Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[David Matusiak <dave AT matusiak.org>]

On Apr 4, 2009, at 10:12 AM, John Broome wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 6:45 AM, Jeanne Moyer  
> <jeanne.moyer AT gmail.com> wrote:
> > Earthlink is TW under the covers.  They charge a bit less but use  
> > the same
> > lines. I bounce back and forth between the two for support when I  
> > have an
> > issue.  Earthlink is the old Mindspring that acquired Nando.net.  
> > I've had
> > them as an ISP for more than a dozen years. Am so frustrated with  
> > my service
> > in this past year.
> >
> > Is DSL really more reliable and consistently faster?
>
> I've never heard anyone suggest that dsl is more reliable and
> definitely not faster than cable.

The whole reason I switched to cable modem years ago was because of  
the poor performance, 12-month contracts, and hellish installation  
process of various DSL providers.  Basically, unless you *are* the  
phone company, they will sit on any requests until the last possible  
minute and then most likely turn up the wrong circuit.  AT&T/BellSouth  
thus make their DSL install process look fabulous by comparison,  
because they are provisioning their own lines and keeping all the  
money.  You're still stuck with the lame DSL performance and  
historically higher prices, however.

Looks like the cable modem morons are giving me good reason to start  
investigating other connectivity options.  So, is there really any  
competition in this market?  Because I'm not seeing it.