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iWrite · Nov 11, 2003, 11:15 AM

I use Bellsouth because it's cheap at only $29 for DSL and $12.95 for dial-up. 5 email accounts. Also, they have 24/7 free technical support and they bill me with my telephone bill so it's not connected to my credit card. No spam comes through -- maybe one a day. They also have dedicated Mac support.

I give them an 8 out of 10. Can't give 'em a 10 because they're only in 9 states so if I travel outside of the country I have access issues. I can check email anywhere in the world on my Bellsouth POP accounts from www.mail2web.com so that's okay, though.

Anyone else?

Gankdawg · Nov 11, 2003, 11:29 AM

CenturyTel. $49 for 512/256, dialup included. I would give 6/10 just because of the low speed and high price. I don't use the dialup but there is no way to take if off for cost savings.

iWrite · Nov 11, 2003, 11:33 AM

I hate -- HATE -- AOL by the way.

I cannot understand why AOL folks pay AOL for internet access at a cost of over $20 a month -- and then they constantly get spammed.

Yuck.

It's like paying them so that they can sell your info to spammers so that you're subjected to spam.

Sherwin · Nov 11, 2003, 11:34 AM

Zen in the UK.
28 quid 512/256. 8 IP addresses, pretty fast (for the line speed - low contention), doesn't fall over much, dail-up backup. Own domain so multiple email addies not a problem. Own domain so spam is my problem. Fails on support. Low speed is my own fault for living in the wilderness.

Reasonably happy with it.

soul searching · Nov 11, 2003, 12:28 PM

SBC. $29.99 a month for 384/128. No dial-up, 10 POP accounts (1 with 25MB, 9 with 10MB), webmail access through Yahoo!, no spam (yet), 10 geocities accounts, 10 photo storage accounts, plus some other stuff I never use.

I'm not overly excited with them and now that Comcast is upgrading their customers to 3Mbits (even though their upload speeds will remain at either 128 or 256, can't remember), I'm considering switching to them after my current SBC contract expires.

OldManMac · Nov 11, 2003, 12:33 PM

Time Warner Road Runner (now called Brighthouse). I've had it for 2 1/2 years, and it's been extremely reliable, having been down maybe four or five days total in that time. It's not cheap, at about $45/month, but it works better than all of my family/friends Comcast.

wdlove · Nov 11, 2003, 12:50 PM

I have Earthlink DSL via Covad. Good service, only down once for a few hours in almost 2 years. The only problem is that its expensive $49.95 per month. Since I have wireless they charge $9.95 per just in case I need IT.

mikellanes · Nov 11, 2003, 12:59 PM

Adelphia Powerlink (Cable) - 4000/512 I think like $79/mo. Ive had them at 3000/128 for around 3 years, have had some growing pains in our area but things are smooth now...

I think you get 5 e-mail account and some webspace but I have .mac for my e-mail and web hosting stuff....

iWrite · Nov 11, 2003, 01:03 PM

I hate Adelphia's guts.

Seriously, had them for a while with their half-assed cable modem. Dialing in or going in was only 56K and then download was fast. So, it was only "fast" one-way.

Adelphia is horrible, period. Hate their cable too.

mikellanes · Nov 11, 2003, 01:20 PM

yeah I had 1 way for about 4 months, what a pain in the butt, the 2-way I haven't had any problems with and almost no downtime in 3 years so it not bad everywere....

I have DirecTV as well so that takes care of that :-D

Buck_Naked · Nov 11, 2003, 01:54 PM

Pac Bell here. $49.95 for 1.5/128 service.
Unlike many others I have read about, my service has been rock solid.
Score: 7/10
Static IP
Multiple e-mails
Personal webspace

Mastrap · Nov 11, 2003, 02:08 PM

T-Online for my home in Germany, OpenWorld in the UK. 756/128 and 512/128 respectively. T-Online charges me $47/months, OpenWorld comes out of the business at �25/month.
I own multiple domains, private and business, so I never use any of the server space or mail addresses thrown in.

Pretty decent service from both providers with little or no downtime.

zigzag · Nov 11, 2003, 02:13 PM

Comcast. $45.95/month ($60.95 if you don't also get cable TV) for 3 Mbps, very fast. Good phone support so far. They offer e-mail accounts and some web services but I never use them because I have .mac.

Negatives: No newsgroup servers. Too many outages/disconnects - usually I just have to reset my modem (unplug for 30 seconds), but it happens far too often, a few times a week. Does this mean my modem sucks, or do other people have this problem?

Eciton · Nov 11, 2003, 02:30 PM

Pipex UK DSL. Good.

kmkkid · Nov 11, 2003, 03:35 PM

Rogers cable, $50/mo CAD, good service and speed.

Chris

Misanthrope · Nov 11, 2003, 03:38 PM

SoCal Road Runner/Time Warner. 3Mb down/384k up.

I want them to have my children.

faragbre967 · Nov 11, 2003, 06:29 PM

Comcast @Home Cable
Don't know the specs on up/down, but it's good. At least, good enough for me.

MacGorilla · Nov 11, 2003, 06:35 PM

Adelphi Cable here. Not bad service, not fantastic but okay. No other options for broadband here in the sticks.

SSharon · Nov 11, 2003, 06:45 PM

University of Maryland 1mb up 1mb down. Downtime happens every time one of their PC's crashes or they think it will (hurricane Isabel they just turned half the campus off). But since I mainly d/l things off people on campus here I can get sustained 1mb/s so I'm happy. I think there was one week where in 5 days I downloaded 30gb worth of files.

At home I use that service with those 3 dirty letters (AOL), but that will be changing soon. I went the entire summer without checking my e-mail b/c I couldn't stand that program and wouldn't go near the computer.

dtriska · Nov 11, 2003, 07:03 PM

Shaw out here in Western Canada. I have a package that includes Internet access and digital cable, but the Internet access runs separately for about $38 Cdn. I've got the Total Home Bundle found on this page.

Speeds go to about 3 MBps both up and down. I get 7 email address, 70 MB web space, and absolutely no spam. Shaw's got some really great filters. Oh yeah, and there's webmail, newsgroups and all that other fun stuff.

Phanguye · Nov 11, 2003, 07:16 PM

dedicatated t1 to my house....

not really... i have insight cable internet... i hate it, i have outages all the time... my parents have brighthouse and it is rock solid... insight can suck it tho

iWrite · Nov 11, 2003, 07:20 PM

What is apparent is that the ubiquitous AOL days of old are over.

No wonder AOL stock is in the dumps.

Anyway, I was looking at Netzero because they brag about their prices but then I saw that the only support that they have is online -- that's free -- and telephone support is like $2 or $3 PER MINUTE.

That totally blows!

I got an offer today to get CS (CompuServe) for $9.95 for three months then $14.95 a month thereafter, but since CS is owned/run/managed by Netscape/AOL, I couldn't delete the offer fast enough.

Cipher13 · Nov 11, 2003, 10:18 PM

Optus Cable. Something like $74/month with a 120Kb/sec upstream cap, and a 3GB download limit, after which the service gets capped to 28.8Kb/sec, down and up.

Absolute ****ing ****.

thePurpleGiant · Nov 11, 2003, 10:33 PM

Spin ADSL.

$49.95AU per month - 256K/64K

Unlimited downloads, but speed is capped at 76kbps after the first 1GB.

Great tech support, sometimes ordinary dropout rate (usually on a Sunday at some point drops out for an hour)

8/10

(Ciph - maybe you should check them out, they're in Sydney too)

voyageur · 09:50 AM

I've also got Earthlink DSL. Have had it for 2 years now, and it's been very reliable. As WDLove said, it costs $50/month.

edit: must have jinxed myself by posting. Earthlink was down for at least 24 hours yesterday and today. Longest outage in 2 years.

schk · Nov 11, 2003, 11:24 PM

Optimum online, still under $39.99/month pricing due to contract, I think it's up to $45/month now. 10mbit downloads / 150 kb/sec uploads. Can't beat 10mbit downloads as it's rare to get that speeds on any other cable service.

willab · Nov 12, 2003, 12:55 AM

Charter Cable $30 per month. They claim 256/128 I am not sure about up but I have gotten download speeds of 300, and speed test sites usually say 450. Very reliable, rarely goes out.
9/10

mac-at-kearsarge · Nov 12, 2003, 01:00 AM

Originally posted by MacGorilla:
Adelphi Cable here. Not bad service, not fantastic but okay. No other options for broadband here in the sticks.

I too am on Adelphia, But I absolutly love them ...OK, there have been one or two minor infractions, but nothing that I can really gribe about. As Long as I have broadband, I'm happy.

Truepop · Nov 12, 2003, 01:10 AM

At school when I want to browse irc or chat on aim (since the network blocks those ports) I dial in to Access4Less.

So far no complaints. They have 30 or something access numbers for Nashville and even 3 for back home in no where texas plus fast email replies and good speeds.

Here is the thing. you can connect for an unlimited amount of time but only for 5 hours at a time so 5 hours. reconnect in less than 30 seconds and your back on. plus they support v.92 modems so I can check calls and I have 2 mail boxes and no damn dialers like juno.

All for $4.95 a month with a one time set up fee of $8. I highly recommend them.

http://www.access4less.net/IndexGo.htm

tdvorak · Nov 12, 2003, 01:17 AM

Earthlink at $49.95 a month. I have had it for about 4 years, before that it was Firstworld, then it was Slip.net (which was an excellent service provider) but they both got swallowed up by the larger company.

Freeflyer · Nov 12, 2003, 11:44 AM

Cyberonic. $49.95/month, 1.5Mb up 750 down, static ip.

Customer service was crap when they started, as they were swamped with people moving from directvdsl (which was a great service). Now they're up to speed and pretty good. Love static ip.

J.

m a d r a · Nov 13, 2003, 09:40 AM

poptel DSL in uk. speed seems good. regularly getting the full 56k/sec d/loading but their tech support is atrocious [they were over a month late in connecting me]. i've had a couple of downtimes lasting hours. friend of mine who lives out in the sticks - his has been down for nearly a fortnight with no response from their support people.

doubt i'd stay wi them if it was up to me, but college paid for the installation and year's rental, so i ain't complaining [too much!].

Krusty · Nov 13, 2003, 10:31 AM

Originally posted by iWrite:
I use Bellsouth because it's cheap at only $29 for DSL and $12.95 for dial-up. 5 email accounts. Also, they have 24/7 free technical support and they bill me with my telephone bill so it's not connected to my credit card. No spam comes through -- maybe one a day. They also have dedicated Mac support.

I give them an 8 out of 10. Can't give 'em a 10 because they're only in 9 states so if I travel outside of the country I have access issues. I can check email anywhere in the world on my Bellsouth POP accounts from www.mail2web.com so that's okay, though.

Anyone else?

I hope you are using their "DSL lite" service ... otherwise I'll be pissed that you're only paying 29.95. I have "full blown" BellSouth DSL -- $45/mo (normally 49.95 but I get a discount since I have their "complete choice" home phone service). 1.5 down/256 k up -- test sites report that I actually get about 1.3/206 which isn't too far off the stated spec. No limit on how much I download as far as I know.

Overall the service has been good but I HAVE experienced some reliability problems over the last 6 months or so. I'll have a day or two every few weeks that it will drop the connection every 15 minutes or so. Annoying but not tragic. Don't really have a choice anyway ... I live in a small beach town just outside a mid-sized metro area and there is some local-schmocal cable company out here that doesn't have cable modem service -- Comcast and Knology won't operate out here because it would require to much expenditure for infrastructure.

What's this "mail2web" thing you use? I check my bellsouth email remotely by using webmail.bellsouth.net

Scifience · Nov 13, 2003, 10:52 AM

I use a local cable company called WOW! Internet. Really fast, have never had to use tech support, so I can't rate that. I have my own dedicated server for e-mail and stuff, so I haven't used any of the extras.

Pros: Super fast, very reliable
Cons: Blocks pings, only 5GB of newsgroup

Speed: 4000/768
Price: $100/month with digital cable (it is a bundle so there is no seperate pricing)

9/10

mitchell_pgh · Nov 13, 2003, 01:44 PM

Comcast $49/month

Pro: When it's up, it works well.

Cons: Will go dead from time to time (about 3 times a week). I unplug and plug back in and it works again.

nerd · Nov 14, 2003, 01:06 AM

Originally posted by zigzag:
Negatives: No newsgroup servers. Too many outages/disconnects - usually I just have to reset my modem (unplug for 30 seconds), but it happens far too often, a few times a week. Does this mean my modem sucks, or do other people have this problem?

Comcast gives you 1GB of downloads from Giganews as part of the account. I use it up every month in a day downloading stuff. As far as you having to reset you modem it might be that the cable company has to relay some coax into your house. The signal might be too low. If you have a Surfboard modem you can get into the modem and see the signal level by going to http://192.168.100.1/signal.html. Hope that helps.

Brad

malvolio · Nov 14, 2003, 01:18 AM

RoadRunner cable, $44 per month for 3000/300 kbps.
I used to have Adelphia. Their download speeds were good, but their upload speeds really sucked. So far I'm much happier with RR.

jbartone · Nov 14, 2003, 01:24 AM

Optus. Second worst ISP in Australia.
6GB Cap, $99 AU a month 10mbit/128

Came from Telstra, the worst Telco in the world.
Can't beat paying a large premium for having emails coming 5 days late for a month, serivce being down for over 24 hours on some occasions, being over billed, getting $10,000 excess usage bills ($159 AU a GB, didn't ever go over thankfully), and having the usage metre down heaps. They are the biggest telco in the country, surprisingly
Telstra was $87 AU a month, 3 GB and also 10mbit/128 speed. Stuff the speed if you can hardly use the service!

You have to laugh at all the poor suckers who sign up for Telstra.

Hopefully soon I will be switching to Unlimited ADSL

ebuddy · Nov 14, 2003, 11:46 AM

Cox Communications HSI. via coaxial cable. Extremely fast, always on, very reliable. About $32.50/month as long as you purchase your own cable modem.

Diggory Laycock · Nov 14, 2003, 12:09 PM

EasyNet DSL in the UK

Good.

used to use COLT - not so good.

deekay1 · Nov 14, 2003, 12:47 PM

telekom. they're okay. 728 down - 128 up.

ratlater · Nov 14, 2003, 01:36 PM

Speakeasy DSL. 1.5/768. Very good service, low latency and solid uptime.

-matt