'Internet Needs to Work at Home in Venango County'

Internet Needs to Work at Home in Venango County

By Wilbur Corncob at 11/15/07 11:07

I was surprised to read in the newspaper today an article about the need for broadband interest and these apparent requirements to work from home:

said Cohill, citing that work from home businesses require affordable, high performance access and a minimum of 100 megabits a second with the option of gigabit speeds for optimum results.

Businesses have for years (and currently do) operate with T1 connections which are 1.5 megabits per second, a far cry from 100 megabits per second. The difference between a T1 connection and say a Verzion DSL connection which might also offer "1.5 megabits per second" is that the Verzion DSL connection is designed for a single user and limited uploads to maybe 128K (.128 megabits per second), where a T1 is a full 1.5 megabits per second both ways.

I have worked from home for years and never had 100 megabits per second, much less a T1 connection. I current have two internet connections one that is 512K (up/down) and 1.5mega/192K. The reason I have two is for reliablity not speed.

If one connection has trouble then I still have internet access. One of the problems I've found in Oil City, an office with two T1 connections from two differnet major carriers still has problems when the Oil City central phone company office has problems both lines can go out at the same time!

I have even successfully worked from a caribbean island that had just 512K internet service for the entire island via satellite. My effective speed was under 128K with additional delays for the satellite. That connection was even sufficent for VOIP telephone calls.

My biggest complaints about the DSL service offerred for consumers is that the upload speeds are often significantly less than the download. From what I read Comcast Cable offers slightly higher upload speeds than Verzion DSL.

The lack of a 100 megabit internet connection in my opinion doesn't stop anyone working from home effectively. Though such speeds would be nice, they are a long way from a minimum requirement. True redundency and sligher higher than current upload speeds would be a good step forward.

Another issue is whether the current internet services, DSL, Cable, etc cover all the areas of Venango County or just select areas.

The article identified Cohil as:

Andrew Cohill, a consultant from Virginia, contracted with the Northwest Pennsylvania Regional Planning and Development Commission to develop a comprehensive set of recommendations

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Can you tell me your minimum internet requirements to work from home?

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