Internet service

I won't mention company names but does anyone else have DSL from the phone company in the Dallas, PA area? Mine has been hanging up a lot lately, to the point I'm not going on the internet much from home. I noticed it started a couple of weeks ago after a big local storm. I called customer service and was told they weren't aware of any network problems yet some of my neighbors are having the same issue. Anybody else having this problem?

Bill, what does that service cost? I know Dan from the Fireplce Gallery mentioned somewhere in the neighborhood of $30? If so drop it and get cable, cost you little bit more but its much faster and I mean by a lot.

As far as getting disconnected I know on the old 56k modems the condition of the line itself could play a big factor, I know a buddy of mine ended having to get a new phone line installed because of that. Could be anywhere though.

I kicked comcast to the door last year. I have directv and supposedly the phone company's high speed internet. I had it for a year, worked fine up until a couple of weeks ago. I guess I'll have to call their tech support and not customer support to pitch a bitch.

You can get cable internet without the cable TV, cost more though.

I've had good luck with them for the past 8 years. I was the first to get broadband from them in my area according to the installer. I had alot of issues the first 6 months then my service was rock solid until last year. I lost my modem to lightning. I'm on my third since then. Just got a new one about a month ago. Seems ok so far. BTW: The only other option for broadband is Directway or the dish network one.

Richard S. wrote:You can get cable internet without the cable TV, cost more though.

I have direct TV and Comcast internet. If you pay for the basic package for cable something like 8.75 a month then the internet will cost you less then using there internet service alone. I save like 6 bucks a month having their standard cable service which also allows me to see the town's BOS meetings.

The Internet from a dish is bad. Google 'FAP' here is a start http://www.copperhead.cc/fap.htm and you will not want the service. $70/month for the dish service.
If you do big downloads cable is worth the money.
DSL is voltage dependent, the farther out you are from the central office 'CO' the slower your internet. So anything that creates resistance will slow the speed.
Just spent 2.5 hours with Verizon trying to convince them that they need to do a 'truck roll' to test/fix the wires as the location has dial up speeds and is less than 6000 feet to the CO. They want to do anything but roll a truck as it costs $200-300 for that event. You have to work through their flow chart before anything happens. I even have a 'known good' test DSL modem on my truck for this exact purpose! But they 'need' to send a new one because the 'old' one is broken. I will eventually get the truck roll after another 2.5 hours and send a 5 hour bill to Verizon, who will then rebate 4 months of service for the 'inconvenience'. In the end the customer gets the speeds they should have been getting all along.
You need to push for a on site visit with a hand held tester. You must make sure you don't have any bad wiring in the house. I usually put the DSL modem on the NID (Network Interface Device) so there is no home wiring involved and use a laptop to test.
http://www2.verizon.net/micro/speedtest/ Download the first two 100 MB test packages at the same time you should be between 150 and 300KB/sec if you have a good connection.

I have satallite internet from Wild Blue at home and would never recommend sat internet if you have another choice. Where I live even dialup don't work. 70 bucks a month and no signal in the rain,fog,snow, leaves etc. It is fast and the fap is better than Direct Way . The only good thing is my IP changes even when I an surfing so hackers have a hard time breaking in. I have Time Warner commercial service at the store for less money

Verizon in the New England area has some issues that are resolved with a 'password reset'.
The servers were breaking the DSL connection because 'they' thought you had a bad password.
Other than that get them to test at your house for proper signal strength.

You can get an idea of your speed here: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

Be sure to choose a server close to your house. Try it at different times of the day too. You'll get different results from different servers and different times.

Hey guys please note my opinion is very biased since I have worked for a cable company for 23 years, but from what I am experencing most people that leave us for the dish do so because of programming (namely the NFL network). Other who leave are usually customers who we disconnected for non-payment and won't pay the dish either .

Most who are good paying customers and leave for programming do just what the posts above indicate. They get the high speed internet from us thru the cable. Many do get what is called "broadcast basic" (all cable companies are required to offer that package) which is basically what you could get "off air" with a good antenna (if you lived on the top of a huge mountain ). That service usually cost from 10 to 15 per month. ALSO...check out what speeds cable companies can offer you and what they charge. We offer a "web surfer" service for about $33 per month if customers have broadcast basic. Web surfer is slightly faster than dial up, but all the other rules of the cable apply. You're always online, no dialing in.

So many times companies will try to upgrade you to the highest speed package they offer. Hey...who needs 15 Meg download if your casually surfing the web and getting a few emails a day. Your kids may complain they can't download movies/songs quick enough, but they have all summer out of school and only will have to wait an extra 30 or 60 seconds.

Not sure about the cable company you have, but many are now offering what is called a triple play (phone -unlimited calling within the continental USA, internet, and digital TV service) for about $100 per month. Some also have great incentives for people to swich back from dish or fios.

The big thing with any company is the service. If your having a problem can you get them to your house to check it out or fix it, and the bigger question is do they charge you to fix it. The company I work for generally will have a tech their for same day service for no tv/ no modem/ no dial tone, and we charge customers less than 1 % of the time. Even when they caused the problem themselves...like burning thru the cable with a torch while sweating their coal furnace together

From what I've experienced the bigger the company the worst the service. I won't mention any companies, but I'm sure you can figure that out.

IceDog

I've had all types of Internet connections in the last 15 years. Progressed from analog dialup modem, to satellite direct PC, telephone company ISDN, cable TV service modem and telephone company asymmetric DSL. All had installation and configuration issues. Tech support varied greatly from incompetent to out right lies. You must understand the issues your self. Read the Internet technical forums and ask questions. My current connection is Verizon DSL. I'm 6 miles from my central office but have reliable 1.5 Mbps download speeds. How is that possible? Because I convinced the local telco engineers it was in their best interest to upgrade and run fiber to the roadside equipment cabinet that serves my area. I've got almost 10,000 feet of copper line from there to my home.

Richard S. wrote:You can get an idea of your speed here: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

Be sure to choose a server close to your house. Try it at different times of the day too. You'll get different results from different servers and different times.

Richard here are a couple more places to check out your speed. Optional tests http://www.dslreports.com Java based only http://www.wugnet.com/myspeed/speedtest.asp

We offer a "web surfer" service for about $33 per month if customers have broadcast basic. Web surfer is slightly faster than dial up, but all the other rules of the cable apply. You're always online, no dialing in.

Icedog that is so slow. Comcast offers two Internet services standard at 6Mbps/384Kbps or, for $10 more a month, 8Mbps/768Kbps. I have the big one since I have so many things connected to the Internet, computers, ps3, xbox360, Wii, Tivo, Direct TV, Vonage and what ever else I may have missed. With there speed boost on either level I have never test below 8Mbps down and 1Mbps up. Well worth the money to me. I switched to Direct TV for football, but it's really all the HD channels that are keeping me through out the year, 95 channels and Mpeg4 compression and the new satellite to come online in September should bump it up to around 120 or so, cable and Fios just can't touch it. Even when we go all digital cable is still going to be left so far behind. Vod is a joke, I've seen better dvds then what they offer in HD.

Yanche,
I had DSL for a few years and I was a mile away from their hub and when I switched they keep saying DSL is faster then cable. The first time I used cable and went to my normal forum's I was like
The pages loaded so fast I couldn't believe my eyes. I never looked back since.

They all will say anything and know almost nothing on the first tier. Think of them as Pawns in a chess game. Who do you sacrifice first?
Good research and troubleshooting will get you past the Pawns. You must be absolutely sure there is no issue with your machine or internal wiring before they will roll a truck. The fiber loop counts as zero feet in a DSL loop, good job persuading the powers that be Yanche! Maximum copper is 17,000 feet, I had a customer that tested at 16,998 feet and the service was unusable but the Verizon sales force still sold the service to them.

Adamiscold, My cable service could speed could never match my DSL speed at the times I wanted to use it. Way to many customers on the loop. Their speed test, using their cached web site would show great speeds. The techs dispatched to the home didn't seem to know the difference between a web page cached on the cable companies server and one that wasn't. Comcast ended up owning the Adelphia system that serves this area. Service is just as bad and really technically clueless. I'm hoping for Verizon FIOS, should be here in a year or two, it's up and running in adjacent counties.

CapeCoaler, I also had to give them the brand and part number of the DSL interface card that went into the remote terminal cabinet. Claimed they never heard of it but I had contacts at a company that was making them for Verizon.