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December 26, 2008 at 6:35 pm #589220
lonelyicefloeMemberI am looking to get new internet service. At the moment, I have Clearwire, which works OK, but the speed isn’t consistent. I don’t have a home phone, and don’t want to pay for one. I don’t have cable TV, and don’t have a TV to watch it on if I got it. Any recommendations?
December 26, 2008 at 6:42 pm #652125
flowerpetalMemberI’ve been very happy with my Comcast connection. I too do not have t.v. or cable. I loathe those.
December 26, 2008 at 7:02 pm #652126
mayjuneMemberWe’ve been okay with Comcast, too, which we’ve had since March. No problems at all. We had Qwest DSL at our old house in north Seattle, and no problems there either (until we disconnected service, and had a disagreement with Qwest about the terms of our service with them).
December 26, 2008 at 7:59 pm #652127
KenParticipantWhat are you trying to do? Game? Choose dsl or comcast and don’t hook up a phone or a tv to it. The signal has to ride something to get to your house.
Clearwire varies due to shared load and RF pollution.
If you are not gaming, then speed should mean very little on either dsl or cable.
December 26, 2008 at 8:27 pm #652128
kathyMemberI just added Comcast dsl and telephone to my cable service. Their DSL speeds are doubling, so they say. I’m very happy with the whole package. I used speakeasy and Qwest for telephone in the past.
December 26, 2008 at 9:40 pm #652129
flowerpetalMemberI’d be happy to hear how Comcast works out for phone service. Did they cut you a deal Kathy for getting both of those services?
December 26, 2008 at 10:21 pm #652130
lonelyicefloeMemberWe need speed. Not gaming, but lots of downloads and plenty of uploading. I do a lot of work from home and demand fast internet. While it doesn’t need to be lightening, I need better than DSL if possible. I have been disappointed with DSL speeds in the past.
December 26, 2008 at 10:37 pm #652131
kcMemberMy husband and I both work from home, with heavy internet usage, and comcast has been fast and dependable. Issues with connectivity are infrequent – I would say short outages, often with weather, about once a month. We live near Morgan Junction.
December 26, 2008 at 10:39 pm #652132
kathyMemberflowerpetal – I’m generally happy with the phone service. I noticed a little static/disturbance one time, but 98% of the time, I couldn’t tell the difference. The telephone line is run on the fiber optic lines. They advertise that packaging is cheaper. I’m waiting for my first bill.
December 26, 2008 at 10:55 pm #652133
flowerpetalMemberThanks. If you remember when you get your first bill, let us know if it is what you expected for a month of service.
December 27, 2008 at 12:40 am #652134
valvashonParticipantWe have Earthlink cable internet powered by Comcast. It is 45.95 a month, $7 or so cheaper than the stand alone (no TV or phone) option provided by Comshaft. Quite happy with it. Plus you get the Weather Channel and the Cable Access Channel #77. They don’t filter those out.
December 27, 2008 at 2:50 am #652135
KenParticipantok then we have enough info to make a recommendation.
Comcast sucks on many levels. Those may or may not be the levels you need but one thing is for sure. You will get better upload speeds via dsl than via comcast or clearwire. Comcast also feels it can dictate what ports can carry what traffic and what applications can be used on specific ports.
The basic cheap DSL via qwest is damn near asymmetrical as of a few weeks ago. (upload is aprox 1m now as compared to the 896 it was pegged at for most of the last year.) Also note, unless you have your own dedicated server on a high bandwidth host, you cannot reliably determine your upload rate. Some test sites do a pretty good job of testing upload spped under ideal conditions, but ideal conditions are rare.
Also note, pretty much any random ISP will give you as good a basic service as any other (possibly earthlink excepted) and will not intrude onto your life with a heavy hand like comcast.
For those who need handholding and cute branded browsers, earthlink and AOL can feed that need. For those who need a basic connection you can do with whatever your level of expertise will allow, choose one of those that do not advertise.
I use accretive technology and Wolfenet since I used to work there and have the cell phone number of the admins.
If you feel download speed is really more important after all, and you don’t intend to use servers on your connection or manage servers that are dependent on timely uploads, choose comcast.
December 27, 2008 at 7:01 pm #652136
AnonymousInactiveSince uploading is important to you, you should look at DSL instead of a cable modem. Your DSL speed will depend on your distance from a Central Switching Office, the quality of your copper phone line, and how much you are willing to pay. Qwest offers stand-alone DSL so you don’t have to pay for phone service (it costs $5/month more than if you had phone service).
Here is the important part: choose your own ISP instead of Qwest. I suggest Avvanta:
Avvanta has excellent anti-spam measures
http://www.avvanta.com/AdvancedSpamProtectionFAQ
and their main sysadmin is a regular on the Usenet newsgroup
news.admin.net-abuse.email
Avvanta is an all-Linux ISP. Of course they support Microsoft Windows, but there are people at Avvanta who are willing and able to help out with customers’ Linux computers.
You might even be able to wheedle a shell account from Avvanta along with your DSL service. Although they have not offered a shell account to new customers for quite some time, they are committed to maintaining shell accounts for existing shell account customers.
Disclaimer: I am merely a satisfied customer.
[Edit 12:32pm]
P.S. DSL is more properly known as ADSL, which stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Asymmetric means faster in one direction than the other; i.e. faster download than upload.
P.P.S. Check how spammy an ISP is at Spamhaus:
Enable cookies.
December 27, 2008 at 7:26 pm #652137
dhgParticipantComcast Business would provide you with the “right” to use a server and give you faster upload speeds but if you want to avoid all that, I’d recommend going with Speakeasy. They are local but they’ve done very well nationally (they have 7 network operating centers across the US). They offer dry dsl which is a phone line without a dial tone.
I’d stay away from Earthlink. Their customer service is very very poor. They promise things on the phone just to get you off the line but they do not keep their promises. Several people have paid me to switch them from Earthlink to another company.
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