[Orion27]

I'm moving to the eastern shore of Maryland,
close to Chestertown. Seems this part of Maryland is way behind the high speed connection game. The two utilities that potentially will provide high speed connections is Charter Commuinications
(cable) and Verizon (DSL). I have two questions. I believe digital cable is available to me but an high speed internet connection
is not. Why? Second, there is a small Verizon
substation behind my house. Close enough for a DSL connection?

[ghporter]

The answers are 1)that depends, and 2)that depends. Charter may have digital cable available but not provisioned for cable Internet, or they may not have everything needed for digital cable throughout your service area, so they say it's available, but not the cable Internet features. Verizon may have the substation you can see set up for DSL, but then again, they may not. A telephone building or substation looks pretty much the same whether it has DSL capability or not, so you can't tell by looking. On the other hand, if you go to Broadband Reports web site and use their "Check for Broadband in zip..." tool, they can give you a better than 95% accurate call on whether to bother phoning Verison.

I would prefer cable in most cases (higher speed being the primary reason), but the local cable monopoly is associated with the Evil Empire(r) (also known as AOL/Time Warner/Satan), and I simply won't do business with people who can afford to send me 15 different AOL CDs in one week, but can't keep the Warner Brothers stores open. DSL, on the other hand, has been 'very very good to me.'

[Orion27]

Like you I'm currently a DSL subscriber. I'm loath to go cable for exactly the same reasons you describe. I'm afraid it's back to dial up until either Verizon can supply DSL or Charter decides providing a high speed connection benefits them. I would definitly consider satellite but the premium is more than I'm willing to bare.

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by GHPorter:
I would prefer cable in most cases (higher speed being the primary reason), but the local cable monopoly is associated with the Evil Empire(r) (also known as AOL/Time Warner/Satan), and I simply won't do business with people who can afford to send me 15 different AOL CDs in one week, but can't keep the Warner Brothers stores open. DSL, on the other hand, has been 'very very good to me.'

Ugh... What to say...
Well, GH, I WILL NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, defend AOL/TW. Truly they suck. But their suckiness does not make angels of the other players in the field. Ultimately, everybody in this market is in bed with some scag. Sure it stings a little at first (like when I signed that ATTWS contract recently), but you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes (like I have to now cancel that ATTWS contract I signed and pay the penalty charge). I fully agree w/ your position, but the alternatives are bleak too. Maybe it's just that I haven't gotten a single AOL CD since my last move 18 mos ago. I don't know... I'm happy w/ my cable. It's really fast and hardly ever down. Go figure.

[ghporter]

Originally posted by aaanorton:
Ugh... What to say...
Well, GH, I WILL NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, defend AOL/TW. Truly they suck. But their suckiness does not make angels of the other players in the field. Ultimately, everybody in this market is in bed with some scag. Sure it stings a little at first (like when I signed that ATTWS contract recently), but you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes (like I have to now cancel that ATTWS contract I signed and pay the penalty charge). I fully agree w/ your position, but the alternatives are bleak too. Maybe it's just that I haven't gotten a single AOL CD since my last move 18 mos ago. I don't know... I'm happy w/ my cable. It's really fast and hardly ever down. Go figure.

I hear what you say, and agree completely. I simply have a bigger bone to pick with Time Warner cable here in San Antonio than with AOL/Time Warner overall-except for the Warner Brothers Stores thing. Time Warner took over for/bought out the local franchise, Paragon Cable. Paragon had a long history of giving less and less value for more and more money, particularly when it came to "basic cable" service that was mandated by the FCC; you got only the broadcast channels in town, I don't think you even got PBS, and you definately didn't get public access channels. Everybody needed a (leased) cable box to get anything, and while they would install fairly promptly (for a pretty big fee), if your cable went down, you were screwed for days at a time. Time Warner has picked up Paragon's banner and proceded on under it down the same profit over value path.

What's truly outrageous here today (this is where I get back on topic ) is that they're offering "wireless Road Runner" service. For an EXTRA $15 a month, their service techs will install wireless cards in as many as three (maybe 4) computers in your house, along with a fancy cable modem/wireless base/router (I don't think there are more than one or two wired ports on the box) and configure it so all of those computers can be online at the same time. How nice of them! Ooooo, everytime I hear one of their commercials, I want to shake thier VP for "New Technologies" sharply until his head snaps back and forth. This guy actually did a presentation at a local computer users group meeting I attended, and his slides weren't even spelled correctly! He brought along a pretty young lady to pass out flyers and questionaires, but she was blatantly eye candy, nothing more. Oooooooo!

Ok, the medications are kicking in, and my blood pressure is coming back down to normal now. Anyway, aaanorton, you're 100% right about having to choose which bad corporate citizen you want to deal with. My SBC DSL has been pretty good to me for several years, even through a move into a new house, and they haven't gone out of their way to mess me over. I can't complain too much about them; they seem to be too big to keep an eye on their own divisions, let alone be too concerned about shafting individual customers. I can't say the same for their only real competition here.