ATT vs. Comcast Phone+Internet+TV (in E Bay) (Oakland: neighborhood, to buy)

[benknight]

We are new in this area and were wondering what people recommend for a Phone+Internet+TV service. We had Comcast and Verizon FIOS in the state we lived in; the choice here is Comcast and AT&T.

Here are the basic choices:

1. AT&T - Phone (local + unlimited nationwide), 6 & 10MB internet, U100 or U200 TV (with/out DVR), etc.
2. Comcast - Phone (local + unlimited nationwide), 16MB internet, 88 channel basic cable, etc.

The upside of Comcast internet is it's faster but I believe the pipeline is also shared in the node/neighborhood.?

Any experience/input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[sonarrat]

I've used both on the peninsula. AT&T is cheaper, but not if you also have Dish Network for TV. When they get U-verse up and running that may be the way to go. Lately, though, AT&T's customer service has gotten notably worse and Comcast's has improved by leaps and bounds.

[harahap]

If you use (or will use) AT&T cell phone wireless service, you can bundle all four (home, cell, internet, TV) into a slightly cheaper price. Also, the DVR with AT&T is only an extra $2/month.

AT&T's DSL internet is perfectly fine compared to Comcast's cable internet. Honestly, it's like the digital camera megapixel fallacy that's been outed--above 5 megapixels, it almost doesn't matter to the non-professional whether you have 8, 10, 13, whatever. Likewise, even though cable is ftechnically aster, DSL does the job just fine. Marketing just wants you to buy into "bigger numbers = better product/service."

If you're not going to use AT&T cell phone wireless, well, I'd say they're about the same.

[artemis78]

We <3 Sonic.net for internet service--they're a local company based in Santa Rosa that offers DSL (using, I think, AT&T's infrastructure, for the most part). We find them infinitely better in the Berkeley/Oakland area than AT&T DSL (ironic given that in theory the service should be the same--but their support and reliability is much better!) (Old service with AT&T--at least nine incidents that required calls over a year--some of them involved multiple calls before they were resolved and service restored. New service with Sonic--no calls in the first 11 months; one loss of service that was related to downed power wires, but that's it.) Never had cable internet here, though, so can't compare. Also, the downside to a separate ISP is that you can't necessarily get the bundled rates--but still worth it to us for the headache saved in not having to constantly been on the phone with them. However, we don't have cable so I can't speak to what you might save if that's on your list.