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How well wired is Belize ? What is the internet back bone like and what is the last mile connection like?

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Friday, July 23, 2010 8:05:10 AM

This kinda service cost me 100us a month.
DSL and I might be considered at the end of the line.
Its fairly consistent speed wise but of course it all runs on electricity and that goes out 5 or 6 times a week.

My BTL DSL is always there... BEL power or not

Does your computer run on kerosene?

UPS and/or generator

Good Morning Jesse :-)

this is a huge help. so the power is a bit tricky. that can be over come it sounds like it goes out every few days. how long does it stay out for?

A minute or two up to several hours (rarely)

We've had power outages on the North part of the island every day this week, but it been a bad weather week.
Its been out twice today already and its only 10 am but were having a storm.
The low voltage stuff is what hurts. I use APC battery backup but they only protect the computer from low voltage by shutting down.
refrigerators and wellpumps suffer a lot.
Electricity truly might be a little better on the south end of the island where Jesse is.

Only had one 3 minute power outage so far this morning.

How about "Hughs Net" satalite systems, do they work well there?

They work , people have them but its old technology that DSL has beat.

I'm pretty sure my Hughes Net satellite internet is a lot more reliable than your DSL. DSL is hardly new technology.

1.5Mb Starband $200BZ per month. 2Mb BTL $600+BZ per month depending on the package you have and if you received a double speed special upgrade...

DSL is provided by the local BTL (telephone company) plain old telephone service. BTL has a major advantage when providing DSL, because most of the time there is no installation necessary. By providing Internet service that rides on the existing telephone network, unless your way North on the island. The only setup includes a DSL modem filters for the telephone jacks.

Satellite is used mostly in rural areas where it neither DSL or cable company provided Internet is available. A satellite dish is a big expense and the service is slow.Old world stuff !

"A satellite dish is a big expense" Not used, of which I have one for $500BZ including the mounting pole and transponder. To say the service is slow is ridiculous. What you would pay at BTL for the fastest package on satellite would get you only 512k.

Simon i think the service has gotten better since you last checked.
I get BTL/DSL in my business package and get 1mb and that's just the middle speed, I could get 2mb if I paid 200bz more.
The business package price includes internet and my phone service to a limit with a certain amount of ld calls. The internet portion says 200. bz but the total package is over 500.
I hear you saying the equipment is about 500. bz what is the monthly bill on the service?
I just did a speed test and its reading 858 at the moment

Elbert, I was paying $200BZ for 512 as part of a package with cell and landline. The rates for satellite are noted above.

You also have to remember that for a new account with BTL you will pay $1000BZ deposit (unless you've previously had an a ccount or hold Nationality and even then it's $500BZ), $250BZ for the modem, the monthly fee for the land line, the monthly fee for Internet, monthly for cell if you're on a package, the install for the land line and the install for the Internet.

:-) Wow your not a fan of BTL I can see :-) your right the modem was 250. and the deposit was 500. or 600.
my monthly bill is 560.bz.

One positive for BTL - if there is a problem they are round super fast to fix it.

When I reported my problem last week they were at the store within the hour. It took a while to identify exactly what the issue was as I have this hooked up to a local network and the problem was intermittent.

But they tracked it down to a faulty modem, brought me a new one and now my connection is good as new! And there was no charge - even better!!

i'm not the greatest BTL fan but we kept them over the newer options because of the service.
the local tech gave me his cell# and when i call he is here right away!
can't beat that.

I called the Starband sales rep and she told me the rates were $59us for 512, $79us for 1mb, and $109 for 1.5mb. Didn't get any particulars since she also told me that I would have to contact someone in Houston to arrange for installation in Belize. Not sure whether its worth it for me since I'm only there about 6 months and the quoted rate was for a years contract. for 2 year contract knock $10 off.

You're lucky on the support side. The last time we had a problem it took 2 days of calling to finally get someone in to fix it and the problem was at their end. The last time we tried to get another line installed it was several days of calling and 5 days after the line was to go in it happened.

No, I'm not a big fan especially when there's packages like this out there for the same money as the slowest BTL connection:

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