When I move next month, I’m getting broadband at the new place. I’m looking at SBC’s DSL or Time Warner’s Roadrunner (ie cable).
What are your opinions or experience with these? Which do you have or have you had? Are you happy with it? Why or why not? Are there issues that you didn’t think of ahead of time that bit you later?
I have a line of sight wireless connection with my ISP. I have a small antenna on my roof pointed at a water tank about three miles away where the ISP has their equipment. I’d recommend that you consider this if it’s offered in your area. I had DSL prior to getting the wireless connection.
I like it for two reasons. First, it is a rock solid connection, usually between 1 and 1.5 Mbps and I’ve never lost it, compared to the occasional loss of the DSL connection (once every 4 hours or so). The DSL would reconnect within a minute or so, but it was annoying to lose it. The second thing I like about it is that my service is provided by a dedicated ISP, not a phone or cable company. I can get broadband without having a phone line or a cable tv package.
I’ve had SBC DSL since last December and have never suffered any outages. Works great as far as I’m concerned. I was concerned about the SBC/Yahoo connection, I didn’t want anything to do with Yahoo (or any portal or whatever they are called), but they have decent music and the email filters work great. DSL Reports (I think) says I DL at 2.3Mbs.
I have SBC/Yahoo and I am very pleased with my service. I have not had any major signal problems and it is fast because we are close to a remote terminal. I do not use the connection software that you get with the service because I did not think it worked all that well so plan on getting a router. They are now offering a $14.95 connection for new subscribers in our area which is a good price considering that cable is $40.00.
I’m on Roadrunner here in San Diego, and happy with it, but…Roadrunner is not a single entity; each Time Warner cable franchise runs it’s own systems. So, I can’t speak to how well Roadrunner works where you will be moving to.
Due to that I’ll recommend going to Broadband Reports (which I am a member of) and poke around. There’s huge amounts of information available there. I’d guess one good way to get comments about the performance of Roadrunner in the area you’ll be moving to would be to go to the Roadrunner Forum, and post a question about it there.
Are these services being offered in areas with existing cable connections. I hate my cable company’s service mainly because of the exorbitant pricing, but I don’t wanna go DSL, so I"m very interested in alternatives.
Another happy Roadrunner customer. One experience I’ve had that I believe would apply nationally is their customer service.
I had an issue a couple months ago that was fixed before the service call was scheduled. When I went to cancel the service call, I wound up with their national (maybe regional??) tech desk. They got me back to the local people and connected me directly with a service rep. I’d expected to land in another queue, but I got to speak to a person immediately.
The customer service here is incredibly convenient. Their local office is open after business hours, so I was able to go and swap out a defective modem without having to leave work early. I’ve only been to their office twice (once for something related to the TV) and I’ve never had to wait long and their operation seems really efficient. The modem swap took maybe 30 seconds. I don’t really care for the way their phones are set up - the options aren’t as clear as they could be - but they’ve always been prompt and helpful and the local techs I’ve talked to have been very competent.
I’d definitely ask around about customer service for any services you’re considering.
GT
Thanks for all the tips. I will certainly check out the Broadband reports website.