[ale] DSL -> Cable

Scott Castaline hscast at charter.net
Fri Aug 25 11:51:31 EDT 2006


On Fri, 2006-08-25 at 11:16 -0400, James Sumners wrote:
> It could be the area you live in. After I sent that email I realized
> that a couple co-workers probably have cable internet service. It
> turns out that they actually have Charter. One has problems that he
> has pretty much narrowed down to his Linksys modem (not surprising)
> and the other says the outtages are about on par with what I currently
> have with Speed Factory (due to Bellsouth). Thanks for the input,
> though. I am not going into this thing expecting the same level of
> service from Charter as from Speed Factory. I already deal with them
> for my television service. But I can't go with anyone else either
> because of the apartment complex or the city of Stockbridge. I don't
> know which (or if it is both).
> 
> I look for affordable naked DSL before considering cable. I don't
> particularly want to go with cable, but it is my only option if I want
> to drop Bellsouth. Speakeasy is the only ISP I could find that
> services my area with naked DSL and their prices are way too steep.
> Their 1.5Mbs service is as much as my current 3Mbs service.
> 
> If you are looking to switch to DSL I don't know if I would recommend
> Speed Factory any more. Their customer service is still top notch, but
> according to http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,16101400~mode=flat
> they were recently acquired by some larger company. Typically that
> means the service will suffer. In that thread, someone mentioned
> Atlantic Nexus (http://www.atlanticnexus.com/) as an alternative. They
> are regional ISP (Atlanta area only it seems) and are cheaper than
> Speed Factory. They seem to have the same service rep that SF did and
> when I called to ask about naked DSL the guy I talked to was very
> friendly and helpful. So you might want to consider them.
> 
> I have two main goals. One is to save money and two is to ditch
> Bellsouth. They are the main cause of my DSL problems (since SF leases
> their lines and Atlantic Nexus does too) when they happen. And their
> phone service is way too expensive; particularly for a college
> student.
> 
> Also, one of my coworkers has the same setup as I do. He said there
> isn't any authentication at all and the modem does work in pass
> through mode. And he can VNC/SSH to his systems at home.
> 
> On 8/25/06, Jeffrey B. Layton <laytonjb at charter.net> wrote:
> > James,
> >
> >    I was getting ready to post, but I can't say enough BAD things
> > about charter without resorting to lots of foul language. I just
> > went through a 2 week outage with them. Once the connection
> > came back up it promptly went down again with a hollow
> > promise of "it will take 24 hours." Any time you have a problem
> > it takes at least 11-14 days to get a repair tech to come out (this
> > has happened to me three times this year). Their tech support is
> > the worst. They read from a script and they don't have any
> > information about outages, what's wrong, what's being worked,
> > or anything else. I would rather talk to someone in India because
> > they have nice accents and I can ask them about life over there.
> >    I know you want to find cheaper net access, but Charter is not
> > one I would recommend. Is there anything else you could try?
> >
> > Good Luck!
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > P.S. While I'm on the subject, I'm looking to kick the shit out
> > of charter. I know people recommend SpeedFactory, but what
> > about Covad or Cyberonic?
> >
> > P.P.S. I've also had problems with my cable (our for a week)
> > so I'm looking to replace it. Anyone care to comment on Dish
> > or any other satellite service?
> 
> 

If you do go with Charter be aware that for some reason everytime they
change something on the TV side it affects the provisioning of the
Broadband side. I have the 10Mbs service, but it seems that everytime
something gets changed I'm reprovisioned back to 1.5, such as the most
recent change in Guide Service. As far as I can tell it seems that
billing has me listed correctly on their part of the network but when it
gets down to the Broadband provisioning it never gets updated and I'll
spend several days trying to get it corrected. Tech support blows like
WinBloze, when I get through to billing they seem to be able to get it
resolved, until next system update....
-- 
Scott Castaline aka Bad2theBone

Hey! I was born crazy, what's your excuse?



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