RT - What did you do about Internet Access?

[drifter]

Hey RT - a few weeks ago you posted a thread about the options you were reviewing for internet access. I am currently in the same position and curious about what you ultimately decided.

My phone company (ClearCreek in Redland,OR) offers dialup for $20 monthly or high speed cable for $40 monthly and a $150.00 setup fee. Cable sounds great, but not sure it's worth the cost. What about AT&T or other options?

Thanks, in advance, RT and any other Chromer with advise. Wes. "drifter"

[RichH]

Drifter,

I have at&t cable and I'm very happy with it. If you spend any time at all online it is absolutely the way to go. Prior to this I had a 28.8 modem and Prodigy. When I got my new computer I had 56k and thought that was a major upgrade but this stuff is awesome. I get irritated now if I wait more than about 10 seconds for pictures to download(usually much faster)

If all you want is a small amount of time on the computer for email and such it would not be worth it but again, if you spend much time at all its worth the $.

I have only ordered the AT&T info booklet and singup software CD, due anytime. I will know a lot more as soon as I can read it all. I did see a TV commercial yesterday advertising Qwest DSL for $19.95 a month (they are affiliated with U.S. West I think?). Our phone service is thru U.S. West. I forgot to call them up today to get more details of this special offer; and I couldn't read the small print in the TV ad (when you can't read it, that usually means it's not favorable for a sale - probably said something like "We were officially kidding about the $19.95 offer and it could easily cost you twice that amount, and you will be contrated to pay for our service as long as you or your spouce are living. Thank you for your interest. Muh ha ha ha." ). Those are my 2 options to choose from. They are both broad band. I live in one of the newer sub-divisions around 2 miles north of Cedar Mill and I don't know which one is likely to have more nearby people connected to those sevices; which I recall affects the service speed. Does anyone know? I am also still open for opinions and feedback on how the 2 compare. Both got good comments in that other thread. - RT

[Oakie Drifter]

RT, yeah, Id say that US West was affiliated with Quest....lol...Quest bought US West here about four or five months ago. US Worst, I mean West, no longer exists. Just my .02 worth

PS....Im looking into a new server as well and will pass on any info I get thats worthwhile.

[Salmonator]

Steve, i've been on cable for the last week and it's better than DSL. The fastest we could connect on DSL (testing with an online bandwidth meter)was 270K. The same test with cable is showing 700K to 1850K. Right now, first 6 months is 20 bucks a month and our installation was free. Also they couldn't install it within a guaranteed 7 days so our first month was free too. With a leased modem it's $39 a month. If you buy your own (which are incredibly spendy but i've heard of rebates up to 75%) it's 30 bucks a month. Our Quest DSL bill was $36... Joe

[OR Coast Range]

Steve,

Do some research before calling Quest! I don't have any direct links right now, but I haven't heard anything good about them.

[OR Coast Range]

Sorry, after a little digging I found out that I was confused. The company that I was hearing bad things about was Verizon, not Qwest. My bad!

[xtrme fisherman]

I did not see the original thread so I don't know whether this has already been suggested to you. Free ISPs! There used to be a bunch of these but now there are only a few left. I have been on Netzero (which is the biggest free ISP) for almost 2 years. It does have 56K modems! Although it has had some problems, it basically works fine. And it is actually free. However it does have an ad banner and just recently, they limited the time per month to 40 hours. If you want to see some of the other possibilities, see:
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partner.../cheapies.html

or
http://www.freeispsearch.com/free_in...access/us.html

If you want to save the $20 to $40 per month that you would spend on regular ISPs or DSL or Cable, and spend it on fishing gear instead, check it out! If you decide to try one and need help setting it up, let me know.

[4u2fish]

Well here goes I am rubbing the pennies together..

I use Quest formerly US West the bill is attached to my phone bill so I have phone,ISP, and DSL all on one bill.. My total monthly bill rarely exceeds $80 per mounth and the DSL is great.. I have some friends who use cable and it also is good..

The reason I chose US West/Quest is the ease of only haveing one bill in the mail box.. I am pleased with the service.. One thing you should realise is that ALL of the providers go through "growing pains" from time to time that is to say that when the D-slam has to upgrade to add more service you will/may see some jerky service for an hour or even a day or more it is rare but it happens to everyone..

As far as free internet I like netzero also I only use them for my e-mail now that I have DSL. The one downfall to this is that it will NOT work as an ISP for your dsl you will have to pay.. The other downfall to it is that I can recieve e-mail but can't send it (although I can reply to e-mail) I can't create a new one and send it. (you have to connect to there mail server through a modem to send mail...

Hope I didn't add to much confusion to your pile of feedback

------------------
AKC H2O-K9

[THE REEL HEY_YALL]

4u2fish, you said that all that stuff was included in your phone bill and it never exceeds $80. You gotta add RT's 1-900 phone calls into that figure as well so I don't know if the dsl is the route for him to go

I'm sure he calls those numbers for.....fishing reports..yeah that's it

[Pilar]

Qwest aka UsWorst. Muh ha ha ha ha ha

The bend is your friend!

Good one 'Yall . But you know I only dial up the 900 numbers to find out what you have been up to. I care. .... Thanks for the feedback people. The cable is sounding like the better way? Circuit City, and likely others, have the cable modems at $199 with a $150 rebate, thus costing only $49 bucks and saving the $10/mo. rental fee from the cable company. BOE, or someone, said in that last thread that the cable modems can quickly become obsolete, thus requiring another purchase? Anyone know about that? Thanks. - Steve

[THE REEL HEY_YALL]

Obsolete? It's like less than a year old or so. Storms hit, the satellite hookup could be in jeopardy. The dss owners know what I'm talking about. LOL hey thanks for calling and checking up on me, and I'm sorry to always beep over. Ya know Shania gets lonely on the road

[bajaspecial]

Try this guys....
http://webservices.cnet.com/bandwidth/

It will give you a general idea of what your getting...I have found that on high speed connections the results are slightly less than the max your connection can go.

[Salmonator]

I checked out the bandwidth meter above. The first try gave me 8150kbps. Thought it was a mistake and the next two runs both read INFINITY KBPS!!! lol