Brendan Falkowski: They don’t limit to 56k, it’s 64k, actually.
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I would certainly consider backing up my important media online, i’ve hard drives broken too many times now, and losing stuff isn’t funny when its important. I have a 5/.5 – Yeah, sucky, i know – but its suprising good for where i live. Its boring, standard old ADSL because cable really doesn’t exist in the UK.
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FYI their sign-up page is down and has been all day. :(
http://www.direcpath.com/index.php?page=request-service
DirecPath is the single worst cable and Internet provider I’ve ever used in my entire life, and even going through some really crappy ones, direcpath still blows them away in crappiness. The reason they serve only certain ‘high-rise’ complexes is because they cut a deal with property owners to make it where residents are only allowed to get cable from them(not even allowing a resident to have a dish alternative in mine), and they give the property a cut of the money. It’s a nice little racket.
For several months, I looked for an out in my lease or even incurring the cost of breaking my lease just to escape direcpath. At any given time, 10 or so channels are not working, and the Internet connection is terribly inconsistent, if it happens to be working at all, sometime down to Dial-up level service. This is because they get the TV through satellite, then serve it to you through cable, so you get all the downsides to cable plus all the downsides of satellite. Customer service doesn’t know and really doesn’t care. All for a premium cost to boot. Do not consider Direcpath as a selling point. Please, I cannot stress it enough how terrible this firm is. I’m not lying or embellishing in the least.
Read other testimonials by choosing the top result from googling ‘direcpath sucks’.
Not Available in BX NY 10472! WHYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??
Hey Paul,
Really enjoyed running across your blog while looking up Direcpath. However, I’m just curious as to if you’re still liking it as much as your initially did? I recently moved into Metropolis and started off with Comcast since DP didn’t offer HD. Now they do and I’m just wondering if its worth the switch.
Jody – I still use DirecPath/Biltmore Comm as my ISP and am very happy with them, but that’s all they do for me, ISP stuff. I don’t have Cable or Satellite TV service from them (or anyone for that matter, I canceled my DirecTV service a few months ago, I don’t watch TV enough to warrant $50+/month)
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