This is one topic we haven't talked about much, how we get to the internet from our homes. A recent move (and provider switch) inspired us to ask, who provides your internet and more importantly, are you satisfied with it?
We'll tell you our story. We recently moved and saw it as a chance to switch providers and get in on one of their six month deals. So, we looked around and saw that Comcast was the best bang for our buck. Despite the savings, the headache of the installation process makes us wish we hadn't bothered.
We've had Comcast before, and generally have no complaints with their service. This time installation has driven us mad, and think it's their big company practices that cause the problems. We signed up online, which was great and did all of the annoying holding for customer service over a chat window. We clearly discussed what services and devices we needed and what prices we would be paying. Sounds great? None of this discussion held up during the install.
Second, we didn't have a TV, and the technician refused to leave a box without one. We had to explain that our TV would be through our computer and we did not have that unpacked yet. There would never be a TV for him to test the box out on. A little discussion and we got him to back down. Score one for us.
Comcast can be hit or miss. In highly populous areas around here (Seattle) it's generally a miss as they seem to either stack too many people up on equipment or are just unable to find faulty equipment in their network. This of course isn't even mentioning the price (which is high for a mediocre service).
For now Speakeasy is what the serious Seattle Internet user gets, but we'll see how long that lasts now that Best Buy has bought them out.
view Mat's profile
FREE city-wide wireless baby!! god bless Portland, OR :)
view pdxcarrie's profile
Time Warner NYC is ridiculous. It's supposed to be always-on, high speed. But over the past six months I've noticed that I get kicked off a lot. It comes and goes throughout the night. Just the other night, I was kicked off at 7pm and the data line stayed down the entire night. Couldn't get back on the next morning either.
I'm thinking of moving.
view Lady J's profile
Another nod for Speakeasy.
Here in Grand Rapids, MI I had two years of Comcast. The intallation was fine, but the service was anything but. Lots of intermittent outages, all caused by their DNS servers. (Not that they'd admit it. "Unplug your modem for 30 seconds...") But a coworker who lives outside the city had no problems.
I moved to Speakeasy and it's been wonderful. They had to deal with a local telco for installation (which sucked). But the service has been top-notch. Yes, it's more expensive than cable, and slower speeds. But you get what you pay for, in this case, it's quality.
*Disclaimer: Not affiliated with Speakeasy, just a happy customer.
view CuRoi's profile
O, pdxcarrie...must you flaunt that so? I'm in Philadelphia and have had horrid luck with the municipal wireless system here. They started selling "access" before the network was complete, causing me to pay 6 months for only a few hours of online time. I've since been given a full refund. I told them I really would like their product if it behaved the way they promised and had some seemingly meaningful contact with them (Earthlink) but since the refund, I've not really heard anything. Do you remember the start-up period of the Portland project? Were there bugs to work out? I did suggest that they not outsource their customer support to India until after the network was up and running with a high degree of success. When my issues didn't fall into their scripted responses, frustration reached peaks theretofore unknown.
view One Eyed Daruma's profile