- Why doesn't Signal Internet charge for the equipment?
- What is a wireless network?
- Do I need anything special on my computer?
- Can I connect your service to more than one computer?
- Can I have my own in house wireless (802.11A, B or G) system?
- Will my wireless home phone interfere with my outside antenna?
- My computer's connection icon says that I'm only getting 100Mbs - what's going on?
- When I download a file, Internet Explorer says that the download speed is far slower than my account speed - Is something wrong?
- Does snow or rain affect my internet connection?
- How fast is your system compared to others like land line DSL or cable?
- Can I share my connection with my neighbor?
We believe our internet service is superior to the competition and are not
afraid customers will change services. Since our equipment is very sturdy and durable, we prefer to own the
equipment ourselves and use it within our network when our customers move, thereby freeing you of owning your equipment and the upfront cost of purchasing it. Many of our competitors charge equipment fees of up to $700. This
equipment is usually not usable if you change providers, move or switch to other high-speed options such as cable internet. This tactic
is frequently used to lock a customer in even without a contract.
Signal Internet uses high-frequency radio signals to relay high-speed internet to our customers across the
"Last Mile" from the network operation centers to your home. A small antenna is mounted on your house
and transmits data from your home to a Signal Internet "Point of Presence" location where you are connected directly to the internet. We then set your
hardware to support the data rates determined by your service level. Since your connection to the internet is wireless there is no need
for additional telephone lines and you do not need to be within 3 miles of the telephone office as is required for DSL.
No! Signal Internet does not install any kind of proprietary software or other items to complicate things. The only required equipment on your computer will be an Ethernet card which most computers that are less than 3 years old will probably already have. If you don't have one, don't worry! We carry them in our installation trucks and will install one if needed for an additional fee.
Yes! We allow you to have up to 3 computers per residence hooked up to your connection. This can be accomplished by connecting our service to a hub, switch or wireless unit. However, Signal Internet installation agents will not install inside wiring beyond your initial termination point be it a single computer, hub, switch or wireless unit.
You bet! Unlike most other services, having your own wireless network is no problem with us. However, keep in mind that we only guarantee service to your wall jack and that we don't provide support for equipment that you purchase and put online within your residence.
No, wireless phones won't interfere with our outside units. However, some wireless home phones will cause interference on in-home wireless systems (see above question).
You'll feel a little sheepish when you learn this but the 100 or 10Mbs reading that you're seeing refers to the connection of your internal network that's on your computer. It's a measurement of how fast your network card in your computer is connecting to the local network, in our case, the maximum connection speed that your network card knows how to talk to the network at. This connection speed is actually far faster than your account speed because it's in megabits and your service is measured in kilobytes. 1 megabit is 1,000 kilobits so your 100 megabit local area network connection speed is actually better than 200 times faster than your account speed. At least you know that your computer's capable of talking this fast, right?
No! Once again, this is a bits to bytes comparison with Internet Explorer reporting your download speed back to you in a different format. Since there are 8 bits in a byte, you can safely take the reported download speed and multiply it by 8 to come up with your kilobit throughput rate. For example, a 512 kilobit account would be able to download at a maximum of 512/8 = 64KB/Sec according to Internet Explorer in a perfect download scenario like you being alone and in the same room as the download server. Also, keep in mind that your download speeds are also a function of the speed of the server that you're connecting to. If the remote server is busy or doesn't have enough bandwidth available on it's network when you start your download, your download speed will reflect this.
Absolutely not. Unlike other systems that require a satellite dish where snow or ice can accumulate and therefore require sweeping with any storm, our antennas aren't affected by snow, rain, fog or any other elemental occurrences with the exception of massive (4 inches or more) ice buildup. To prevent this, our installers are trained to never install our system in a location where this could be a problem like in a roof runoff location. In fact, we've found that our systems will run faster during a good storm due to an atmospheric condition called dampening where the rain or snow will actually server to dampen any outside interference sources.
The small antenna which is installed at your home or office has a theoretical throughput of up to 11Mb which is almost 10x faster than anything offered by any other providers for consumer level service. We've found that in real-world tests, our systems operate in the 40-50 Mb range which is still about 5x faster than anything else out there. While we could hype up our numbers by using theoretical throughput rates like many others do, we choose not to. The nice thing to know is that Signal Internet systems are capable of handling far more throughput than anything else out there without upgrades and that as bandwidth prices come down that we'll pass the savings on to you in the form of lower prices and higher bandwidth options.
For some reason, people ask this question but the answer is no. Most companies disallow some of the things that make broadband fun like wireless hubs because they're afraid that someone's going to try and give their neighbor free service. We've got no problems with you using your connection as you'd like to. Of course, theft of service is a crime and therefore punishable by law and we do run regular scans to look for anyone abusing their service in this way and act when we find people sharing connections. Keep in mind that Signal Internet is a local company, not a faceless corporate giant.
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