How is the mail delivery in st maarten? I'm a big amazon lover, do you know if they deliver to the Island?

Thanks guys.

many people here have a USA mailing address. there are a couple of companies that offer miami addresses and the mail is delivered there and then comes to the island 2X a week.
it is convenient. I live on Amazon and have my books delivered that way. I don't knwo if Amazon delivers to the island direct but the mail to the island through the post office is inefficient and slow.
but the USA mailing address costs a lot now especially since the gas prices are so high.. freight for everything has jut spiraled up.
so if you plan on getting amazon books plan on either a service that is quick and quite expensive or a service that is slow.

[barcann.livejournal.com]

Thanks everyone for all the useful info!

We used Mailbox in Simpson Bay for all our magazine subscriptions, us bills etc.
A little expensive but better than the alternative. They also have a cyber cafe, long distance calling service, fax service etc. Lot's of yachties use them also.
Cheers
irina

Cable Net from Cable Tv is the best in the west.

don't be fooled. everyone knows how fast the internet goes trhough teh cable wiring. best bet ever. hell, its about time, cheers.

But it's not available everywhere - and you have to have a good cable connection to begin with.

Elaine and Barbara,

I'm sitting here at my computer almost laughing at loud because I'm not sure if you two are speaking English or some new language and I have no clue what any of that stuff is.......

And yes, B, I do know how to load the minutes into the island cell phone and I even keep it on. Sometimes!!

Have a great day....and if only I could get rid of whatever this is that's making the rounds right now, I'm sure I would, too.

pat

Caribserve is the fastest and most reliable of the two...

Hello All, I just had to bite on this discussion, but I did not want it to be seen as an ad for my business, so I am not replying to promote my business.

I am located on the French side and have had a VoIP service operating since 2003. Obviously, it is important to know the strengths and weaknesses of the ISPs on the Dutch side as VoIP works anywhere.( and we have many Dutch side clients)

Well IDL is broke as out of business - that's confirmed.
Scarlet is Obersi Electronics (call themselves Xerox), and I think you need to read the contract pretty carefully. It is a wireless television service and has limited reach on the island. What area where to planning to move to on SXM? I ask because the WTN (Scarlet) is not island wide.

Telnet used to be terrible when they first got into ADSL, only around 2004. But they have matured somewhat and use carrier grade equipment now. I would never call it business class, but it is certainly have speeds above Caribserve. Telnet recently contracted their support, but I am still hearing people with major support nightmares.

UTS (who bought Caribserve) are still running under their own banner, but their wireless service is hopeless, so now I guess they are migrating people across to the Motorola Canopy platform that Caribserve invested in.

As far as email is concerned. If you are going to send email from Outlook to a non-ISP mail domain then Telnet is a problem. They are constantly on IP address black lists. I suggest you look at using one of the many SMTP services on for free.

The local cable TV St Maarten Cable TV recently started piping high speed Internet (up to 8MB/sec) across their cable TV infrastructure, so that may be worth looking at. Reports I have received is that it is not reliable because the people at SXMCTV don't know too much about the technology yet.

As far as VoIP, well a standard telephone adapter will work OK with Caribserve, but not with UTS. Telnet needs a little tweaking of the router, which until recently Telnet locked you out of.

Regarding VoIP, we are not worried about Magicjack and Vonage because customers also like support and that is where we excel. But I have over time tested these system and they generally work.

In summary, would say SXM needs a good shakeup. Caribserve gets my vote, but only as the best of the worst.

Here is my choice in order:

1. CARIBSERVE
2. TELNET
3. SXMCTV and SCARLET

Hope it helps the discussion.

--Michael

Telnet offers business brand services. Caribserve does not.

If you do accept a buzz line, ADSL from Telnet is added reliable and can be a lot faster (depending on the amalgamation you choose). Wireless Broadband, either from IDL, Caribserve (I accept now UTS), or Telnet is about the aforementioned quality.

Also, Telnet offers the advantage of a anchored ip address, this is advantageous if you wish to set up a server that is "always on" i.e. for VPN casework or a VOIP exchange.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/10/2009 10:39AM by jrs.reign.

I know this topic is a little old, but i figured i'd post anyway, i have caribserve have their 512kbit package but on most of my speedtests get easily 700-1.2mbit, have a friend that has their 1mbit that is getting close to 2.5mbit... while at the same time my mother has telnet at her house and for the last 2 weeks has been offline or very sporatic, with telnet it seems to heavily depend on the areas you live in on how stable the system is... also caribserve's support gets my vote where telnet seem nonexistent in most cases...

i had tried out scarlet, but when they told me that their support basically comes down to "bring it to our office and we'll check it" because its one of those no install solutions, you have to bring everything in by them to check (personally who wants to confirm it working at their office i want it working at my house!) anyway went to caribserve after that and worked great.

my votes gotta go for caribserve as they appear to be delivering more than they advertise and their support is top notch in comparison to the rest... but as i'm from the US i have to admit none of the ISP's can hold a candle to the US or EU companies for speed and reliability.

Hello,

I just came across this forum and boy am I glad as I need to vent some frustration about these incompetent ISP on sxm.

First of all, I have had Telnet DSL connection for about 2 years and never really had any problems, except for the occasional interruption which was still bearable. I moved last year now and would need to getr a new telephone line in order to get the DSL connection again. Which means I'd have to change my telephone number and pay NAf225,- for a new line. I chose not to do this because what if I have to move again? Do I pay for a nother telphone line again?
Anyway, earlier in the year they started with this 3G USB Modem that cost $89.- and for the service $70 per month. Now, though it was more than I paid for my DSL connection I decided to go with it as it was portable and worked on the same signal from the cell phones (or so they say). Every month (about 4) since I singned up I have has problems. Imagine my aggravation and frustration. Anyway to make a long story short. I got my money back and terminated the service.
Now I decided to give the new kids on the block Scarlet a try. They advertise in the local papers and seem to have eveyone fooled. Their service sucks. I paid for a 512/256 connection ($70.00) and hv the connection speed that someone pay $40 a month has. Do you think that's fair?
Now I have heard good testimonials about Caribserve, they have great speed and are reliable. The only thing is that the initial set up cost is expensive, but you pay $63.00 a month there after. I am seriously considering moving to Caribserve. If they have crappy service too, Lord help us all.

Do you know how frustrating it is to pay for a service that promises to be good and you don't get what you expect?

Can anyone shed some light on why scarlet's service is soo crappy?

My neighbor has has Scarlet for almost a year with no issues at all. She is one of their first customers on the island.

We use Caribserve and have also had no problems.

Well I am happy for your neighbour. What location are you guys in? I think that has a lot to do with it. Heard that they will be getting more sites so the signal should be better in the next couple months.

Absolutely! If you don't have a good site line to an antenna, it doesn't work well at all. Due to the different proximity of our windows, while my neighbor gets good Scarlet reception, we don't.

But the location of the antennas isn't the fault of the provider. Many of them are right next to each other LOL. They can all test your location before you make your mind up.

New antennas are going up in different places, and hopefully someday they will have good coverage all over.

Caribserve is supposed to come out with some new gizmo in a few months where you don't need line of site. So looking forward to THAT!