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Ok, I've given in to the 21st century: I'm getting DSL. (I'm not a total ludite -- just mostly -- but for work reasons I used to need to dial in, so I hadn't bothered with DSL.) I was going to just go with earthlink, because I've been using them (and previously mindspring) for about 10 years and I tend to stick with the service providers I know. But then I realized maybe I should ask around b/c there might be better options.
So, who are the best DSL providers for Berkeley(lud)ites? Not interested in wireless or cable, just DSL as fast as I can get it, and because it's for work it has to be reliable service. I also need something that provides at least a limited dial-up option for "emergency" purposes.
Don't get me wrong, I'll be said to get rid of the tin can phone set up, but ...
Thanks!
So, who are the best DSL providers for Berkeley(lud)ites? Not interested in wireless or cable, just DSL as fast as I can get it, and because it's for work it has to be reliable service. I also need something that provides at least a limited dial-up option for "emergency" purposes.
Don't get me wrong, I'll be said to get rid of the tin can phone set up, but ...
Thanks!
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 10:03 AMI just use AT&T/Yahoo! DSL (or whatever it's called this week). It's cheap, fast, and I never have problems with it.
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 10:46 AMI highly suggest Comcast HSI (High Speed Internet)
DSL is sooo dman slow it might as well be dial up.
Comcast HSI is about 4meg download at its lowest tier and 6 meg. Solid speeds.
DSL if you're lucky you get about 1.5 meg or so.
Trust me on this, with DSL you will be sorry. -
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 10:55 AManother downfall of DSL.
You HAVE to have a LAN line adding a good $40+ to your bill on top of the cost of DSL.
Cable is no LAN line and a flat rate. $59 without cable, $49 if you already have cable.
I work for a Comcast contractor so I will say there are plenty of offers and my bill is always about $19 or $29 at most.
$19 offers are so frequent I set those up most of the time.
DSL, must connect every time, slow, lots of down time, IP always changing unsteady speeds depending on your phone wires, how far you are from a substation and how many people in your hood.
Comcast always contacted, reliable, minimal downtime (twice in 4 years for me), steady high speeds, IP doesnt harldey ever change (might be important for a business).
Q&A.
Comcast:
Do I work for Comcast, no a contractor. Do I like them? No they piss me off a lot. Will your technician be late, probably. Do I get commission? Hell no. Would I recommend them perocnaly. No.
But the service yes, top notch.
DSL:
I know nothing about if your tech will be on time or how the install will go, I do know the service sucks. My aunt does work for them and she is not happy with her free DSL. -
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 11:20 AM>You HAVE to have a LAN line adding a good $40+ to your bill on top of the cost of DSL.
Huh? You have to have a phone line, yes. But there's a $5 a month plan for people who don't actually use the "home" phone. I am happy to have mine, even though I don't use it, in case of emergencies when the cell towers are out.
There isn't installation, as far as I'm aware. You receive the DSL box-thingie in the mail. Plug it in. Install DSL filters on any phone lines in your house. And there you go.
I've never had problems with my DSL speed, I can watch streaming video, etc etc, download things pretty rapidly. Sure, it's no T1, but you don't have to wait for it to be installed, and you won't have Comcast badgering you to get "service bundles" with their evil TV or whatever. -
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 11:54 AMyeah you can do HSI only, I dont bother with the TV crap on my bill either. Not saying it doesnt work ;)
And yes the $5 a month thing I thought was for certain income levels. and I meant Land line not LAN (Local Area Network) lol.
I guess DSL isnt na issue if you dont mind.
I download tons of m*vi*s in DV* format. Speed is a must.
Not to mention I play XBOX Live and other online games.
You can all check your speed here at www.dslreports.com/stest
Let me know what you get
We have DSL here at work (SUCKS ASSSSSS) because there is no Comcast HSI in Marina Village.
I have 600k down, not even half a meg with DSL. I guess we're far from a substation or every business in this place is on DSL cause their is no Cable.
Everything is slow as hell. I am used to my speeds at home that kick major ass.
Also with DSL you can only upload at about 12-20k on average.
I up at 40k from home.
If someone else is surfing while I am using our remote desktop here I slow to a crawl.
Two thumbs down for DSL. -
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 12:30 PMIt really depends on what DSL service you get. They are not created equal! I have DSL through DSLExtreme. The service is excellent. I get 1.6Mbit download speed day or night -- and my upgraded upload speed is 190 kilobytes/sec, way better than almost any cable service. Another company, Speakeasy DSL, also offers "OneLink" which includes VoIP and does NOT require you get a phone line from the phone company.
DSL can be better for people who want to access their home network from elsewhere, run a server, etc -- you can get a a real static IP and you are allowed to run servers/services (Comcast usage agreement says you can't do any server type stuff and occasionally tries to block you, which is annoying).
For the average consumer, there isn't much difference between cable and midrange DSL, and in some cases cable internet works out as a better deal especially if they are getting their TV and/or phone service on the same wire.
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 1:41 PMVia the speed test, I got:
-1804 kbps download
-393 kbps upload.
I'm on "pacbell.net"/sbcglobal.net/whateverthehell dot net it is these days, aka AT&T Yahoo DSL. -
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 1:42 PMwww.dslreports.com/im/23516865/6405.png <- that's the little linkything they gave me as reference -
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 5:30 PMfrom home on Comcast lowest tier cable.
www.dslreports.com/im/23534002/3184.png
4 meg.
Vs my 600k from works DSL -
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 6:15 PMEarthlink is HELL, just pure hell, to get customer service from if you ever have problems. I had DSL through Speakeasy which meant that there was at least a real human at the company when there were problems, and that was a lot better than when I had Earthlink, even though Speakeasy provides someone else's technology.
We currently have Unwired LTD which has odd outages occasionally, but they're good on service as well. More expensive than cable or DSL I think as there's an equipment rental fee. At my current house we had trouble with the phone lines leading to the house so thats why we had to switch away from Speakeasy, otherwise they were great.
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 6:51 PMMy Comcast cable seems to be quite a bit faster:
<a href="speedtest.dslreports.com"><img border=0 src="</a>" title="www.dslreports.com/im/23539..."></a>">www.dslreports.com/im/23539..."></a>
(6930, 360)
I liked Speakeasy when I used them, a bit pricey though... -
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 6:52 PMsorry for the f'ed up url:
www.dslreports.com/im/23539289/37301.png -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Wed, February 7, 2007 - 9:36 AMyes this is the next tier, much faster. You can download a movie in less then the time it takes to watch it at full speed!
because I have HSI only without "video" I get the 4 meg tier which is still faster than any DSL around.
Also no contracts ever with comcast. Quit when you want.
They also offer the CDV (Comcast Digital Voice) now. Dunno bout it, I love my cell. Metro and it has never gone out of service or down. -
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Wed, February 7, 2007 - 11:49 AMI'm not sure where you're getting you're information. The AT&T/Yahoo Elite service offers up to 6Mbps for 34.95/month. That's faster than your 4meg tier. I use the pro service, and regularly get close to the 4meg level, even though I'm only supposed to get "up to 3". The up speeds don't quite compare, but I'm pretty sure I usually get over 756k. I'm close to a CO, which definitely helps. I very rarely have any outages, and it is always connected.
Just seems like some of your anti-DSL bias is based on older info/experiences, as well as a crappy connection at your office. Another thing to take into consideration is that all the Cable users are sharing a connection, so if suddenly 40 people in your neighborhood sign up, your speed could go down drastically (this may be old info by now too...I know it was still true a year or so ago). With DSL, nobody else will ever interfere with your speed.
*shrug* I think it all boils down to ways you use it, people who do want/need land lines, and what you can get to work best in your area. =)
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Wed, February 7, 2007 - 11:17 AMI have AT&T DSL and just did the test (to 3 different sites in order to verify consistency) and got:
2465Kb up / 410Kb down
Plenty fast for everything I do, and I only pay $20/month (I have to have a land line anyway for work). -
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Wed, February 7, 2007 - 11:36 AMit's a gamble. our AT&T at work is only 600k down.
Depends on how far from the substation and how many subscribers in your area.
We also went down for over an hour yesterday. Was a nice break from actually working.
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 12:20 PM -
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Tue, February 6, 2007 - 8:51 PMFirst, I just have to point out that it says something about all of us that my question about DSL generated more discussion than the thread about meeting up in real life ;-)
Second, thanks for all the responses. It was helpful to hear who people are using and how it's going. I hadn't even considered comcast, since I don't have cable (or a TV) and would maintain a landline for emergency purposes anyway.
I have to agree that my limited experiences with Earthlink customer service have not been great -- it was a clear change in quality from when it was mindspring, way back when. On the other hand, I have almost never needed to contact them over the course of many years. I guess that's the main thing for me -- I want the product to be good enough and reliable enough that I don't know how the customer service is because I never need it!
And, for a good laugh, since I already admitted to dial-up, I tested my speed:
29Kbps download, 25 Kbps upload
Now, I'm having fantasies about claims of 6.0Mbps ... omg, what would I do with all the time I save??? -
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Wed, February 7, 2007 - 10:03 AM"... omg, what would I do with all the time I save??? "
here's what: video.google.com/videoplay
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Thu, February 8, 2007 - 10:47 AMI had Speakeasy and they sucked. Went down all the time and charged us a couple hundred bucks to come out and take a look. Went down less after that, but still several times a day.
and the tech told us that the service they were charging us for was unavailable in our area, so they were giving us basic service and charging us for premium.
and yeah, it was way too expensive.
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Thu, February 8, 2007 - 6:19 PMIlike my SBC DSL or ATT Dsl I think it's now called.
I had a friend who switched temporarily to Earthlink and had MANY problems.
I had Earthlink dial-up for many years.. in the last year.. I got SOOOO much spam I became disgusted and chose never to return to their service.
I would be very wary of Earthlink.
In the last two weeks I have had some problems with SBC ( ATT yahoo etc) but up to then none at all. Tribe however, is always painfully slow.
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Re: Best/Worst DSL around?
Fri, February 9, 2007 - 10:33 AMIf you can afford it, go with Comcast. During off-peak hours, my link gets close to 8mb/sec on the download. It is more reliable and, frankly, is not tied to your phone line...so if you want to ditch your land phone, you can. If you cannot afford it, SBC has a beginning plan that is only $15/month for a one-year agreement. That is not a bad deal and the performance is acceptable. If you can, get a cheap router so that you don't have to use the stupid DSL connection method that most DSL providers use for basic customers...basically, it act like modem software and is annoying as heck on a PC if any problem arises with that connection software.
