Comparison

Internet service today is delivered via the following methods:

POTS (plain old telephone service). This is dial-up service, shared with regular voice service.

DSL (digital subscriber line). This is a high speed service offered over telephone wires, operating on a different frequency than voice.

Cable (coax). This is a high speed service transmitted over cable television wires.

Terrestrial Wireless. This is radio frequency transmission between ground based stations, typically at high frequencies. Speeds range from slow (cellular services) to high speed Wi-Fi and Wi-Max. Numerous standards exist.

Orbiting Satellite Wireless. This is radio frequency transmission between ground and space based stations, always at high frequencies. Some are bidirectional, while others are download only and rely on POTS dial-up for the uplink.

Powerline Ethernet. This is data transmission over power lines. Not widely deployed. Typically limited to interior networking to extend service within the premises.

FiOS (fiber optic service). This is transmission over fiber optic cable. Not widely deployed to residences yet, but slowly expanding in heavily populated areas. Generally faster than other methods. The preferred option if you can get it.

Rebus Communications is a terrestrial wireless service. What makes us different?

Rebus Communications does not cap your transfer speeds. Everyone gets high speed.
DSL (telephone provider) speeds slow the further your line length to the central office. Actual speeds are often less than even the low capped maximum. DSL, cable, wireless and satellite services typically offer a tiered pricing structure, charging more for higher speed caps. We instead rely on sophisticated Quality of Service management policies that prioritize traffic based primarily on delay and throughput sensitivity. This way you can be sure to get the maximum available download speeds when web browsing or downloading video yet not suffer Internet telephone (VoIP) drop-outs from local causes.

Rebus Communications network latency is low.

Satellite service inherently has very high latency (several seconds for each packet to travel to its destination). While sustained file downloads are reasonably fast once underway, web browsing is not much better than dial-up speeds. This is because web pages are made up of many small pieces, each of which are delayed, resulting in large cumulative delay in rendering a complete page. Internet gaming and VoIP phone service are not practical. Cellular wireless has varied periods of high latency, frequent during high traffic periods, and occasional dropped connections (just like your cellular telephone calls).

Rebus Communications total latency across the network is only a few milliseconds and stable.

Rebus Communications does not oversubscribe.

We limit the number of clients to minimize impact from other users.

All services, no matter the type or provider, are shared. Generally speaking, the more subscribers the slower the overall service, particularly during peak usage times.

Rebus Communications does not restrict certain types of legitimate traffic.

Most DSL, wireless and satellite services have a low speed cap on certain types of traffic such as FTP, SSH, IMAP, etc., or in other words, file transfers, E-mail and newsgroups to prop up their HTTP (web browsing) speeds. Rebus Communications employs intelligent quality-of-service traffic management that actively prioritizes on-the-fly. No fixed caps.

Rebus Communications does not apply excessive port blocking.

Most wireless and satellite services block all but the most common ports to the Internet. This means that some available online services and applications will not work. DSL and cable providers are increasingly adopting this policy as well. Rebus Communications employs intrusion protection traffic monitoring at the head end to protect the network from unauthorized traffic rather than simple port blocking.