I ran a test or two last night, and AT&T DSL was measuring to about 1.04 mbps. Honestly, that area is pretty much "out in the boonies", if you're looking at Houston as a whole. In town you can get anything you want, pretty much.,,,,BD

can't see how westchase is the boonies - the whole area is giant. and comcast and u-verse supply surrounding areas.

also with a city the size of houston, there's no excuse.

Westchase is not in the boonies at all...only to people who never venture outside of loop 610. It is a somewhat older area though, so individual homes or complexes may or may not be wired for higher level connections. However, I would be surprised if 6mbps is the best anybody has around there. I would check directly with AT&T or Comcast and see what they offer. You should be able to get a UVerse package with a faster DSL than that bundled with TV for a reasonable price.

i did call AT&T yesterday, they said DSL. i'm going to try again though.

Netflix HD videos work fine over my "3Mbps" connection, which is consistently get over 5Mpbs on every speed checker that I run. I also have DD-WRT on my router, updated to the latest available version, which probably helps.

Yes, but they offer different speeds on their DSL. Did they specifically say that the 6 Mbps DSL was the fastest they offered there? Also, they sometimes offer faster connections when paired with UVerse TV.

no pairing with uverse according to what i saw. tv at this place is limited to directv or dish.
calling att tomorrow to set up appt and see what i can get further. might not know until we get down there.

but, ALL PACKED!! heading out tomorrow night to drive through the night to arrive in the late morning in houston.

thanks for all your help everyone. i don't know when we'll get internet this coming week, but until then, so long!

hopefully we can ride together sometime.

Well we arrived. Holy crap going on I-10 through the city to the Sam Houston tollway with a uhaul towing a trailer was a nightmare.

But the worse nightmare was our apartment. Let's just say we are in a hotel right now. Place was not as advertised and we aren't moving in. We got the realtor to get the landlord out to let us out of the lease, now we are trying to get our deposit back. Ugh.

So we are in a hotel with a dog, two cats, and a uhaul in the parking lot full of our entire lives...and no place to go. Tomorrow we start scrambling to find someplace new.

Seriously not a good day.

Crap! Well, at least you will end up someplace better. That's the main thing to look forward to! Unfortunately I know nothing about that part of town way out there. It will be a lot easier to find a place when you can see it first hand. Good luck with the search! Maybe in the next couple of weeks you can make it to the vintage ride.,,,,BD

aargh bad news. Sorry for the trouble. I can help with some recon early this afternoon. If you have a list of places I can do a drive by & report back. Check your PM for my #.

Sorry to hear that you're having problems.

One thing I should add, however ... I'm pretty sure that a "uhaul in a hotel parking lot" is extremely tempting to thieves, as they tend to be full of people's entire lives, lots of things that can be sold. I'm not sure what to do with this knowledge, but whatever you can do to secure it, I'd suggest doing so. If you've got some U-locks that you can reach, they might be useful in that capacity.

Well said! In San Antonio that U haul trailer would not last the night!...seriously....

If you don't know the lay of the land it's probably better to look for a place outside of Harris County. $0.02.

I hope things work out for you, and you find a better place to live.

Thanks guys! I too am quite worried about the uhaul but it is in a well lit lot in front of the office and right across the street are two more hotels with well lit lots, so it's pretty visible and I hope that is a deterant. But trust me I am freaking out every night it being there.

But the good news is we found a place yesterday. It's a pretty good complex in a much better area of town. It's slightly smaller but is a much better setup. Overall, we are happy. Can't move in until Wednesday probably though. Now the equally painful process of changing all our mailing info AGAIN. LoL.

Where is the better part of town, just curious?

Outside of Harris County?? The entire city is about to spread beyond the border of Harris County:lol: It is HUGE, and outside HC, would be a looooong drive to get anywhere in Houston proper. Especially during traffic time, which is beginning to spread to almost half the day or more. About a 2 hour window around 9 am, noon, and 5pm. Don't even THINK of trying to get on 290 between the hours of 2 and 6, hehe.,,,,BD

we are between eldridge and dairy ashford north of westheimer. it's not like upscale, but it's better than where we were south of westheimer near the tollway. lots of shady folks seen around there lol

neither of us work downtown, so getting down there isn't an issue. my wife's job is out here in energy corridor so we are still very close to it. i don't have a job yet, but will be searching.

either way we are only at this place for a year. we need to explore the greater houston area over the course of this year and find a nice neighborhood or area where we want to maybe buy a house.

Glad you found a better place. I was worried when you told us where your first location was, but like I said...some of the complexes there are alright, but others not so much. Your new place is actually in a better place as far as getting to the Terry Hershey/George Bush Park bike path and the mountain bike trails along the bayou, so you at least have that to look forward to. Easy to access both from Eldridge where it crosses the bayou.

Houston can only spread within their ETJ, they will not be able to ride roughshod over already incorporated cities on the periphery.

There are obviously some very nice areas inside the city limits but it's hard to know where to go until you have some experience. I lived in Sugar Land for 6 years in the late 80s early 90s and it was only about 10 miles to the medical center where work was going up old South Main, just had to ignore the drug dealers and prostitutes (in those days). They've cleaned up South Main quite a bit nowadays, the area around Reliant Stadium looks like it's had a complete makeover.

It sucked in Bellaire? They have their own street signs, etc. but Houston completely surrounded it, and stopped it from growing any larger.,,,,BD

Bellaire has it's own elected leaders, police, city officials and so forth. And higher property values than the surrounding neighborhoods in the City of Houston. There's many other small hamlets like this as well that maintain their own little slice of self-determination in the face of the Houston onslaught.

But anyway...off my soapbox now...glad the OP found a better place. Hey he can ride to the start of the MS150 from his apartment! Well if he's doing the 100 mile option the first day ;)

You said exactly what I did, pretty much. Just more elaborately.:D One of the guys on the vintage ride will sometimes ride from his home off of West road to Yale and Center St, do the ride, then ride home, all on an old 50' or 60's balloon tire bike.,,,,BD

Hi, welcome to Houston. I live in the Westchase area at Gessner and Richmond. There is some shady people in this part of town, but I haven't had any problems at my complex, knock on wood. I am not a biker right now, I joined the forum looking for bicycle purchasing advice. I am a walker/runner and I love Hershey park. I would eventually like to find an apartment within walking distance to Hershey park. Does anyone know of a good, honest auto mechanic they can recommend in this part of town?

http://www.rpmautomotivehouston.com/

RPM Automotive ... very capable and honest. I have used Tom Walker for years now and have always been satisfied. Highly recommended.

Thanks rfctx :)

That's great! I was thinking of asking the same thing. I need to get my car inspected so I can register it and get plates and get a license. I also need some other work done and I hate getting screwed at the dealer.