Work from home - internet?

How fast do you need?

Broadband VI offers 1.5 Mbps residential service using a WiFi delivered service for $99. Depending on location works well. According to their web site they can engineer a connection of up to 45Mbps,

Choice offers a 3 Mbps service for somewhat less and it works some of the time at rated speeds if their network is not busy,

Innovative offers DSL but at less than 1 Mbps. As a business you can order a T1 from them.

Jim

I work entirely from home and I will be depending on a fairly fast and reliable internet connection.

Is there a place I can get info for business class internet service on STT or STX? Can it be provided to a home or office only? Costs?

Good luck with that. I'm in the same boat and have had to give up on both Skype and downloading/uploading big files. We have the Broadband VI "upgrade" package, which is supposed to deliver speeds of 1.5. I've never seen that in three years. More like half that, and not even consistently. Peaks and valleys in speed galore. To their credit, Broadband always has been super prompt and nice in addressing any issue I've had, but the technology right now--at least where I've lived--just can't deliver.

I certainly hope the high-speed broadband initiative passes, because it's sorely needed.

Bernie

Just switch over to broadband a few weeks ago and we got the 1.5 package which is delivering that speed about 90 percent of the time, and the guy also offered us 2Mbps for $150. We were happy with innovative for a long time but after last summer's horrible rain the phone lines when to cr@p and our dsl service has been horrible with innovative, so we tried broadband as a last ditch effort. We had tried it about 3 or 4 years ago and they just didn't have the towers then and it was awful. Glad to report that is not the case now, for us at least.

But david you're not going to find the speeds you have stateside. Also power in general in very fickle on the islands. We loose power often. And WAPA (our electric company is called WAPA) also has power surges that are electronic killers. I would think these are things you could work around as there are people doing what you do here.

Search the archives. This topic has been discussed a few times, and it hasn't changed much in the last few years (except that Choice oversold its bandwidth and thus has gotten worse).

If you are dependent on 100% uptime, you will need at least one backup, and I recommend setting up a tethered connection with your smartphone as a tertiary backup for when (not if) the other two are failing at the same time.

I personally have found that connecting with my phone has produced much more reliable and often faster speeds than Innovative DSL and Choice wireless broadband since they oversold their capacity. But, I wasn't paying for a business T1, either, so that might make a difference.

You will not get stateside speeds.

I depend entirely on the internet for working as well accessing a stateside company. After three months of spotty internet service and my VPN dropping on average 8-10X per day, I decided to utilize my Iphone and switched to the AT&T tethering plan with 4 gigs/month. Although its not 'fast' by any stateside standards, it is certainly reliable and steady, and I finally have piece of mind that I can have a secure connection all day. It was the best decision in the long run.

Is tethering the same as using your phone as modem? How much is that?

They are the same.

AT&T will allow you to tether your Iphone for an additional fee.

A second option is to jailbreak your Iphone so you can download and run apps from other sources than the Apple Store. PDA net for instance will let you tether your Iphone to a laptop. Great if you still have the old unlimited AT&T unlimited data plans.

Jim

Jose at Radio Shack recommends Virgin Mobile's MIFI. Claims unlimited data with good speed and reliability. I need some other service, because what I have now has slowed to a data drip instead of stream.

i have wireless high speed (such as it is here) access through a local provider and my backup is a wireless modem card thru my cel company that works on both my mac and linux lappies. i do know that one can tether devices to celphones as well, and cel companies sell devices that can act as wi-fi hotspots.

I work entirely from home and I will be depending on a fairly fast and reliable internet connection.

Is there a place I can get info for business class internet service on STT or STX? Can it be provided to a home or office only? Costs?

you can do this but think redundancy. have a backup.

i am now paying about 180 a month for all of my access, but i am not paying for the top speeds/bandwidth so your mileage may vary.

Jesus, Anita, I pay $45 for 26Mb down and 1Mb up.

Jesus, Anita, I pay $45 for 26Mb down and 1Mb up.

wow, where u b? certainly not in the usvi. or is it me??? * sniffs armpits * *-)

Hrmmm. Thanks guys. I read about the internet a couple years ago and it seems like not much has changed.

Any recent threads about the broadband initiative? I haven't heard/read much about it other than it is supposed to bring more reliable internet to the islands.

Worst case scenario I setup local development environments (or rather, actually use them) and push changes when I'm finished. I know I'm spoiled with these speeds (and more importantly, reliability)!

I know power outages are also frequent... but from what I understand they (typically) run around 20 minutes. If this is the case (the case being 80%) would a 45 minute battery backup keep me going through most power outages?

There's a thread the broadband initiative on this forum, but you should try to find more official info online, because it's a complicated topic that people are trying to simplify with familiar terms. They're adding amendments to the bill and will vote on Friday.

You're wrong about how long the outages last. It all varies. I've have lived west, center and east. And power outages in each area were vastly different. For example when we lived center island our power went out at least once a week and it might be a hour or it might be four. Living east, power goes out more like once a month or every 2 months and it always seems to be for a hour. It varies wildly. I work in town (c'sted) and it is usually 20 minutes or less there.

http://www.vingn.com/ - hit the btop grants menu, explore the site. there are copies of the awarded contracts, timeline of the initiative, and the players involved.

since this is a nationwide initiative, there are also links to broadband usa.

i believe this will go through with amendments myself. we so need this here.

and here is the thread with a lot of back and forth on the topic, you will see what ms411 means when you review it! https://www.vimovingcenter.com/talk/read.php?4,157075

They are the same.

AT&T will allow you to tether your Iphone for an additional fee.

A second option is to jailbreak your Iphone so you can download and run apps from other sources than the Apple Store. PDA net for instance will let you tether your Iphone to a laptop. Great if you still have the old unlimited AT&T unlimited data plans.

Jim

A third, cheaper option is to use a smartphone that isn't an iPhone. Samsung offers some pretty easy-to-use software for tethering with their smartphones. Then you don't have to pay AT&T's special extra data charges for using an iPhone, either. And yes, if you have one of the old unlimited data plans, hang onto it for dear life! 😀