Broadband Connection at One Month (1 Viewer)

[Michael*K]

I've officially arrived at the one month mark for my cable connection and I have to say I'm officially hooked. I'm on a six month trial at $20/month, but there's no way I could go back to dialup now. Despite some initial concerns voiced by others about unexpected downtime, the connection has been almost flawless. It has only been down once, for a little over an hour. With the speedy connection I decided to upgrade my machine before the holidays with additional RAM and a larger hard drive. It's all combined to really make my time more productive. No more waiting for slow page loads and refreshes. If I need to download updates, I can now do it from home instead of waiting to do it at the office. For anyone on the fence about whether to switch from dialup to broadband, if you can afford it, broadband is a no-brainer.

 

[DonRoeber]

I can't work without broadband. And its getting so that I can't work without wireless either This stuff is getting addictive, not to mention expensive. But sitting out on the deck with beer working from home... man, there isn't a pricetag on that.

 

[John_Bonner]

After a year on cable modem I wonder how I ever tolerated dialup. It's like when you turn 17 and you can drive a car, would you ever go back to riding a bike?

 

[Brett_H]

One year and counting for me. I initially had MSN DSL, but they were using Northpoint as a back-end provider. Northpoint went belly up a few months into my contract, so I had to go from MSN -> Ameritech. My service went from 1500 kb/s -> 750 kb/s, the bill jumped from $40 -> $50 per month... but I couldn't go without!

I'm now searching for a new apartment on the East side of Cleveland, and broadband is one of my requirements! Luckily, I got my future spouse hooked on it, so I'm able to work that into the selection process...

-Brett.

 

[Christopher Chung]

YES!!! I just joined my company's promotion ($20 per month for 3 months) and I don't think I'll ever go back to dial up.

But does anybody know how to "up" the kbps? I'm at about 771 kbps I heard there are some good things at download.com but I don't know exactly what to get. Has anybody gotten anything good?

Once again, I'll never go back to dial up! haha

 

[Chris Wittry]

Congrats on making the switch. I recommend it to anyone who uses their computer online for more than an hour a day. I myself have been on a cable modem for 4 1/2 years and counting, with very little downtime and no security concerns over those years. I added wireless about a year ago and it's a killer combination with the cable modem. Have fun on it!

 

[Carl Johnson]

After spending a year surfing via broadband I'm currently stuck with dialup AOL and I've been going thru withdrawl. I was in the process of buying a house and at the last minute it failed inspection so I pulled out of the deal. My roomate had the cable cancelled the last week of December so I'm without both television and broadband. Hopefully this next place will check out so I can get back into the 21st century.

 

[Hugh M]

I was waiting for Time Warner to get Roadrunner into effect here, but I think I will go with a DSL instead. I have earthlink currently, so earthlink DSL would be easy. I'm pretty close to the phone company building, I think.

I think Time Warner may be avilable soon, but this is probably not the best outfit to do my web-surfing with. They are way behind in the roadrunner roll-out, the cable signal sucks, and its $40/month for no pay channels.

any ideas? can DSL be "almost" as good, or better?

 

[Dennis Reno]

Christopher - it depends on you provider. I don't know what speed your service was sold as, so you could be getting pretty good results! Are you using cable or DSL?
Either way, head on over to DSL Reports. Click on "DSLR Tools" in the left column menu. Under "JAVA based tools" there is a "Speed Tests" link. Click on this and follow the instructions. I highly recommend you run this test at different times throughout the day. You can see the effect traffic has on your speed! If you become a member (its free to do so) you can log your results for future reference.
There is also a downloadable tool that allows you to adjust settings in Windows. This made a HUGE difference for me. I went from 600kbps/740kbps (peak/offpeak) on my downloads to 1400kbps/1700kbps! My upload speed was uneffected as it has been capped at 128kbps.
Its true, once you start surfing using broadband a dialup connection is to horrible to imagine! Spoiled, yes, but loving it!

 

[Stephen Orr]

I've only had my DSL for two weeks now, and it's made a huge difference at our house. We're on a first-month-free-then two months at 29.99. After that, $49.99 a month. I say, no problem. We put in a router and share the net connection between three computers with no loss in speed. Recently ran my connection through http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/ and came up at the top of the scale for our service. Too cool.
We've been dialup since 1995, and went to 56K in 1997. I thought THAT was a jump.

 

[Christopher Chung]

You know what, I'm really trying to "tweak" with my computer, but it's all going over my head for the most part!

I know where and how to test my connection, but I constantly get varied results, and I don't know what to trust! my rates vary from 200kbps, to 2.2mbps!! What to do?

 

[Hugh M]

maybe Norton systemworks or something like that has tools that would help for your situation.
there is one reg tweak that if you are using windows XP really helps a whole lot.
"disable search for scheduled tasks"
it seems that windows XP is always searching for remote scheduled tasks or something over any network connection.
if anyone's interested I'm sure you could find this at Link Removed ....

 

[JamesHB]

:frowning: *sniff* *sniff* :frowning:
All I can get here in Anaheim is dial-up. I'm pretty sure that Anaheim is the only city in O.C. that doesn't have cable modem access yet. Unfortunately, I'm also a half a mile too far from Pac Bell's central office to get DSL. And to make it worse, the dial-up speed in my neighborhood tops out at 36k. I say "my neighborhood" because I've checked with my neighbors and they too top out at 36k. I even had Pac Bell come and check my tel line, but the tech claimed it was a "very clean line, all the way to the C.O." Yeah right!
So, as you broadband folks are downloading 50mb files in a matter of minutes, and web sites pop up in the blink of an eye, think of poor old "dial-up Jim from Anasleim" napping on his desk while he waits for the HTF web site to load.
Maybe someday...
Maybe...
:frowning: *sniff* *sniff* :frowning:

 

[Michael*K]

Hey Jim, I can sympathize with you buddy. Even when I had a dialup, I could always download at work off the T1 connection and transfer the files to a FireWire drive and bring it home.
Have you looked into satellite based DSL like DirectTV? I don't know anyone that has it, so I can't vouch for the download speeds, but I assume it would HAVE to be faster than 36K.
Even if you have to wait for cable or regular DSL...hey, at least you have Disney and the Ducks!

 

[Hugh M]

wow, I'm amazed.

after sending the latest sarcastic email/inquiry to Roadrunner/Time Warner I've actually received a phone call that cable modem is available. This is after I noted to them that I have tried to keep up on the status of the rollout only to find out that others in my town were already using the service. Needless to say it was pretty funny to report service problems as "I got a problem, I don't have it!!"...

anyways, what do you guys/gals think about DSL vs. Roadrunner/cable modem? The thing is that I'm not impressed too much with the way that this local outfit of TW works.

I hear that cable modem has the potential to be much faster, but that bandwidth through the neighborhood could be a problem.

There are tons of older (read really old) people around here so maybe bandwidth wouldn't be a problem after all.

any suggestions?

 

[JamesHB]

Michael: Yes, I did check into Directv's DSL (which is just standard DSL thru the tel line) service at directvdsl.com. I did the availability check and it told me that I was "out of the service range". That's what I get with all the DSL providers in my area. I checked the satellite internet access thru Directv, called Direcway, it was too much money ($699 for equip + $60 monthly fee) for what you were getting in return. They claim their download speeds are "up to 7 times faster than 56k". That ain't enough for that kinda money! I also checked into satellite internet access thru Starband and it's also too pricey ($549 for equip + $74 monthly fee) for download speeds of "up to 500k".

Hugh: Your post prompted me to give my city's cable company, Adelphia, a call regarding broadband access. I don't subscribe to cable, been with Directv since '97, so I don't ever hear the latest news or offerings from Adelphia. They told me they are in the process of rolling out digital cable in Anaheim. They started in east Anaheim a while ago and are working their way towards my side of town. They admitted too the rollout hasn't been all that smooth, they've had problems with the fiber cable. They estimate that around June of this year the rollout should be completed. Hopefully they won't have more snags before getting to my area of town. They also confirmed that they will be providing broadband access as well. Yipee!!!!!!