[CLUE-Tech] Ricochet is in Denver

[Jeremiah Stanley]

> OK, so how does this compare to my AT&T Broadband connection?  (with
> which, by the way, I've been pretty happy)
>   
> I stopped paying attention to what AT&T claims is the maximum download
> speed.  Has anyone here with a cable modem actually painstakingly
> measured what kind of performance they're getting?

One thing to keep in mind is that there is a difference between Kbps and
Kb. This is a marketing discrimination that distorts what they are
advertising. A Kb is a 1024 bits per second, while a Kpbs is one eigth
that size or 0.125 Kb. This explains why modems are 56k but pull about
6-7k/sec.

/* this was how it was explained to me. Post if you have a better
explanation for how modems work for different services. */

The numbers that Ricochet are advertising would be just faster than a
144k DSL line. My 256k DSL I had would pull about 40k/s max at any time
of day so I'd say that a 176k Ricochet service would so somewhere to the
tune of 25-30k/sec. At another place in Arvada my cable modem pulled
about 300k/sec (YMMV dep on area). So, cable is by far the "faster"
service (not counting ping times, etc.). I'll see if I can dig out my
MRTG records from about a year ago and post them.

The thing that makes Ricochet cool is that it will be a fantastic last
mile provider as they don't lay any cables. From where I live now I can
see peoples houses that can get DSL and digital cable service but my
property is unavailable for those services. I'm yearning for Ricochet to
get to my area (according to their website, were covered but not turned
on yet on the network). At my old apartment the Ricochet box nearest
that location was mounted about fifteen feet outside my window. Too bad
I moved!

JStanley