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Bonaire Talk: Local Items: Archives: Archives 2001- 2004: Archives - 2002-10-18 to 2003-04-30: Internet Access
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kitty @ CrystalVisions (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #187) on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 4:38 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi everybody,

While I was looking for an ISP here on the island (thanks for the info J.R. :-)) I was told by one provider that they would not take new subscribers anymore. They had the following reason: they are going to implement internet access via cable. The costs will be about Nafl 90,-/month excl. OB. And they told me that you *don't* have to take the cable tv subscription with it...
They said they should be ready the end of April...

Mmmh.....

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By bob neer (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #738) on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 4:57 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

meep! meep!

(roadrunner?)

i think i could be trained to install residential hookups...between dives :-)



 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter (Moderator - Post #3898) on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 5:01 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

I'll believe it when I see it. Considering how fragile the signal quality is on the local cable system is I think that it will be quite some time before they have wide coverage on the island. I had also heard that they are planning on only providing a 512Kbps feed to the entire cable modem network, initially. With, for example, 500 users on-line at once with 10% utilization, you'd be looking at 10Kbps IF everything was balanced (it usually isn't). That said, I hope they do everything right from the start and prove my skepticism to be misplaced. That would make me very happy...

Jake

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By michael gaynor (Extraordinary BonaireTalker - Post #1613) on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 8:08 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Oh ye of little faith! The equipment for Cable has been ordered and it finally appears to be a reality. I can only hope that Jake's doubts(and to some extent mine as well) will be erased.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kitty @ CrystalVisions (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #188) on Friday, February 21, 2003 - 8:59 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Ha! I did not say that 'Mmmh' without any skepticism either... I did not dare ask for the coverage or speed when I was on the phone with that ISP; the man I was talking to was soooooo enthousiastic... :-)
I'm just going to check out the contracts they'll be offering.... Wonder if they are willing to give any guarantees on speed etc. Guess not... :-(
But, as is the Bonairean way, I'll just have to stay optimistic... :D

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Peter Cabus (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #149) on Saturday, February 22, 2003 - 3:53 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi all,

I need internet access from the house we rent for a six weeks period (March till middle of May) to be able to read my e-mails and transfer documents. I already tried to contact bonairelive, but no replies. Jake, no success on the second address for BonaireLive either.

I'm willing to pay more than the standard rates. It is crucial for my work.

Any other ideas?

Kitty, how is live in sunny Bonaire?

Thanks.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter (Moderator - Post #3909) on Saturday, February 22, 2003 - 4:34 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Peter,

You may just have to buckle down and *call* the ISPs - BonaireLive - 717-6040; TelboNet - 717-7000.

Jake

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Peter Cabus (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #150) on Sunday, February 23, 2003 - 6:10 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Jake,

I will give them a call.

PS. What do you mean with "buckle down"?

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter (Moderator - Post #3912) on Sunday, February 23, 2003 - 10:57 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Bite the bullet (i.e. give up on the reasonable effort of using e-mail to contact an ISP and use the phone instead - which is unreasonable but the only option left) :-)

Jake

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kitty @ CrystalVisions (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #191) on Monday, February 24, 2003 - 8:44 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi Peter!

Life is good! It was the right choice to move from Holland.
But still, work is work anywhere you go, right? :-)

I've tried to contact Telbo... But I can't seem to get through to the people that know anything about TelboNet. Sometimes (more than some times) they don't even pick up the phone. Or, you get the Voice Response System and then... nothing. Or a bored operator who really has no clue what you're talking about. Peter, tell me if any of your calls to Telbo made you wiser... I'll keep trying on and off as well...

BonaireLive is one ISP I will not subscribe to. Though they might have the fastest connection, I have heard too many a time that you're lucky if you get a connection at all... :-(

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Gabriel (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #5) on Monday, February 24, 2003 - 7:16 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi Kitty, if you are looking for a person who knows about Telbonet you should ask for Maybelange when you call Telbo. There are also some 3 digit numbers to contact Telbo, I'll let you know more about that when I hear the Telbo commercial again.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter (Moderator - Post #3920) on Monday, February 24, 2003 - 9:39 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

I think those 3-digit numbers are in the front of the phone book too. Can only be called from on-island though.

Jake

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Peter Cabus (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #151) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 5:37 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi Kitty,

You sound very pleased with your change in life. Great.


"But still, work is work anywhere you go, right?"

(; I don't think so. Read the story below.


-------------------------------------------------
True Story:
Brian is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers out of
Louisiana and performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below
is an e-mail he sent to his sister. She sent it to Laughline and won the
contest (he wasn't thrilled with her for that one). Anyway, anytime you
think you have had a bad day at the office, remember this guy. April 1998

Hi, Sue,
Just another note from your bottom dwelling brother. Last week I
had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work,
so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's
not so bad after all.

Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you
with a few technicalities of my job. This time of year the water is quite
cool, even with a wetsuit. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a
diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of sucks
the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temp. It then
pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose which is taped to the air
hose.
Now this sounds like a damn good plan, and I've used it several
times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start
working, is I take the hose and stuff it down the back of my neck. This floods
my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my ass started to
itch.
So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within
a few seconds my ass started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my
back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The
hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. This
is even worse than the poison ivy you once had under a cast. Now I had that
hose down my back. I don't have any hair on my back, so the jellyfish
couldn't get stuck to my back. My ass crack was not as fortunate. When I
scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish
into my ass. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the
communicator.
His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with
5 other divers, were laughing hysterically.

Needless to say, I aborted the dive. It totaled 35 minutes before
I could come to the surface for my chamber dry decompression. I got to the
surface wearing nothing but my brass helmet. My suit and gear were tied
to the bell. When I got on board the medic, with tears of laughter
running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to shove it "up my
ass" when I get in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I
couldn't for two days because my was swollen shut.
Anyway, the next time you have a bad day at the office, think of
me.
Think about how much worse your day would be if you were to shove
a jellyfish up your ass. I hope you have no bad days at the office.
But if you do, I hope this will make it more tolerable.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kitty @ CrystalVisions (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #192) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 9:01 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

ROFL!!!! Thanks Peter, I'll remember this. :-)

The point I was trying to make, was a futile one of course... When I am at work, the view is a lot better than skyscrapers and smoggy skies. My office is very nicely situated, just a few minutes from home. The sun is shining a lot, tropical plants and palm trees waving in the breeze...
It's wonderful here. I might just be a bit grumpy that my day at work is from 8 am till 5 pm and Marc's day at work is from 3 pm till 23 pm (and much later). Meaning, I see him for about 5 - 15 minutes per day. He had the weekend off, but then he was really sick of the food he ate on the friday evening at work... :-(

BTW, I found that number from Telbo in the phone book. It's 112, right? Well, I think I might just have skipped that page because I thought that was an emergency number page... 112 is the number for 911 in Holland.... :-)
But I called the number, and this is what I got:
If you have a normal telephoneline already (Nafl. 183,75 entry fee and Nafl. 18,- per month) you add this for the TelboNet:
Nafl. 105,- entry fee
Nafl. 52,50 per month
36 cts. per 4 minutes before 6 pm
36 cts. per 12 minutes after 6 pm

If you should want a connection for, say, 6 months you just ask the person helping you at the desk.

I must say that I am a bit shocked. I can't believe these are the actual costs. I mean, the girl I was talking to *must* have made a mistake or something.... :-(

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kitty @ CrystalVisions (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #193) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 9:25 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

TelboNet
Make that:
20 cts. start-up costs per call
16 cts. per 4 mintes before 6 pm
16 cts. per 12 minutes after 6 pm
That's the same as normal local telephone calls

The same costs per dial-up/dial-in apply to the other ISP's.

BonaireNet has these fees:
Nafl. 50,- entry fee (= Nafl. 20,- connecting costs, Nafl. 30 subscription)
Nafl. 5,- per hour
Meaning: you can buy your connection by the hour. If you should not use all your minutes, they are being transferred to the next connection/month.
No monthly subscription costs.
Handy for the not so frequent users and the temporary users... :-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Gabriel (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #6) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 11:15 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

The number for Telbonet is actually 122, but I can see that 112 also does the trick

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter (Moderator - Post #3921) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 11:26 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

BonaireNet's dial-up service, which is actually repackaged AT&T Global Net (http://www.attglobal.net), is the slowest on the island (they still use SLIP connections now I think, instead of the faster PPP).

And from personal experience, if you do something to annoy BonaireNet's owners (as I apparently did at one time) they will summarily shut down your account without regard for how much credit you still had for making connections. Very annoying at the time (and heck, that still annoys me today - the amount involved wasn't large enough to justify going to court either). Ah well, live and learn.

Jake

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Peter Cabus (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #152) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 11:44 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

I just recieved a quote from from BonaireLive (without calling them). Excellent.

Thanks for all the help.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By bob neer (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #755) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 11:54 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

someone could just blow bonairenet a kiss jellyfish

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter (Moderator - Post #3924) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 12:00 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Mind you, this experience with BonaireNet was years ago (probably about 4 years ago, I think?) - I don't know of anyone else they shafted for paid time, so it may well be that I'm special (they probably also didn't and still don't like that our company, NetTech, is their biggest competitor for Web hosting on Bonaire, although at the time we weren't as prolific in our Web support as we are now).

Jake

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kitty @ CrystalVisions (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #194) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 2:15 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Peter, I just can't seem to get through to BonaireLive. What fees did you get quoted?
Thanks... :-)

Jake, the speed I'm getting at TelboNet right now is 44 kbps. Early in the morning I can sometimes reach 50 kbps, but that doesn't happen often....
When I talked to BonaireNet, the one I was talking to said that they were a bit faster than BonaireLive and that TelboNet was a bit faster than BonaireNet. She said BonaireNet offered a speed of 33 kbps.
Now I wonder, if BonaireLive is slower than BonaireNet (while everybody else says it's the fastest but least reliable connection) how much slower can BonaireLive be? :-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter (Moderator - Post #3927) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 2:35 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Kitty,

BonaireLive uses X.90 modems which max out at about 56Kbps (BonaireNet does not - their modems peak at 33.6Kbps). Depending on your physical location you'll get a 28Kbps to about 50Kbps connection to BonaireLive. BonaireLive's "ping" times to our servers in the U.S. is about 100 milliseconds. BonaireNet's is about 800-1000 milliseconds. TelboNet is about 120ms.

ISP speed is measured by several factors: by your connect rate (modem/line quality dependent), your handshake/ping times, and by your ISP's congestion/bandwidth options. Assuming, for a moment, that all modem connections provide you the same connection rate and network congestion is a non-issue, the ISP with the lowest handshake times (ping times) will be the one with the fastest data flow.

I'm not sure what BonaireNet is basing their statements on, but it's not reality. BonaireNet does have one big advantage over BonaireLive though - you can usually dial-in and can a modem connection anytime you want. BonaireLive can be very difficult to connect to during the day because they have something like 64 modems for 800+ users (the ratio should be more like 8:1 and not 12.5:1). No idea what TelboNet's user:modem ration is.

But once you're in to BonaireNet (AT&T Global actually), they are slower - their modems and connection infrastructure pretty much guarantee it (the AT&T Global link out of Curacao is a satellite link, vs. the Antelecom fiber links that both BonaireLive and TelboNet use - huge signal propagation differences between satellite and fiber).

Jake

PS See you tonight at the BT dinner?

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kitty @ CrystalVisions (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #195) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 2:48 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Hi Jake,

I left my in depth telecom/IT knowledge in the seacontainer... :-) Shame on me, I knew this... I guess I'm still recovering from the Nafl 52,50 per month fee at TelboNet.

About the speed the cable tv will be offering... They said it will be about 128 mbps. No worries about coverage, because anywhere the cable goes, the internet goes :-) The modem will cost about Nafl. 150. And they said the speed will remain high, because they're planning on more glassfiber.

Of course it's all just wait and see....

But Jake, why didn't you start with an ISP-service? Enough BT-ers waiting in line here ;-)

PS Not sure yet. Marc's working again :-(, so I might just stop by :-)

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter (Moderator - Post #3928) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 3:12 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

I think you/they mean 128Kbps, not 128Mbps (I wish!). I truly hope they succeed. That would be the sort of competition Telbo needs here against their leased lines and wireless service. If it works up here in Hato, I'd be happy to set-up a separate computer connected just to the cable service for testing purposes. We'll see.

As far as the NAF 52,50 - that's like 30 Euros - doesn't seem much for unlimited access (unless of course in you include the metering rate for how long you're on-line, and then it gets VERY expensive :-) ).

Jake

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Peter Cabus (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #153) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 4:09 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Kitty,

All inclusive for six weeks: 130$.

Not really cheap, but nothing I wasn't expecting. I do know that I will miss our cable connection (4 Mbps download, 256 kbps upload).

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Kitty @ CrystalVisions (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #196) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 5:31 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Oops, slip of the finger... I WISH it was 128 Mbps... But that would be something that's *really* out of this world... :-)

I've been a spoiled brat in Holland, having free (and unlimited) internet access. When they finally *had* to come up with a fee it was less than Euro 9 per month...

I am not the one who would be on-line too long. I just check out a website or two (e-mail and BT), type something here and there on BT and move on :-).

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Daniel Senie (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #206) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 7:40 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Cable modems usually run between 128Kbps and 256Kbps for data transmitted from your computer toward the Internet, and speeds of 512Kbps to 1.5Mbps (and in some places faster) for data transmitted from the Internet toward your computer.

All speed settings are controllable on a per-subscriber basis with most head-end equipment, so that's completely adjustable.

If anyone's going to offer full-tilt cable modem service on Bonaire, they'd really need to buy a fair bit of bandwidth between Bonaire and the US, and buy that over fiber, not satellite. They'd also need to make a decent web cache available to speed up access to popular websites.

Competition for telecom/Internet on Bonaire would be truly novel.

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ann Phelan (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #1000) on Tuesday, February 25, 2003 - 7:43 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

ok, so a simple question for a computer dummy...if I live in Bonaire the fastest connection will be to get a land line at home and go on that way? Man, I will miss my wireless on my new laptop...

Annie

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By seb schulherr (Experienced BonaireTalker - Post #470) on Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 12:55 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

"If" Annie? Don't you mean "when."

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Jake Richter (Moderator - Post #3934) on Wednesday, February 26, 2003 - 7:58 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

Annie - right now, the fastest affordable connection is dial-up. Within the year, it may be that cable modem might be faster (we'll see), and perhaps late wireless. It's all a crap shoot for now.

Jake

 


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