rec.autos.simulators

For about the last month I have been plagued with a rash of random
disconnects while on hawaii.  As my frustration built up I realized that
the start of these problems was roughly coincident with my switch from
MCI to Sprint.  MCI worked great when my buddy and I used the Friends
and Family thing to get approx. 10 cents/min for modem racing.  With the
advent of hawaii we started racing there and saw our costs go up to 13
cents/min (with no alternate sharing) for an approx. tripling of our
racing phone bills.  Sprint seemed like a good way to go (10 cents a
min. eve./night-25 cents a min. otherwise).  When I realized the problem
might be associated with Sprint I ran some tests using the Cntrl-Y
command.  I alternated using Sprint and AT&T (on my other phone line)
over three evenings.  The results:

Test#  Carrier    Delay (msec.)     Quality     totSend
 1       Sprint    130               58          265
 1       AT&T      150               89          338
 2*      Sprint    150               84          278
 2       AT&T      110               93          220
 3**     Sprint    160               62          250
 3       AT&T      150               92          203
 4       Sprint    160               70          203
 4       AT&T      150               89          338

* Disconnected during exit from Hawaii
** Used cabling direct from modem to box on house to isolate house house
wiring; Crashed 3 times during test using Sprint.

I talked to Sprint about this whole thing and they were very pleasant
and nice about it but said that they had checked out their lines and
could find no fault with their portion of the system.  In fact it seems
that they indeed know the first rule of the Signal Corps (it's always
the other end) since they said I should check with the service I was
attempting to connect to and see if they could be causing the problem.

The good ending to this story is that I hooked up for my league race on
Friday using my AT&T line with nary a problem.  And a most enjoyable
race it was as I came from 11th to finish 2nd but the most joy was
surely in jsut racing with a good group of guys (the IVGA Gold league)
without the ***y disconnects!!!

Well I guess I'm back to shopping for a good and less expensive link to
Hawaii (although It's a shame Sprint didn't work out.  My buddy is using
them with no problems and they were very nice on the line with almost no
hold time-even sent me $10 worth of free gas).

Dave Bradley

BTW- Why do they call it 'Hawaii'?... Shoe is to foot, ...as Hawaii is to
NASCAR? I'm sure I must've missed something here! :)

Larry ('I'm not only an AT&T employee, but also a client!') Abels

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: BTW- Why do they call it 'Hawaii'?... Shoe is to foot, ...as Hawaii is to
: NASCAR? I'm sure I must've missed something here! :)

I think the developers where promised a condo in Hawaii, if they were
ever able to make this baby work.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

If you call AT&T, tell them you have Sprint, and are looking for a
better deal, they'll talk. I had AT&T for two years, changed to Sprint
(.10/min) for one day, called AT&T and got .08/min for three months and
it then went to .10/min.

The days of haggling are not over. Use it to your advantage. Don't tell
AT&T I told you this. ;)

Mike

Larry Abels,

Your from AT&T right?? If I call from WASHINGTON STATE to hawaii
(masechusetts??) what kinda pricing will I get?? What would be the
cheapsee way?
--Kai Fuller
  Senior Writer of INR

--
Chuck Stuart - Mesquite TX USA

Charlie Heath
Papyrus Design Group

Dave Bradley