ISP recommendations

Say somebody was going to change their 6 year ISP subscription. Anybody have any "They’re great"s or "Don’t go there"s?

Don’t go to AOL. Don’t go to NetZero (even Platinum).

I’m really happy with my ISP, which is very small and local. A living person answers the phone. When I send them an email, I get a personal response rather than a canned one.

That’s my experience. Smaller’s better.

Strange as this many sound, but I have Cox (but also have a cable modem) and I am impressed with their customer service, and very reasonable prices. Which may sound weird for a fairly large company. I have my modem on 24/7, and I rarely lose connections for more than a very short period of time (seconds), maybe 1-2 times a month.

May be just the local Cox office here in Omaha, but I would recommend it, assuming you get positive reviews from other Cox customers in your area (if they serve it).

Errrg. I’d avoid Earthlink: they’re doing everything they can to become the next AOL… and unfortunately, that includes a lot of the negative things. I’m glad I’m no longer with them.

Something that’ll help us give more accurate reccomendations: dial-up or broadband? Or would this ‘somebody’ :wink: want to know about all the possible options?


<< Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. >>

I’ve been using EarthLink for 2 years, first dialup and now Broadband, and I’ve had no problems, though I’ve heard some bad things about them.

As a warning, I don’t use the software they send you, I just write down the numbers and details, and then connect through a Windows connection.

I’ll second elshatan’s recommendation. I’ve been using Earthlink for over a year, not a problem with them.

Before that, I used a local company in South Carolina, which meant I had the great pleasure to stop by, pay my bill, and inhale the aroma of tobacco smoke and observe the heard of 19-year-olds running the company. Felt like a college student again.

Funny, none of that smoke seemed to affect the computers.

Even stranger, I have Cox as well and have had the same experience. The rates are pretty low for a cable modem and the connection has been virtually trouble free. The times I’ve had to call I’ve been able to speak to a human being over the phone after going through the menu and almost every time they were able to fix the problem over the phone.

I’m very satisfied with Speakeasy.net

A good DSL connection and their support service is excellent. Also, if you want to run a server such as apache on your own machine, they don’t mind provided bandwidth usage doesn’t get unreasonable. That also goes for things like game servers, something most other ISP’s frown heavily on. A number of them won’t even let you host a NWN game on your system cause that is a server function for instance.

Check cnet.com for isp recomendations - read user opinions. Look at the area you need to connect (travel and home).

I have verizon dsl which gives me access to dialup #'s for travel and backup but they no longer offer it to new customers. THe dialup service is pretty good w/ verizon - just your basic internet and email - just what a 6 yr net vet should want.

I’d check CNet too. Only two choices were available at my apartment, EarthLink DSL and AT&T Broadband, so that may narrow it down for you.