I've about had it with comcast. DSL info needed

[branch_ld]

starting tuesday at 12:35 am, my hsi went out. after a call to the support line, I was informed that they were installing/replacing a node in my area. should be back online by 6am.

tuesday night afternoon when I got home, things seemed to be working normally. about 7pm the service went out again. after talking to the support people, they scheduled a tech to come out on friday.

after a three day wait, finally friday arrives. the technician they sent out said the line had a good signal, yet couldn't figure out why the modem wouldn't connect. after swapping out two different modems, still no connection. finally by some stroke of luck, he hooked my old modem back up and it came online. I didn't pay that much attention to the speeds or anything since I had to get back to work.

upon further inspection that night, the download speeds were around 2.2KB, a far cry from the 380KB that I'm accustomed to. I called the support people again, and they told me their signal reading was 70% on my line. suprised I could even get a connection at all. after a $20 credit on my bill, they're going to send a tech back out wednesday.

if they can't get this issue resolved by wednesday afternoon, I'm going to switch over to dsl. it's totally unaccpetable for my internet service to be offline for a week, even after a tech visited. I pay a high price for this service, and a $20 credit is not making up for lost productivity.

well, after that rant, my question for you is:

do you have dsl?

who is your provider?

have you had any connectivity issues?

are there any hidden fees if using a self-install kit?

are there any issues using a router with dsl?

thanks for taking the time to read and respond.

[V0oD0oMan]

you do realize if you're using an internet connection for business you should get a business line that this kind of bullshit never happens to, then when it does you can actually get compensation. of course you'll only get $20 back when you're paying $40 a month. on another note, comcast sucks big donkey balls, but so does every dsl/adsl provider i've tried, in fact, larger ones. i would suggest getting a business account for your business.

[irie]

i have comcast. i pay about 50 dollars a month for this. I have never had such download speeds as 380k that musta been nice, im at about 20-50 at all times, its very slow. After i moved to my new apartment things seemed to grind to a halt. Comcast claims to not know anything, just getting it installed took 3 visits from their guys, they even wanted to charge me for a month when i didnt have service. fuck comcast. As I recall when i had dsl it was just as bad and would go out all the time, plus i had to have a phone line which is a hassle in itself

[mtsplat]

All of the cable providers I have dealt with, or know people that have dealt with, are morons. They don't provide any services or even know how to answer any questions. You get the line and then your own your own. DSL providers, in my experience, tend to provide greater services like spam filters, pop-up blocker software, multiple e-mail addresses, etc

I have Sprint DSL and have had great luck with them. Your download speeds will be much lower, 20 - 35Kb usually, but it is worth it. Not to mention your normal download and upload rate will not vary much since it is dedicated bandwidth. Of coarse torrents vary depending on seeders and leachers.

Have been knocked offline only two times, but the diagnostics software provided by Sprint had me back up in minutes. Have not had to call tech support for the year I have had the service. Have heard that they are very knowlegable and helpful, though.

Hefty $100 charge the first month of service with self installation, but that included modem, hookup, and first months service. However, $10 was refunded for modem shipping and I received a Visa gift card for $50. Basically, I only had to pay for the monthly service. Now I am only charged $25 a month since I have Sprint long distance. Not a bad bargain since I had been paying $20 for dialup. Should check with your phone company to see if they offer similiar deals.

Can't help you with the router question, but the Sprint website proved helpful when I needed to reconfigure my modem.

Good luck to ya! Hope everthying works out with Comcast in the meantime.

[branch_ld]

voodooman, I think you misunderstood the 'lost productivity' part of my post. I don't run a business or site. I feel I could be a bit more productive if I did have my internet connection for the last five days though.

in regards to the dsl being slower, bellsouth offers 'fastaccess dsl extreme' which touts these speeds:
Up to 3Mbps/384Kbps

the upload would be faster than the 256 I get from comcast. although I know that it all depends on my distance to the CO. I'm still willing to give comcast another chance, since I have been connected for almost a year straight with no problems at all. it's taken a discouraging turn as of last week though



:grr:

[woodpatri]

I love dsl. Since I seed a lot of shows I like having a high upload rate. I just signed up for Yahoo dsl through sbc. 3-5Mbps/384Kbps. It is there Pro level. It is $45 a month and came with a $99 credit which went towards my modem. This was a deal in which a signed up for a year of service. THey are mailing my self installation kit and I should be on line next week. Good thing I still have this connection!

[FeverPitch]

I have Bellsouth DSL with a standard modem. (Westell Wirespeed) On average I sit on 20 kbps. Some nights I go to bed with a show running at 5 kb/s. Never really had any issues with connectivity. Only once during a lighting storm, and it was back up in 10-12 hours. I get 5 e-mail addresses for my account; all about 50 bucks a month.

Before this I had AOL dialup, so its not really much of a comparison. However, when I was a student at Auburn, I split a $75 package with 2 other roommates. We had around 125-150 kbps while downloading, but this package also included a pretty good cable service. Charter Communications....you may have heard of them. They were an o.k. service I guess; had a really good spokesman: Dan Akroyd.

Oh well.

[3rdstone]

I've had SBC dsl for about a year & pay around $30-35 per month.
I usually get upload speeds around 25-30kbs, download speeds on a well seeded torrent can be anywhere from 50-150kbs. I've had no outages and no complaints so far.
I just use 1 pc on it now, I think when I go to a home network I'll have to change my service or only have 1 user logged in at a time.