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General discussion

ISP recommendation

Mar 20, 2007 7:01AM PDT

I use a mac. On that premise I subscribed to earthlink as my ISP because they are mac friendly. I have been with earthlink since 2000. They have been good to me, very few downtimes. I currently pay $39.95 for dsl (1.5 mb up/384 k down). I am looking for something better that could be out there. I want something reliable and fast, faster than what I have. I wouldn't mind paying $10 above what I currently pay. I checked out AT&T dsl and it looks good.

IP Address: 1 Dynamic
Downstream Speed: 3.0 to 6.0 Mbps
Upstream Speed: 512 to 768 Kbps

All that for $34.99 (they do charge you for the modem $80, minus a rebate for $50, so you end up paying $30 for it). What can you guys recommend that is good?

Discussion is locked

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A fact. . .
Mar 20, 2007 10:34PM PDT

They all use your local phone company facilities. All of them. The phone company is the only company that has the wire and cable in the ground and in the air. All ISPs lease the facilities from the phone company. They all use the phone company's equipment in the central office, specifically the DSLAM. They all use the phone company's facilities connecting to the Internet.

When you use anyone except your local phone company you are paying them to lease the equipment and facilities. They are simply a reseller.

If it was me, I'd use the phone company. They have total control and responsibility for the network. When things break, the resellers refer the problem to guess who?

Is cable available?

Wayne

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Yes, there is also cable
Mar 21, 2007 1:39AM PDT

Cable is also available. Back in the dawn of the ISPs, I was told that DSL was faster than cable but now you hear almost everywhere that cable is faster than DSL. Is this true? Did something change? So, because Earthlink (in my case) leases the local phone company's (AT&T--used to be PacBell) network, that's the reason they are able to offer a better deal (like the one I posted)? I want something fast, affordable, reliable, and rather inexpensive. That's all. Thanks. (Did I mention I use a mac? They have to be mac friendly too.)

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Comcast.
Mar 21, 2007 5:07AM PDT

I have had Comcast HSI since they took over At Home and AT&T and the service is great.
I am on the gold tier for $52.95 a month and this mornings speed test show 21052 kb/s down and 1588kb/s up. I also ran a download from Microsoft and had 1.24MG per second down. Those speeds are because of "powerboost" which is very fast for the first 20 or so megs and then backs off to the advertised speeds
I think the lower tier is $42.95 which is 6 mg down and 384kb/s up. That is if you have their TV service otherwise it is higher.
I am in Washington state and they just doubled the upload speed last night, but don't know if that is in all states yet.
Great service and have not had one outage in 6 years.

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And no telephone???
Mar 21, 2007 6:13AM PDT

And with cable, you don't need a telephone line, right? Which is another plus, I guess, for me, since I hardly ever use my phone (land) line. The only reason I keep it is to use my DSL. So, I'd be saving more money by getting rid of my phone ($33/mo).

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True
Mar 21, 2007 7:11AM PDT

You do not need a phone line with cable.
I disconnected my land line which saved me $35.00 a month and only use my cell phone now.

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Standard cable. . .
Mar 21, 2007 9:57AM PDT

I get around 6.7 Meg down and around 485K up. Suffices for me. 95% of all servers cannot distribute anywhere near that speed.

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I agree
Mar 21, 2007 11:12PM PDT

The only servers I have come across that will handle the higher speed is Microsoft, HP and Adobe. I am sure there are some more, but most servers don't have that big of pipe.
One example is Nero, it took 2 3/4 hours to download their upgrade for Nero 7 and that was at 3:00AM.