After returning from a week away, I discovered that my phone line was fried. After getting that fixed, I discovered that my modem was fried.
It was enough. Fed up with waiting for Bell Sympatico to bring DSL to my phone line, I called Rogers and signed up for a cable modem and high-speed service. The installer came this morning, hokked up the cable and activated the modem. I plugged it in to the computer and loaded the software and signed on. I reconfigured my email forwarding through my personal domain, so people don’t even have to change the address they send to!
3 megabits per second for CAD 44.95 per month! Gonna tire out the hamsters! w00t!
Just one question–does Rogers have a Usenet news server?
Thanks, astro. Rogers tech support pointed me to their news server–it was completely not mentioned on their Yahoo-branded help pages, and had an extremely not-obvious URL–but I should be careful of bandwidth and quantity caps, and may go with Giganews eventually.
So, Sunspace, you mean I’ll have to type real slow so you can catch it as it goes zooming through your computer at high speed?
I’m going to have to get high speed someday. I’m tired of going to the zoo and watching the turtles speeding by. Seriously, maybe I’ll get it when I get a machine that can justify the use of high speed–my current machine seems to do everything slowly, and I don’t think high speed would make much of a difference.
Good to hear that you got what you needed–and that they would send out the tech on Sunday morning too!
BTW, did anyone notice how closely the title “I’m on high-speed” resembles “I’m high on speed” ? Or is it just me who can’t seem to read the subjects correctly?
When my wife and I got our first computer, 5 years ago, there was no cable internet in Tallahassee. We were stuck on dialup from the local newspaper’s ISP, which was a division of Infinet, which was later bought out by Earthlink. Both services sucked, and their tech support people were surly and condescending.
Across the street from us was FSU, where you could go to the main library and go on the web on their T1 lines. This was so much better, that I actually called Comcast and said, “on the day when you get cable internet, please call us. We’ll buy it.” Months later, they did. We switched, and that was it. I’d never go back to dialup for any reason.
So welcome to the world of high-speed internet! Fasten your seatbelt!
Oh, it is so much better now. Downloading files far faster than you can deal with them… and I didn’t even get the Ultra-expensive Top-of-the-line Package! That would have been 5 megabits per second.
Giganews looks really good, but I wonder whether one can pay by other than credit card?
<net.geezer mode>
I remember when we upgraded to 19,200 bits per second phone-line modems… wow we thought that was fast… of course, I wasn’t on the web yet. This was at the end of the BBS era around 1994, and image files were still something you described, rather than sent.
If you give them access to your bank account, they’ll just make the payment deduction when you’ve used up your allotment of gigs and start the cycle anew. You MUST make sure you always have enough in your account to cover it, otherwise you’ll pay the Giganews fee and the NSF fee. You never know when you’ve hit your limit and you never know when they’ve made a withdrawal from your account. They’ve done that to me about five times now, taking the cash after all our bills had just been paid out of the account and it was real low for a few days. Other than that, I have no complaints about them at all.
Sunspace, don’t bother with a pay News Server unless you’re looking for something specific. The NGs with Rogers is excellent (for a free service) and there is no cap (that I’ve hit, and I’ve done well over 25 gigs a month).
And Sunspace, your “new” modem should be 5 Mbit. Unlike Bell, Roger’s 5 Mbit service is dependant on your modem, not what you pay. As long as you didn’t get the “light” version, you’re fine.
If you want, test your connection (Google for “broadband speed test”) and check. I get 3.5-4.0 down with Rogers from where I am while when I tested Bell’s service I got 3.0 down (and I work for Bell and can get it cheap but I like Rogers better -shh, don’t tell them that ).
Cool, badmana! I did notice a lot more NGs onn the Rogers server than on Bell.
I realised after a couple of hours that in the first flush of excitement, I’d downloaded over half a gig of stuff from the newsgroups, so I thought I’d better throttle back. Of course, having to sleep, go to work, etc, got in the way too. I’ll check out the speed test when I get home.
fishbicycle, Canadian debit cards are part of the national banking system and are NOT branded with Visa or Mastercard; they are not accepted at the same websites that take Visa or Mastercard. I wish I could get a prepaid card that would work in the same places as a credit card. But that’s another thread.
Well, that totally sucks! I’m sorry my suggestions haven’t been any good. How about if you go to their webpage and click on “Contact Us” and ask them what payment methods are acceptable from Canada? Mention that you would like to arrange an alternate to credit card payment. At least you’ll find out what options you have.
Downloading files far faster than you can deal with them… and I didn’t even get the Ultra-expensive Top-of-the-line Package! That would have been 5 megabits per second.
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