The announcement
of the US Internet's deal with the City of Minneapolis received a fair
amount of press in the fall of 2006. Maps were drawn, a
schedule was developed, and you could sign up with the city to get
email updates of the progress. In December of 2007, Minneapolis even
received an award by the Wireless Internet Institute for Best
Practices. Yet, in spite of all of the accolades, the actual effect of
Minneapolis residents seems somewhat muted. In Tangletown, the
schedule got pushed back about six months from the original completion
period, although I finally got an email from USI announcing that the
system was completed in our neighborhood.
The prospect of
disengaging from Qwest (DSL) or Comcast (cable) is attractive to anyone
who has had to deal with either's sales staff. I turned my back
on cable a long time ago, so DSL is really my only option. Once
when I complained to Qwest about internet speeds, one customer
representative informed me that I wasn't supposed to have DSL service.
But after things settled down, I was fairly content with reliable
service that only went out during thunderstorms, and usually was fixed
by resetting my DSL modem. As for speed, I tend to get under the
promised 1.5 mbps download and 0.8 mbps upload, but this seems to be
the experience of most residents. I have heard that cable is the
holy grail of internet speed, but reliability tends to be lower and you
have to deal with the cable company, a procedure someplace between a
root canal and a kidney stone on my pain scale. Of course, you
quickly notice that no one makes firm promises in the internet
business; everything is expressed as "up to" such and such a speed.
This would be the equivalent of selling cars that go up to 60mph,
or get up to 25 mpg, which would normally piss off most buyers.
But cable, DSL, and wireless all use this measure. Go
figure.
So along comes US Internet with pricing plan
of "up to" 6 mbps download for $287.40/year, which works out to
$23.95/month. Pretty decent rate, plus you get the warm feeling of
supporting an internet service with a populist tone to it. I was
intrigued, especially with the "buy one year, get one free" promotion
that USI was offering. Well, that promo was a little overstated:
you have the buy one year at the 2-year contract monthly charge, which
isn't as cheap as paying annually, but this was mild in the world
of marketing transgressions. Quite frankly, I was ready to sign
up right then. But then the cold reality of performance issues
took hold, and I started checking around.
First, there is
amazingly little information about residents' experience with the new
wireless. I found one Minneapolis neighborhood site that
solicited input, and there were 3 replies,
mostly along the lines that the service is slower and less reliable
than the wired alternatives. The problem was with the signal.
So I took my Windows laptop from work and started checking out
what wireless signals it could uncover. There are quite a few
signals from home networks, including a few routers that really need to
be protected with a password. I found that I could get a very
weak USI signal if I stood on a bed on the second floor near a
northwest window while holding the laptop in the air. The USI folks readily acknowledge the problem
with stucco houses in their frequently asked questions.
Stucco is almost tailor-made to kill radio signals because of the
wire mesh in it. So, I decided to walk around outside with the
laptop to see if the signal was any better. On the north side,
there was no problem acquiring the signal, but it was very weak.
No signal could be obtained in my backyard, which placed my
stucco
house between the laptop and the signal. Not good.
The
next day in the light of day, I went walking to locate the source of
the signal. I soon found a number of antennae located a long
block north of me. I could not locate any to the south until I
got to 54th Street. The antenna units are quite noticeable, and I
was surprised I had not seen them before, but then I don't often make a
habit of critically looking at utility poles. Here are the
featured units of 52nd Street:
USI service at Gladstone Ave. S. and 52nd
USI service at Wentworth Ave. S. and 52nd
USI service at Nicollet Ave. S and 52nd St.
So I called USI support, and I need to say, like others,
that customer
service with USI is a delight compared to the big boys. I spoke
with
one helpful agent and gave him my assessment of the conditions, the
fact that there are stucco houses galore in Tangletown, and that winter
was likely to be more favorable to the signal because of the lack of
radio-wave robbing foliage. He agreed with me, but pointed out
the the Ruckus modem is able to capture most signals, and that they are
looking at an outside antenna to help people with their stucco house
problem (but not yet an option). I also asked about the fast 6mbps rate, which wasn't an
option when you actually went to sign up for the service (3mbps is the
fastest they offer). He said that essentially the higher speed is
a function of how close you are to the transceiver, and that they
weren't able to promise that sort of connectivity yet.
If
I lived on 52nd with a transmitter outside my window, I would be a
customer in a second. But until there is a closer transceiver, I
am not convinced that the wireless service will hold a candle to my
DSL. I don't think I will be alone in the neighborhood. I
made a map of the nearby transceivers, and there is quite a gulf
between 52nd and 54th. Additionally, our utility poles tend to
meander from the nice Cartesian plane of the rest of the city (it's
Tangletown, silly!). Finally, the topography of the creek adds a
lot of distance in elevation that they may not have realized if they
were plotting from a map. Add to that the lovely natural foliage
of the area, the lovely stucco houses, and the aluminum radio
reflectors flying overhead, and there are just too few transceivers for
our area. The red dots indicate the location of transceivers.
This map isn't comprehensive; I need to do more walking.
What to do? Embrace Qwest or Comcast, or raise a ruckus (not the modem) at city hall or let Scott Benson
know. My sense is that USI will be more motivated to deal with
this if it comes from the City of Minneapolis. Of course, you can
always mooch off of the unprotected signals of your neighbors, but then
you will be discovered if you ask them to move their router a little
closer to the window.
January 8, 2008
Found out that I'm not the only one walking around the
neighborhood testing signals with a laptop. That makes me feel a
little more normal. Input from one resident (not of the block)
who reported that the USI service worked great for 3 days, then quit.
Troubleshooting with USI customer service was described as Internet
hell, ultimately ending with the customer demanding his/her money
back. Another friend near Bloomington and 40th said that she got
the signal for free for a while and it compared well to her DSL. A couple of people have reported that there experiences with Comcast has been quite good.
