[ale] Better ISP?

[Richard Faulkner]

My experience in Gwinnett:  AT&T DSL is consistent but their tech
support is a joke (don't even know what Linux is!) but you can get
online w/o their help.  Their business office isn't much better...great
way to spend your life on "eternal ignore" if you're into that!  Not a
big deal to program the "modem" for Linux use.  We were on Clear for a
month...REALLY liked their customer service...good tech support (they
had a clue) but not nearly enough bandwidth.  We got capped at the tower
and were luck to get 700K down!  If you're not far from a tower and the
tower isn't saturated they may be worth a try.  Be careful with them!
They seriously over-sell their bandwidth!!!

We're stuck with AT&T now...I hate it but that's what we've got until a
better player comes into the field.

PS>  We d/l & u/l programming content for commercial broadcasting daily
and have to have a solid connection with no dropped connections.  Clear
was down a lot for minutes at a time...don't have that issue with AT&T.
Really need FTTH for our needs.........

Rich in Lilburn

-----Original Message-----
From: Pat Regan <thehead at patshead.com>
Reply-to: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org>
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: Re: [ale] Better ISP?
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2011 23:21:29 -0500


On Tue, 4 Jan 2011 22:50:59 -0500 (EST)
"Collin Pruitt" <collin at collinp.com> wrote:

> There's also something you need to know about cable. With cable
> Internet access, you're sharing the same lines with the people in your
> neighborhoods, so you may encounter drops in speed at times of very
> heavy usage. With DSL, you're pretty much assured that you'll get
> what you pay for 99% of the time.

I can't believe anyone still believes this propaganda from the
telcos :).

With DSL you don't "share" your connection during the first hop.  That
doesn't buy you much of anything.  In my experience phone companies are
much more likely to oversell the bandwidth available at the DSLAM.

> There is a major advantage to cable, though. In most cases, you're
> getting symmetrical amounts of bandwidth upstream and downstream -
> with DSL, unless you're willing to pay boatloads of cash, you're
> getting a fast download and slow upload. This really only is useful
> if you're planning on running a server of some kind off your
> connection.

I don't think I've ever seen a symmetric service offered by a cable
company to residential customers.  I've only seen symmetric DSL service
when it is slow (like 384/384 and the like).

The fact I like most about cable modems is that if you can get cable
service you can get a working cable modem.  If they can get digital TV
to a customer they can get broadband to them as well.  It isn't like
DSL where you have to hope you're close enough to the DSLAM to get the
speed you want.

Pat
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