Re: Choice of ISP

["Jerry Feldman-2" <user=4@nabble.blu.org>]

 On Sun, 01 Jun 2008 09:53:41 -0400 
David Kramer <[hidden email]> wrote: 

> I have SpeakEasy now, and love them, but my physical phone line has 
> become a big problem.  A few times a year we get heavy static, sometimes 
> so bad we don't get a dialtone.  Usually weather-based.  Verizon claims 
> it's in the house, I test at where it comes in to the house to prove 
> it's not, I try to convince them to get their butts out here to fix it, 
> and they do something that makes it go away for a while.  But this time 
> I've been without a home phone for close to two weeks, and we're done 
> with it.  It's too bad I need to ditch SpeakEasy in the process, but the 
> casualties of war, and all. 

This is a similar problem I had with Verizon for years until I dumped 
them. 
  
> So the choices as I see them are Comcast Business internet and phone 
> plan, or Verizon Business FiOS.  I would hate to lock myself into 
> another contract with Verizon, who is causing the problem in the first 
> place, but their internet is so much faster, and there are so many more 
> complaints about Comcast than Verizon on the net.  The other thing that 
> worries me about Comcast is that your bandwidth is shared by everyone in 
> your area, so a few hogs can drag your bandwidth down, and you have no 
> recourse, because there's no guaranteed speed. 

I personally have never had any problems with bandwidth, especially 
since Comcast took over from ATTBI. With the exception of the Newton 
outage that was a severed fibre cable, I had not had an outage for 
years. The shared bandwidth has been a fud for years. In the case of 
cable, you share essentially an ethernet to the head end where you 
connect to fibre. I used to have the ratio, but I don't know what 
Comcast's ratios are. With FIOS or DSL you have a bandwidth to the CO, 
but at that point you share with everyone else.  Today, you can do a 
bit better price wise with FIOS as well as better upside bandwidth. As 
far as complaints, I think you need to factor in that Comcast is 
national, and Verizon is regional. Comcast certainly is an elephant, 
and both Verizon and Comcast customer service droids can be clueless. 
Here is the speed test result I just ran from Speakeasy, NYC: 

Last Result: 
Download Speed: 29899 kbps (3737.4 KB/sec transfer rate) 
Upload Speed: 2704 kbps (338 KB/sec transfer rate) 

Comcast has a speedboost, that can give you some extra bandwidth for a 
short time, but a sustainable 3Mbps on a residential line is pretty 
common. Upside is also lower. 

As far as phone, when I switched to Comcast Digital Phone, I got a 
phone line that was clear as a bell. I now have Digital Voice, and it 
is just as clear.   

On the downside of Comcast, nearly everyone I know in Waltham who had 
their service (or ATTBI or Mediaone) had problems. Also, I don't know 
if you can get a static IP with Comcast business, but I think you can. 

-- 
-- 
Jerry Feldman <[hidden email]> 
Boston Linux and Unix 
PGP key id: 537C5846 
PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB  CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846 
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