[grinch]

the list of places i'd check for broadband:
www.cox.com
www.roadrunner.com
www.charter.com
www.attbroadband.com

but, if you lived in the new york area you could get optimumonline and i'll be damned if it's not the best cable service i have ever seen. my dad got it recently at his house and i downloaded aol 7.0 (it's a good test file, fast server and ~25mb) at 600kb/s. pretty good for $30/month eh? it's better than i used to get at my old school's t3.. although, i used to upload constantly at about 600kb/s.. err, but that's a different story.

be thankful kelly, i don't even have DIALUP at home! it is not worth $40/month for a phoneline and then another $20 or so a month for the isp. $60 for dialup?! screw that, i'll stick with work's t1..

 

[Mr.PD]

Quote:

Originally posted by NotoriousBIG_PJ We have to computers hooked up to it and it has been running pretty fast, costs $40 canadian a month, same as dsl. I read dsl in the states is really costly, is that true? Biggie.

My DSL is $39.95/mth. Speeds are supposed to be 768/128 , I usually get 711/110. Before Verizon upgraded I only got around 500/70. I hear new customers are paying $50/mth, with more email boxes.
No cable service available in my area.

 

[jpelg]

kelly & gloco - you guys are hilarious. ROTFLMAO!

grinch - where do you live that a regular landline costs you $40/month? Ouch! Where I am, a nothing-special, no totalphone (no voicemail, call waiting, forwarding, etc.), single line phone with unlimited local calls costs like $14.95 plus all the taxes and federal line charges (net around $22/month).

Even still I do not have a landline, as my cable and cellphone handle my communication needs. After a major debacle trying to get the aforementioned cheap landline installed in my apartment, I told my local phone company to "kiss my yatabay" and go pound sand. DSL is available from them too, but I went cable instead. Comcast, while somewhat expensive, has given very good service for basic cable tv, and broadband access from when it was Excite@Home thru a completely painless conversion to their own servers.

What I like about getting my broadband from a local vendor who also manages the infrastructure, is that it minimizes the fingerpointing. Even if you get your DSL from someone other than your local telco, it is usually that local telco that owns/maintains the infrastructure from the street into your house. Talk about fraught with peril! Who ya gonna call?

dougli- my brother has AT&T cable up in Mass. (I think it is called Roadrunner). I don't think he has had too many problems. I'll have to ask him for sure. Maybe it is region specific, since you are out on the west coast?

For all you guys locked into dial-up, my sympathies.

 

[TaffyGuy]

Quote:

Originally posted by kelly DSL around here is about $50US/month for 768up/1.5m down limit, I think. Durign the brief time I had my DSL there was no down limit and I got 2.5m peaks. (This was better than my T1 at work at the time.)

i'm sorry, but what the **** are you bitching about?

anyway, i don't know about SW bell, but with verizon and other companies its generally a good idea to go with third party DSL providers that run on the same network.

verizon DSL along with most all of the big names really blow -- try to block off networking, terrible service... I've got extremeDSL at my apartment, which is much more computer nerd friendly, and they run on the verizon and SBC networks i think....

anyway, its $60/m for 1.5m dn/150k up, so quit your bitching and deal with it. oh and AT&T probably sucks worse. esp. their cable.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Quote:

Originally posted by akar I live in Alaska, in a town that has no outside road access. But, even I have more than one choice for broadband connection.

That's because there's nothing else to do in Alaska.

JUST KIDDING!

(Future Alaskan, right here.) Quote:

Originally posted by kelly What the hell is a gloco anyway!?

I've always thought of it as a sniglet: glock, loco. "Gun crazy". Quote:

9. The CIA killed Kennedy. And the CIA is mostly yankees.

Hey, here's a joke for you: how do you know the CIA wasn't in on the Kennedy assasination? He's dead, isn't he? (with apologies to Neil Gaiman...) Quote:

Originally posted by CaptBubba The line quality is so bad at my house that we get 28.8 connection speeds, if we are lucky. Most of the time it is 24.6 or even 19.2. The line sounds like AM radio right next to a power sub-station, and they won't do a damn thing about it!

This brings to mind a question I had -- is there such a thing as pseudo-shielded telephone cables? This is something I might want to look into...

 

[kelly]

Quote:

Originally posted by TaffyGuy i'm sorry, but what the **** are you bitching about?

The very first thing I said in this thread was:
I had a run in with Southwestern Bell's DSL people a couple of years ago. (I'm more tolerant of ignorance and incompetence than I am of rudeness and over billing--but SW Bell had all of these traits going for them so I didn't have to prioritize my sensitivity.) So basically... I gave up on them and went back to 56k....
Quote:

so quit your bitching and deal with it

Maybe you should stop reading (or not reading, as the case seems to be) my threads so you won't have to bitch about my bitching? (See the column that says "Thread Starter"? That's how you know it's me. Clicking on threads started by me is not mandatory and replying to them certainly is not.

 

[fredpb]

Hey kelly:

My local incompetents are my cable company. I have had three, as I am in a condo community and the condo commandos are very nasty to the cable company (happily). The people they send out are just, well, unbelievably incompetent. I have two horror stories that I won't bore you guys with.

But my DSL support also have their head in a dark, stinky place.
I use their equipment....a modem, but use my own router. They won't even talk to me unless I remove the router and install their crappy connection software. Yech.

But (knock on wood) I have had no problems really. My connection is fine and I have some test sites I use to monitor it's condition.

I had to wait for years for it. My audiobook downloads would take 12 hours! So I had a second telephone line installed for my computer. Guess what? The new line would only go to 24kbps, not 56k like the original one! What a pain. I would check on the net for FastAccess every so often. My original line does still not qualify for DSL, as it is a LONG copper line. But

my NEW line, the slow one, was a short copper line to some box outside, and it qualified for DSL. So to Keep DSL I have to keep the second line.
I could go with just one line, but I have so much faith in their incompetence that I know they would screw me somehow. So my two phones, Internet/DSL, and some options cost me $117 a friggen month!

But I love the fast connection. When I start to starve, then I will go to one line. I have three connections to my DSL line: my computer, one phone/answerer and my Tivo. That's it.

I love broadband. I will put up with alot to keep it.

 

[Mystyler]

You guys think you've got sucky broadband?
Check this out:
http://www.bigpond.com/broadband/pro...sl/pricing.asp
Halve the price for rough $USD.

And they wonder why we stick to dial up...

Tech support wouldn't know a modem from a keyboard.

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally posted by Mystyler You guys think you've got sucky broadband? Check this out: http://www.bigpond.com/broadband/pro...sl/pricing.asp Halve the price for rough $USD. And they wonder why we stick to dial up... Tech support wouldn't know a modem from a keyboard.

Ouch, you have it really bad down there! It's starting to go that route though regarding monthly usage in some areas in the States...if it happens here in New York, i can guarantee the majority of broadband subsribers will drop their service, including myself.

 

[fredpb]

Ref... www.bigpond.com reference.

WOW! If my DSL price goes up, DSL goes. I just can't afford that price.

If Bellsouth tried to extort that much money from me I would drop DSL, and my second phone line. That would reduce the bill I get from $117 a month to about $30 a month. Big drop. Now multiply that by thousands who will feel the same way if a big rate hike comes.......

Sounds like something modern managers would do.

 

[TaffyGuy]

oh, by cursing i meant $50 isn't expensive at all and its hard to avoid bad service.

mother of mercy i have to be more careful about who i hammer. or perhaps the decition making that goes along with hammering anyone.

in either case i'll once again apologise profusely.

 

[Mystyler]

At least cable is slightly cheaper, but still way to much $$.
Another Telco here, Optus, used to have the best cable service I have ever seen, but then all these restrictions and crap came in. Even so, they still have the best cable plans, IMO. They don't have DSL though, and they don't plan to roll out more cable.

Dial is pretty friggin expensive here too. My plan is $38.95/m with "unlimited" hours, but 450MB cap. Woooo, unlimited hours.

I might switch, but the changing of emails is a right royal pain in the arse.

 

[dparrish]

Kelly,

I gather that you have no digital cable in your area? I've had good results from my AT&T broadband (originally was @home).

Also, my dad recently had SBC (Southwestern Bell) DSL installed and he has had good results so far (since early summer).

My understanding from reading PC Mag, etc., is that alot of companies initially had quite a bit of trouble with DSL when it first came out, but that the "bugs" have gradually been worked out. You might have better success trying it now than 2 years ago.

Finally, if SBC can setup DSL in your area, why couldn't Verizon? I know that they offer DSL in the Dallas area. Perhaps their service might be more to your liking.

Considering the problems you and others have had with broadband or lack thereof, is it any wonder that the telecom industry is in shambles?

David

 

[Duncan]

Sorry to drag this thread up, but all you guys seem to either have, or have had DSL...

Just wondering what a good download speed is (having got it today)... I can muster an average of about 60kbps on a reported 512kbps connection... is this good?

Thanks

 

[akar]

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