(no subject)

[felicula]

I'm curious.

mechanchaos and I are considering our options for high-speed internet. I'm interested in hearing any opinions. Do you like cable internet better? Do you swear by DSL? What do you think the pros and cons of either are? What companies do you have experiences with? What companies take a straw to every nearest anus and what companies go above and beyond to provide for their customers? I'd like to thank you in advance for sharing and helping us muddle through the piles of hype to figure out what sounds best for us.

Comments

[abyssmalloner.livejournal.com]

I'm partial to Road Runner, but that's just me. The price is decent, and the speed is well worth the price. I haven't had much experience with any other high speed providers, though. :(

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

How much do you pay for yours?

[abyssmalloner.livejournal.com]

$44.95, but I also get cable, so that brings it up to roughly 96 a month.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info.

[dawnstar.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I don't think either is better than the other. We've always used cable, and had very few problems with it. You have to be willing to wheel and deal, somewhat, I think, in order to get a decent price. The going rate for RR is $45, but we're paying $30 because they were willing to match the price Frontier offered us, in order to not lose us as customers. I'm very rarely disappointed with our decision to stay with TimeWarner - occasionally there are outages, but they're infrequent and generally fixed quickly.

[coderlemming.livejournal.com]

Hands down, the best residential internet provider I've ever had is Speakeasy. They cost a bit more than others, but that cost comes back with interest in the way they treat their customers. I have only rarely seen any unscheduled downtime, EVER, and in both cases I can remember, it was dealt with quickly.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

Do you mind if I ask what other providers you've had experiences with? I'm curious about the ones that didn't work out as well as the one that did. :)

[coderlemming.livejournal.com]

Verizon, comcast, and various dialup stuff. Pretty much, with any provider, I hear people having random downtime or slowdowns, and with speakeasy, it just doesn't happen.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the information!

[phoenixsong]

I was fairly happy with TimeWarner.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember you had a rocky time with some form of internet. Am I remembering correctly? If so, I was wondering who that was with and what the issue was.

[phoenixsong]

I started out with Netzero's dial-up when I moved out of your place, and eventually bought their "unlimited" dial-up plan. After a few months downloading from Audiogalaxy with that, I got a letter one day saying "ooops, there's been too much traffic for us to keep offering the unlimited plan, we're dropping you to something ridiculous like 4 hours a month." At which point I panicked, re-evaulated my finances, and decided cable was worth it to avoid that kind of hassle in the future.

Things may have in fact improved for DSL users, I have no idea how Frontier is, but I remember hearing horror stories about how flaky DSL can be compared to cable. I think now when that happens, it has to do with being sold a DSL modem & package, with all sorts of assurances that you're in a service area, only to find days or weeks later that you're not, and then fighting for a refund. (lite had that issue with Verizon down here -- they're notorious for pulling that, apparently.) With DSL, you have to be within a particular distance -- I want to say 3000 ft or so -- of a particular access point to get an Internet signal over a phone line. With cable, there are no distance-related restrictions.

If you're considering Frontier at all, ask your neighbors if they've tried it and if they've had any connectivity problems.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

Ahh. I didn't remember that the kerfluffle was with Netzero. Sorry about that. Thanks for the DSL warnings!

[evilkinggumby.livejournal.com]

ec woodburn is right, there is restrictions for dsl to work properly and carry a proper digital signal. the benefit is you can run it off existing lines in the house and be on the phone while on the internet with no additional wires to run blah blah(so if yer pc is already by a phone jack yer prety solid) the downside is it may not be available at all, and even some of the fastest bandwidth rates for dsl is typically paltry compared to Roadrunner/cable modems.

I have used both, most of what I used was Roadrunner, which i found far faster & easer. likely problems you can have is collisions(have to unplug/replug cable modem, woopie) anmd old cable lines. My mother's house was outfitted with 2 sets of cables for the house, the original wiring and a newer wire designed to support digital signals if necessary. running RR off the old line produced a lot of connectivity issues. the newer line worked good(tho they had to actually turn the signal strength down at the pole.. they were sending a signal designed to be split to like.. a whole high school to our 1 house) .

The other likely gripe with roadrunner is supposedly the more people that are on in a given area, the less bandwidth you can get because you're all competing. I've talked to a number of people and most often it seems not a real issue, or kinda "iffy" in validity. i did notice bandwidth difference between one friens houe and another, but, that may be for other reasons.

and with rr ya dont' have to install anythign in the pc since it uses a external cable modem. :) You don't have to dial in, yer always connected(which i think dsl can do now too.. ferget) Of course.. time warner and their service is always a gripe. they suck. hands down. :) so do yerself a favor.. never have to call them lol.

[phoenixsong]

I don't know if their PC has a network card in it already, but if not, they do have USB connections they can use. However, when I was supporting network cards, it seemed like people generally got better connectivity using a NIC than USB. YMMV.

DSL is generally sold as always on as well, but there might still be a login that has to authenticate -- depends on the ISP, I would guess. Cable modems act pretty much like a LAN jack in comparison -- nearly plug 'n' play connectivity.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

We've got a secondhand ShuttleX these days. I know we have a wireless network card for it, and it looks like some built in network stuff too. It's got tons of USB in front and back too. Funky little machine the size of a toaster.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, mechanchaos is more the computer guy in the house these days. I've been focusing more on my studies for school, my gifted education studies, and taking care of Aidan than keeping up with our technology. I'm such an end user... ***shrugs***

[phoenixsong]

Just Googled ShuttleX -- neat!

OK, if it's got an on-board NIC, you should be fine for either cable or DSL -- shut down, plug everything in, turn on modem, wait for the flashing lights to stop, then boot the PC.

If you wanted to use the wireless, you'd have to purchase a wireless router in addition to the broadband connection. On the other hand, wireless routers also generally have non-wireless RJ-45 jacks too, so if at some point you wanted to expand the network (say, adding internet to Aidan's computer, or a server PC for storing data seperately), you'd be ahead of the game.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

Double-checked via mechanchaos - yep, onboard NIC. I sincerely doubt our finances could support buying a wireless router in addition to setup / monthly costs for broadband. To be honest, affording broadband is somewhat shaky for us too. Thing is, I'm getting tired of sharing an aol account with my folks. That means we'll likely have to get some form of ISP of our own. We've been on dialup for a long time, and I'd like to be able to move up in the world, connectivity-wise. It may just be a pipe dream, but I'm doing the research anyway.

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the info!

[dustkitten.livejournal.com]

We have Comcast. I dunno if that's up there. It's $57/month with basic cable. We haven't really had any problems.

-A-

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

I checked out their site. They're not local for us. Thanks for the info anyway. I'm interested in learning as much as I can, so even knowing what's not around helps.

[gray-wolf.livejournal.com]

All depends on where you are and what's available really. When I was in Houston, I was on DSL. Didn't much like it. But that was houston.

Been using road runner for years, and it's probably the safest bet in the Greater Rochester area. Dedicated network, good support, plenty of options. Plus cable. And it's pretty easy to get and setup. Plus if you guys need a router, I have one I can sell ya good and cheap. ^_^

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info. We'll get in touch if we're looking into a router. :)