Which Cable Modem Service?

Carcass asks: "This has probably already been discussed to death but: Which cable modem service provider would you choose: @home or Adelphia powerlink? I have these two choices right now and I need network connectivity. Experienced opinions are welcome."

Comments

SNET is doing DSL testing.

[Wakko Warner]

It was announced a while back that SNET will be doing testing of DSL service in Hartford, New Haven, and, I think, half a dozen other cities in the state of Connecticut in anticipation of a wide-scale rollout next year. Visit their site (www.snet.net? .com? I forget.) and see if you qualify for DSL testing.

I'm in Milford, which isn't one of the cities that's lucky enough to get tested, but we have cable modems here (through Cablevision), so it's all good.

- A.P.
--

"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

Accept Mediocrity

[DrZaius]

Face the facts: no matter how bad a service is, you will live with it.

I have had a cable modem in Canada (with 'rogers'@Home) for just under 6 months. I have a few friends who have had the service for over two years.

I could bitch away at all the bad things that happened, from the first day when the lady on the phone asked if I had an IBM or a Mac, and I said PC (this went on for about 5 minutes).

The bottom line is when you are dealing in with unmotivated workers, things are going to suck. I bet it is pretty hard to be motivated when you are installing a cable modem for some obnoxious teenager who is mocking you all the time because you don't know that dos linux thing.

I would have to say that despite the major outages and the lack of communication between me and my ISP, things have been pretty decent. Just recently I started to get 300k/s downloads on a regular basis.

The only people I know who have had problems with their cable modems are the ones who run a win32 variety directly connected to the modem. Even when the modem is smoking and dropping packets, unix gateways seem to be able to atleast get the packets out (that is talk to other boxes, rather than constantly time out).

Cable isn't mission critical; you will have to deal with outages, and you will be pretty pissed when you have to wait on the phone for 2 hours to find out what is wrong, but be grateful for the pseudo leased line you are getting.

Now then, I can't tell you which ISP to select, but remember that everyone is going to tell you their horror stories. You are probably better off to probe into each ISP and ask them about how they do their routing and what type of hardware they are using. You may hit a security through obscurity barrier, but keep pushing.

Tis all for now.

Re:@Home's a quality end-user experience

[coyote-san]

They're a bit retentive about not being able to install their software on your computer and see it work before they leave...

The flip side is US West. They closed my DSL installation order without my signoff. Or a physical check at my junction box. Or hell, even bothering to tell me -- I would see the WAN LINK on my DSL modem, right?!

Wrong. They screwed up the order and I did *not* have DSL service. But the last, and nearly the only, communication I had from them was that my order was delayed due to lack of equipment. So I "had" DSL service for two months before I flaked out and canceled it, right?! (That's why I have to file a formal complaint with the PUC, so the records will show that I waited three months before cancelling the order for nonperformance, not that Linux users are flaky and technically incompetent.)