Big Tube Wireless

We use them at work, and we’ve been very happy with their service. We’ve had very few problems with them besides weather related issues. However I do know a few people who have tried calling them and it took a few months for them to come out to their house to see if they could get service. But once you’re set up its great!

captMcGee - since the QOS for a wireless provider is based somewhat on the coverage you can get from them, would you share with us where you are located, and when you used their services?

I had a somewhat similar experience that captMcGee had with as far as the reliability and download/upload speed with BigTube but not as negative in regards to customer support. I live East of town, (slightly) SE of the tower. Last year, and just recently reliability has taken a nose-dive. The connection between there towers would be lost SEVERAL times a day, but the connection to my local tower would be remain intact, so of course it was not my tower, but I could not access the internet none the same (you can tell by performing a ping on the default gateway).

Also, the download speed has become slower and slower, with it often reaching the lower end of 30KB/Sec ( 30 x 8 = 240 Kbps?) Much lower than advertised, with upload speed roughly half that. Try watching a video over it, even a 300 KB video will stop and cache.

When I asked about the speeds (or lack thereof), I was told that there were too many people on the network. Why would the company continue to add new customers when there backbone is already stretched too thin, then blame apparently the customers?

There is also slightly too much lag because the Imlay City towers is roughly 5-6 towers away from the backbone from ATT in Caro. It would be nice if they could use connect Imlay to Verizon, and branch off from there, but I doubt that they will not even consider that. I would bet that the folks closest to the demark in or near Caro, are probably happy as a clam with there service.
Anyway, in their defense, they seemed willing to fix problems with my receiver after I had some problems. I think that they are willing to work through the problems with their towers, and continue to try to improve the service. Judging by the comments from there ex-customers, I do not think that they will ever be nearly as bad as QIX.

If you are considering going with BigTube, or any other wireless service I would ask them some questions first:

1) what speed should I expect, upload and download? How much lag?

2) Are you willing to increase speed (or add more) to the Backbone as needed to support additional customers and would you consider adding Access points to improve service or do you just continue to add customers and let the speed continue to drop?

3)What can I expect from you if I have a problem with my service and/or speed? Will you check out my tower the same day, or keep me informed of outages?

4) How long of a downtime is would you consider normal, and how long before I should call (1 hour, I day)?? How about repeated outages in a single day, or inconsistent connections?

5) How do you compare to the other wirelss services? For instance, check out what some other wireless services provide. You would be surprised on what you may NOT be getting with this service. Check out Speednet from Saginaw, they have 3 MB down, 383 up at 35$ Month, plus 10MB web host, and dial-up: http://www.speednetllc.com/Wireless-Internet-residential.htm

Conclusion: If you do not need a connection for work check out the satellite services: Wildblue (http://www.wildblue.com) and Hughesnet (http://www.hughesnet.com), just keep in mind that there is always a significant lag so it is not good for using with a VPN.
Also, if you do work from home, there is always ISDN from the phone company. It will only be 128Kbps up and down, but it will be much more reliable.
And then there is Sprint EVDO (http://www.nextel.com/en/solutions/mobile_broadband/index.shtml) . I’m not sure what the price is, but I think that it may be expensive, considering that it is “mobile.”

I would like to hear from other customers on their experiences.

BigTube is OK. Most of the time it works fine and I get the advertised download speeds (512kbps), but sometimes, the speeds drop to about half as advertised and it can stay that way for days. It can get pretty annoying when it does. They tell me that too many people are on the network when it dips. If so, then shouldn’t they get a better backbone to support all of their customers? (Yes, they should) Aside from that, it provides low-latency connections and works fine for gaming.

I’ve had Big Tube Wireless for roughly 2 years. At first i was very excited with the service. It was so much better then dial up. Then something happened. Everyone found out about the service, suddenly the service went to complete crap. I’ve had many days where dial up would run faster then the Big Tube. It is very inconsistent. Friday was sunny and warm with little clouds. You would think the internet be working great. Not the case. The only time it runs with any speed is around 1 am. We’ve finally had enough and are checking out Hughes net. 20 dollars more a month but i guess u get what u pay for.

I had Hughes for over 5 years and still have associated that use it because of no other solution… you will not enjoy it. I would say Big Tube is 10X better, even with their problems.