Can I work from home?

Don't know what island you are going to be on, I'm on STX...I had to fall victim to Innovative, but I also work at home via internet/intranet. Sometimes it is slow, but the job gets done. It will NOT be what you are used to but will be better than dial up...sometimes it's lightning fast and other times it isn't even there...of course you will find the 8-6 scenario to be the worsst time to work - which is why I am up at 4:13 a.m.....

Sorry, I forgot to mention which island. St.Thomas is where we are looking to relocate. Thank you for your input.

Hi ericmh.

High speed here is not as fast as high speed stateside but it is better than dial-up and speeds are improving. The cost is $99/month. Reliability is a bigger issue and the most reliable provider we have found here on STT http://www.ackleycomm.com/ requires you to have "line of sight" from your computer's location to their tower. Before you firmly settle on a place to live you can request that the ISP come out and survey the site to determine whether or not they can provide you service at that location.

dntw8up -

Good point - that's how I got into the clutches of Innovative. Make SURE they do the site survey rather than taking anyone's word for it unless you can line of sight the tower yourself. We had a great service until we moved. We were told if we could see Hovensa, we had line of sight. After moving, nothing worked...oops, you have to be able to see the EAST end of Hovensa, not the west...

Well, that's a STX story and not particularly germaine to your situation - still, maybe an STX-er will see this and take note...

It was a nightmare getting set up with Innovative. At the time, Innovative was the only provider available in our area. It took us months for them to even get the equipment to us, and they used to have outages all the time at first. It has gotten better now, though, but I would stick with someone else if possible.

Hello there folks! I don't mean to complicate things further, but not being completely computer literate, I don't always understand how all of this works. Becky had mentioned problems with high speed and Innovative. At this time on STX, are there other choices? I know that a personal satellite dish works well, but is over 2K to install. Are there other options?

Just as an aside, I have just returned from Connecticut, and their DSL is so overloaded that they experience the same problems that Becky mentioned, especially during peak business hours. Hmmmm.

If anyone knows of a way out of the claws of Innovative, I would love to know.

Warm regards to all,

Dan

Dan, call me tomorrow...I'll give you the scoop on another guy with GREAT high speed, if you're in line of sight. I have the equipment already so don't buy it - it did us no good after we moved.

Thank you Becky R!!!! I don't understand what this line of vision thing is, but with my glasses I can see quite a bit. LOL. Will call manana.

Warmly,

Dan

Thanks to all for your responses. I had also read in one of the 'what to expect' stories that i shouldn't buy an expensive computer due to the power outages "blowing them up". I can't imagine this being a common occurrence, but i don't know. Has anyone else ran into this?? Does everyone on the islands just buy a new computer every time you have a power outage? lol.

We have a Dell laptop that we brought down 3 years ago and have never had a problem with it. (Now I've jinxed my poor computer!!! lol.) We do have it set up away from windows and we don't live near the shore, but we don't do anything special.

On STX, try Broadband VI http://broadband.vi/ . I don't use them, but some of my neighbors do, and they're quite happy.

DL, How long ago did you get set up? Do you think they have gotten better since you got set up?