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Technology Stocks : METRICOM - Wireless Data Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rex Takasugi who wrote (836)	7/10/1998 2:19:00 PM
From: Kevin G. O'Neill	Respond to of 3376

I just talked to them (USWest) and they're offering free installation for their first thousand "megabit" customers. I'm in NY so I can't go for it; otherwise I'd certainly be among the first to sign up. My costs using a business line for internet at my office is astronomical with Bell Atlantic. Over the long haul, Ricochet will need to compete mostly with wireless providers, IMO, including the satellite folks. I doubt they'll do very well fighting the wireline warfare that is now on the horizon (QWST, LVLT, et al). Over the short haul, though, the dsl services will remove a key attractor for MCOM customers that use their service for fixed pc internet access. An idea what % of MCOM customers are at fixed locations? Might give a clue as to price vulnerability here... -kevin

To: Rex Takasugi who wrote (836)	7/12/1998 3:34:00 PM
From: Chip Anderson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3376

FWIW, I spent several hours this morning experimenting with my Ricochet SE and some of the "Registry Tweak" programs that supposedly improve internet performance for certain modems. The program I used was "iSpeed." Another popular one you might have heard of is called "TweakDUN." Both are available at tucows.com The surprising result is that (for me at least) the Default settings work the best by far. With those settings, my download speeds never drop below 2.8Kbps and is often above 3.3Kbps. With the "optimized" settings, my download times drop to around 2.0Kbps or worse. Bottom line: These programs appear to do little to help Ricochet SE users. BTW, this was using Win95. I've read that the "default" settings for Win98 _may_ be different, in which case these programs _may_ improve things by restoring the "old" defaults. Chip "Waiting-on-GTE-ADSL-grrrr" Anderson