Other than Cox any other ISP out there here in Roanoke? (Salem: home, transfer)

[Justme2010]

Cox provides high speed Internet connections. To be fair I'm reasonably satisfied with its service. However, as a BIG business, they essentially dictate on acceptable Use Policy, which is disadvatageous to home-based business per se. Has anyone been in a similar boat? And if so, any viable alternatives?

Thanks.

[PaperTrail]

The best small company I've heard of is B2X (B2X Online).

It's based in Salem and uses a wireless line-of-sight way of providing Internet. I'm too far out in the sticks to get it, unfortunately. My father-in-law who lives at SML has it and likes it a lot. My understanding is that the company has very good coverage in all of the Roanoke Valley and around the lake, as well as other areas.

Best part: They local! Not sure if this kind of company fits into your situation, but I hope it gives you a starting point.

[Justme2010]

Thank you for the info, PaperTrail, I'll inquire about their pricing for their site does not have it. btw, does SML stand for Smith Mountain Lake? Heard of it...

Don

[PaperTrail]

Originally Posted by Justme2010

btw, does SML stand for Smith Mountain Lake?

Yes, it does. Sorry, I usually try to be good about not using jargon in my posts.

The lake is about 45-50 minutes from downtown Roanoke and 20 minutes from Bedford.

[Justme2010]

Thanks, no prob, this is too easy, even for a new comer to the area
I'll check it out once "everything" settles down ...

[Erin1264]

We have DSL through nTelos, but we're in Botetourt County... not sure what their area is.

[seanpecor]

I've had B2X fixed wireless over here in Boones Mill for a couple years now and I'm very pleased with their reliability, performance and customer service. I need about 300gb of monthly transfer bandwidth and they addressed my somewhat higher end needs with a very competetive monthly rate. They're both faster than the T1 I used to have at about 1/6th the cost. I think in general they're about $50/month for 50gb of monthly usage.

DSL is going to be a very reliable option. COX like most cable broadband providers is going to be the fastest under ideal conditions, but very unstable at random intervals, and for random durations, which is pretty disruptive to a home office.

Another option is an EVDO card from Verizon Wireless. You should get something like 500Kbps and best of all you're wireless and can roam within their EVDO service area, which reaches out to even Boones Mill the last time I checked.

Sean

[Justme2010]

Thank you, Erin and Sean, for the info.

I need to run a business web server from my box (not some stupid adult stuff), the default port 80 is blocked by Cox, so, I use another one, which is somehow a compromised solution.

[seanpecor]

Have you looked into B2X? There is perhaps a chance you're line of sight with one of their towers. Their 1.5mbps throughput should do pretty well for a semi-popular site. I run my extranet box off it. I have dedicated servers in NJ for my +/- 20 live sites though since they get +/- 10,000 visitors a day on top of about six search engine spiders cataloging over 100,000 pages daily. 1.5mbps would crumple under that load during peak hours.

Anyway, B2X wouldn't mind your hosting bandwidth as much since most of their streams are inbound not outbound so they've got plenty outbound to spare.

Sean

[Justme2010]

But Sean, I thought you kind of implied B2X charges service by data throughput, and that type of charge won't work for me. Their web site does not seem to offer any info on pricing, which does not seem to be encouraging.

Thanks.