Alternative Cable ISPs

Mud Husky asks: " I've held out getting high speed access because Comcast had been the only option in my area. Now, Knology is about to start offering cable internet access in my area. Comcast has been the subjects of many Slashdot stories like this and this and so on... I'd like to know if Slashdot users would be willing to share their experiences with Knology (good and bad) and other smaller ISPs. "

Comments

Google Groups

[spt]

Knology.

The 1st hit is entitled "Beware of Knology"

Re:Google Groups

[psychosis]

I don't have any experience with Knology (or any other cable provider, for that matter), but in shopping for DSL service in DC, I've found that the folks who have bad experiences are a lot more likely to share their stories with the world than those who have great ones. I'm a perfect example - although I have had nothing but GREAT service from my provider (toad.net), I haven't gotten off my ass to post the rave reviews they deserve on sites like dslreports or whatnot. (Except, of course, noting that they kick ass several times here on slashdot!)

Re:Google Groups

[hamjudo]

Because on slashdot, if I say something bogus like:

For a month every time I tried to call Comcast tech support, I got an "all circuits busy"

Someone else would quickly correct it with:

You are exagerating, it was only like that for about a week.

As a Comcast customer...

[PoiBoy]

The ISP can be no worse than Comcast. Between the web tracking fiasco of a few weeks ago and the absolutely terrible speed of the new network they have constructed, I would be willing to switch to any other broadband service available and take my chances. If I weren't planning to move in a few months, I would make the switch in a heartbeat.

Hartford, Connecticut

[Phaid]

Don't know anything about Konology, but in Hartford, CT, there is an ISP called Netplex which is offering ISP services over cable. They're a local company which offers dialup, DSL, and frame relay services. I currently use them as my DSL ISP, and their services are absolutely top-notch. I would consider getting them for cable, since the bandwidth is the same but the price is about half, but I live outside the area where their cable service is offered.

Knology bad!

[John Wilson]

My friends down in Huntsville AL had horrible experiences with Knology about a year or two ago: A quote from one of their websites:

First, to Knology, our cable provider. Due to shoddy service and a general run-around over the past few days, we're on the verge of 1) switching cable modem providers 2) demanding a refund for all the service we didn't get this month. Our service has been out for part of every day for the past week. My apologies to those of you who attempted to access domesticat on Friday afternoon. I was halfway through major changes on the site, and had uploaded files but not rebuilt them with greymatter - and then our connection conked out for about five hours.

They (and all their friends) eventually switched because the service was so bad. Now, that was a year ago, and maybe they've changed, but then, maybe not. It took BresnanLink (later bought out by Charter) 5 years to get cable modem access right up here, and it *still* occationally screws up.

Re:Along the same lines...

[jmenezes]

This is actually a good question.
Up until last week (havent tried since then) @home's news servers were EXTREMELY faster then cox's own servers. (san diego area)
while doing my "research" on redheaded females, it would take up to 50 seconds to display a pic, whereas on cox's servers it would take no more then 4 seconds...
and thats not on the binary groups, its on all of them.
However, what cox's servers severely lack in speed, they make up for in breadth of newsgroups.
granted, some are empty, and/or useless (misslpelled variations of diff ones) they have a wide variety of groups that @home either never carried or blocked. if only they could speed things up with those servers, it would definately be well received...