Connecting while traveling

[Beady]

I'm on temporary assignment in Orlando for the winter (tough job, but someone's got to do it), and am dependent on whatever connections I can find at the moment. Since arriving, I've only been able to connect via a wireless network that is far slower than the worst dial-up I've ever had. I thought wireless was supposed to be fast? Last night, it took me ~4 hours to download a 65 MB game patch that I could have downloaded in less than 10 minutes at home. I'm all set up to do my bill-paying online, for example, but with the present circumstances I don't think that's practical, and it's really causing me some headaches.

I suppose the central problem is that this is my first experience with the laptop/internet/hotel and corporate housing combination.

Any advice, observations, etc?

Please note: With this connection, my ability to get back to this forum is problematic.

 

[kevin]

Wireless is only as fast as the upstream connection, divided among the number of people connected to the wireless.

Either this wireless has other people connected to it that are trying to download tons of files too, or the upstream connection is dial-up.

Are you sure you're connected to the hotel's official connection and not the guy in the next room, who doesn't know he's shared out his connection, computer?

If this is the hotel's connection, have you called support to complain?

 

[Beady]

Wireless is only as fast as the upstream connection, divided among the number of people connected to the wireless.

Well, you just increased my knowledge of wireless by about a million percent.

If this is the hotel's connection, have you called support to complain?

This is corporate housing, not a hotel. That is, it's an apartment/condo, owned/operated by a company that leases extended-term housing to companies who send their employees out on long-term assignmnts.

Anyway, there is no internet connection provided, other than a conventional phone jack. The wireless connection I'm using is one that's available when I turn on my laptop's wireless antenna.

It sounds like I need to look for a commercial provider, and hope I can find one willing to give me a connection only until the end of March.

Correct?

 

[Beady]

I finally gave up and signed up for an MSN dial-up account. It's slow, but dependable, and the three-month free trial will last until after I'm back home. The only thing I use it for is to connect to the 'net; I check email and everything else through my usuqal ISP's server.

Still, I can't help feeling I've missed something, somewhere.

 

[kevin]

I finally gave up and signed up for an MSN dial-up account. It's slow, but dependable, and the three-month free trial will last until after I'm back home. The only thing I use it for is to connect to the 'net; I check email and everything else through my usuqal ISP's server.

Still, I can't help feeling I've missed something, somewhere.

it really depends on what the upstream wireless connection is. It sounds to me like it might be a dial-up connection, so having your own dialup would be faster.

Depending on your distance from the telephone switching center you could possible get DSL. Depends on how the phone works in the apt. If it's in your name then it's probably easy. If it's in the apt. owners name then it's probably hard (need their approval.)

Same with cable, if you have cable in the apt and it's in your name you could probably get a high-speed cable connection. But if it's in the building owners name then you might be out of luck. You could talk to the building management and see if they have a policy on renters getting a high-speed connection.