So I’m annoyed by AT&T raising prices on my phone line, my current dial-up ISP through a university is weak, and overall, I’m deciding that it’s time to kick it up a notch on the intar-web.
If I can find a company that will bundle high-speed internet access with a phone landline, all the better. (Digital cable doesn’t really interest me, but make an argument, I’ll listen to it.)
So here’s my question New York Dopers-- what do you use to get online, how much does it cost you, and would you recommend it?
And if you don’t live in New York, but you use a national company that’s available here, please post!
We use Verizon DSL and haven’t had any troubles with it. Because our phone service is provided by Verizon (and we also use them for our cell phones) we get a bundling discount.
They offer a certain number of dial-up hours per month when we travel for a small extra fee, and the modem was free, and there is no additional fee or cost to have multiple computers on our home network.
I have Verizon and I love it. It’s fast, nearly always trouble free and inexpensive.
My previous ISP was Comcast. They sucked. The service was out at least a day or two every other month, they doubled my bill in less than three years and they had the nerve to constantly telemarket my house to beg us to use their cable service.
Yeah that makes sense. :rolleyes: You do a lousy job with my ISP so why don’t I just let you take over a few other functions. They were arrogant bastards and I’m glad we’re rid of them.
I use Adelphia, which I think is available in NY, and I love it. I pay about 90 a month for my cable TV and my Internet, and never have problems with it. That 90 will drop a lot as soon as I cancel the cable package we have. It’s great, but we just don’t watch it so there’s no use having it.
We installed the net setup ourself and did a lot of stuff wrong, so it kept going on the blink. Called Adelphia for help and they sent someone out to rig it up properly free of charge. Love 'em. However, they don’t do phone service that I know of – only cable TV and Internet.
We have Comcast TV and cable internet service. I’d complain about them, but they’re the only game in town. The TV signal is rock solid. OTOH, the net goes down at random, and it comes down the same wire. The only alternative is something slower, and we’re not interested in going backwards.
We looked into Verizon DSL because a friend had highly recommended it, but we weren’t eligible at the time. I think it had something to do with copper phone wires vs. non-copper ones. Anyway, keep in mind we live in the Wilds of Brooklyn. Verizon will be able to tell you if that’s a potential problem for you.
So, we ended up going with Time Warner Cable, and we love it! Nary a problem! It’s funny how these things work out – we didn’t have cable TV, so hadn’t really considered cable internet, but then there was 9/11 and we couldn’t get regular TV, which was a little unsettling, so we became cable subscribers.
I use my work access for all my email, web hosting, stuff like that, so I can’t speak to any of those features that Time Warner provides with their service. They do offer those things as part of the package, but I’ve never explored them.
Every once in a while, I’ve checked back with Verizon and a few months ago, the problematic non-copper wire lines were upgraded. In theory, we could use DSL now, but we’re so happy with cable that we’re not going to switch.
I’m not sure what this is a vote for. The Verizon DSL did come with a strong recommendation.
Another vote for Verizon, I have had them since the offered DSL w/ free dialup as a backup and travel. Now they charge a bit more for it. As stated you can bundel services together to save a few $$$'s. And my experence w/ Ver cust service has been excelent, they make it a point to not leave you hanging, and don’t blame it on ‘your’ computer.
I’ve got Comcast cable - Total TV + Net bill = $ 65.00
TV 20 a minth basic tier: Hate their TV end. Increasingly restrictive basic tier service policy of jamming the low tier of service to get them to upgrade has now taken it down to about 10 channels because I refuse to pay 45 a month just for TV. They are testing the mimimits of how crappy they can make low end service.
Cable Internet 45 month: Love the cable internet even though it's expensive @ 45 a month. Rarely goes down and I’m next to the local college so I’ve got the fattest of fat pipes feeding my street. Sometimes the rate I can get data still surprises me, and I’ve had this for a few years now.
Time Warner Road Runner service here. Pretty zippy (just ran a test and I’m at 2438 Kbps) haven’t had too many problems on the whole, though there have been a few.
We had SBC phone service for the longest time, and never had a problem. AT&T was before that, they kept raising the prices without adding any perks or anything. When we got the computer, we just added DSL internet service through SBC. There was a problem this week with one of the lines shorting out, but that was with the house line, not the company lines, and they came out the same day we called and fixed it free of charge. So needless to say, I like them. The internet service is SBC Yahoo, which also comes with free web space, even though I bought a different package.
I can’t say anything about anyone else, I haven’t thought about trying anyone else, but the service I get now is great. My two cents.
I use Adelphia cable modem in South Florida, and although there were some rough spots at first it’s been quite fast and reliable for a while.
I lost all services because of two hurricanes this year, and the cable modem was up as soon as the power came back on, I think both times. (I suppose a lot of the cable is underground, which would make it less affected by the winds though)
Cable through Insight. Highly recommend it: total downtime in 18 months is less than 6 hours, cumulative. When I have had problems with the cable tv, they have sent someone out, even on weekends, quickly and the problems have been fixed.
Total for digital cable+ internet = $80/month.
