Got Broadband?
I just got a killer broadband connection at home courtesy of my workplace. Seriously, this baby can run. I just downloaded the RedHat 9 ISOs (total 1.5GB) from the KEMS mirror in under an hour. Now those from outside Kuwait seeing this might be thinking that’s freakin’ slow. Well, that is pretty good if you consider the fact that most DSL users in Kuwait call 128 or 256Kbps highspeed dsl!
Doing a quick price check on qualitynet.net shows that for roughly the same amount I would pay for an annual 128Kbps connection here in Kuwait, I used to get 1.5Mbps (yeah that’s 1500Kbps) in the US! That’s an ‘order of magnitude’ difference.
Anyways, getting back to my dsl connection, it averages 512Kbps usually and since it’s free, I’m not complaining =)
What I will bitch about though is the ridiculous price gouging on wireless routers here in Kuwait. I want to setup a wireless network at home so I went around Ibn Khaldoun expecting to find a decent router for 20Kd or so. Boy was I wrong or what. Even bottom of the barell stuff like DLink was retailing for a minimum of 35KD. I know that it shouldn’t cost that much because I bought one in the US about 2 years back and it was like half that price. So did a search on PriceGrabber for that same DLink router and, guess what, the price is literally less than half of that.
I ended up buying a Netgear wireless kit for $75 (I need the USB WiFi key for my desktop because I don’t have any spare slots on my the motherboard for a NIC!)
i got a dlink wireless router (802.11G) with built in dsl modem for KD20 from bin khaldoun. The linksys was for KD30.
Comment by mark — July 13, 2005 @ 9:48 am
ps: i got a brand new netgear wireless router (802.11b) for $18 off amazon. really cheap.
Comment by mark — July 13, 2005 @ 9:53 am
Woohoo.. my first comment. That too from my favourite blogger
Mark, can you tell me where on Ibn Khaldoun you got the DLink stuff from? How good is the signal strength on that router. Will the signal work across 4 brick walls (i.e. 2 rooms across)?
For some reason, I’m a bit iffy on DLink products. Netgear though I can safely vouch for because I’ve used 2 netgear routers (wireless and wired) and they were a breeze to setup and even looked real sleek.
Comment by dogbert — July 13, 2005 @ 10:03 am
ok the thing is my apartment was built by the koreans in the 80s… basically its a fcuking fort. i can barely get a signal accross to the other room. i have 4 access points, 2 linksys, 1 netgear and 1 dlink. although i heard stuff about dlink the netgear is the one i have issues with. the wifi signal drops every now and then and i have to turn it off and on again to get it to work again.
i have the 2 linksys bridged from my apartment to my parents who are next door. my living room and my brothers room have a wall seperating them, i have the linkysys units on each side of the wall and they barely can see each other!
the dlink i have setup next to my computer, and in my bedroom maybe 15-20 meters away i get a signal strength of 40% on the powerbook while the netgear gives me around 50% although it has a better line of sight.
the PSP on the other hand can see all the wifi units from any room in the house all on high signal.
i got my dlink from the proffesional i think. let me give u his number.2611660
Comment by mark — July 13, 2005 @ 1:21 pm
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Comment by testanchor653 — October 16, 2005 @ 2:26 am