Catapulsion's wireless internet offerings use high-frequency radio signals to relay high-speed internet to our customers across the
"last Mile" from the our network operations centers to your home. The small antenna mounted on your house
transmits data to and from your home to a Catapulsion "Point of Presence" location where you are connected directly to the internet. We then set your
hardware to support the data rates determined by your service level. Since your connection to the internet is wireless there is no need
for additional telephone lines and you do not need to be within 3 miles of the telephone office as is required for DSL.
No! Catapulsion does not install any kind of proprietary software or other items to complicate things. The only required equipment on your computer will be an ethernet card which most computers that are less than 3 years old will probably already have. If you don't have one, don't worry! We carry them in our installation trucks and will install one if needed for an additional fee.
Yes! We allow you to have up to 3 computers per residence hooked up to your connection. This can be accomplished by connecting our service to a hub, switch or wireless unit. However, Catapulsion installation agents will not install inside wiring beyond your initial termination point be it a single computer, hub, switch or wireless unit.
You bet! Unlike most other services, having your own wireless network is no problem with us. However, keep in mind that we only guarantee service to your walljack and that we don't provide support for equipment that you purchase and put online within your residence.
No, wireless phones won't interfere with our outside units. However, some wireless home phones will cause interference on in-home wireless systems (see above question).
There are many resources available for users to check the speed of their connection to the internet. Please keep in mind that we can't control what's going on out there on the open internet and can only confirm your line speed to the point where we put your onto it. Most speed check sites openly acknowledge that their information isn't accurate and that tests on their websites will fluctuate wildly depending on what's going on with the internet at the exact time of your speed check. For example, here's what happens when you speed check from a popular website, www.bandwidthplace.com:
1 <10 ms -- router.catapulsion.net (Catapulsion's Local Router in Park City)
2 10 ms -- 12.118.157.237 (On the internet in Salt Lake City)
3 20 ms -- gbr2-p54.dvmco.ip.att.net (Over to Denver, CO)
4 10 ms -- gbr4-p80.dvmco.ip.att.net (Still in Denver, CO)
5 40 ms -- tbr2-p012702.dlstx.ip.att.net (Over to Dallas, TX)
6 30 ms -- gbr1-p100.auttx.ip.att.net (Into Austin, TX)
7 40 ms -- gar1-p360.auttx.ip.att.net (Still in Austin, TX)
8 40 ms -- 12.124.219.58 (Somewhere in TX)
9 140 ms -- vl130.core1.sat.rackspace.com (San Antonio, TX)
10 40 ms -- vl901.aggr1.sat.rackspace.com (Still in San Antonio)
11 40 ms -- db1.bandwidthplace.com (The server that is running the check)
As you can see, just to get a speed check, we've traversed 11 total stops in 6 different cities (over 1700 miles as the crow flies) with 10 of which are out of Catapulsion's control. If there are problems such as equipment failures, network congestion or anything else along the way, your speed check will come back slower than it really is. So, take results from speed check servers, good or bad, with a grain of salt and know that we're constantly working to make sure that your internet connection is the speediest around!
You'll feel a little sheepish when you learn this but the 100 or 10Mbs reading that you're seeing refers to the connection of your internal network that's on your computer. It's a measurement of how fast your network card in your computer is connecting to the local network, in our case, the maximum connection speed that your network card knows how to talk to the network at. This connection speed is actually far faster than your account speed because it's in megabits and your service is measured in kilobytes. 1 megabit is 1,000 kilobits so your 100 megabit local area network connection speed is actually better than 200 times faster than your account speed. At least you know that your computer's capable of talking this fast, right?
No! Once again, this is a bits to bytes comparison with Internet Explorer reporting your download speed back to you in a different format. Since there are 8 bits in a byte, you can safely take the reported download speed and multiply it by 8 to come up with your kilobit throughput rate. For example, a 512 kilobit account would be able to download at a maximum of 512/8 = 64KB/Sec according to Internet Explorer in a perfect download scenario like you being alone and in the same room as the download server. Also, keep in mind that your download speeds are also a function of the speed of the server that you're connecting to. If the remote server is busy or doesn't have enough bandwidth available on it's network when you start your download, your download speed will reflect this.
Absolutely not. Unlike other systems that require a satellite dish where snow or ice can accumulate and therefore require sweeping with any storm, our antennas aren't affected by snow, rain, fog or any other elemental occurances with the exception of massive (4 inches or more) ice buildup. To prevent this, our installers are trained to never install our system in a location where this could be a problem like in a roof runoff location. In fact, we've found that our systems will run faster during a good storm due to an atmospheric condition called dampening where the rain or snow will actually server to dampen any outside interference sources.
The base system which is installed at your home or office has a theoretical throughput of up to 11Mb which is almost 10x faster than anything offered by any other providers for consumer level service. We've found that in real-world tests, our systems operate in the 5-6Mb range which is still about 5x faster than anything else out there. However, due to the cost of bringing in big pipes of bandwidth, we offer accounts up to 768Kb which is right inline with what any other service brings you and at a lower cost. While we could hype up our numbers by using theorectical throughput rates like many others do, we choose not to. The nice thing to know is that Catapulsion systems are capable of handling far more throughput than anything else out there without upgrades and that as bandwidth prices come down that we'll pass the savings on to you in the form of lower prices and higher bandwidth options.
For some reason, people ask this question but the answer is no. Most companies disallow some of the things that make broadband fun like wireless hubs because they're afraid that someone's going to try and give their neighbor free service. We've got no problems with you using your connection as you'd like to. Of course, theft of service is a crime and therefore punishable by law and we do run regular scans to look for anyone abusing their service in this way and act when we find people sharing connections. Keep in mind that Catapulsion is a local company, not a faceless corporate giant.
Copyright © 2002/2003 Catapulsion LLC. All rights reserved.
Revised: November 19, 2002
