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We wound up with Bell South/AT&T DSL. That was due to the fact that Charter could not seem to get a cable from the street to our house in any reasonable time. Then when they did, they canceled the hookup order and wanted us to wait another week or so for them to reschedule it (after they admitted they screwed up). Since Mrs. Mule and I both work at home, waiting for them to get their act together proved too much and Bell South had a DSL modem to me in two days. Too bad since I own two cable modems I would have gladly used.
We've been happy with the DSL service. Few outages, most are momentary and the speed seems plenty good. It is as good, if not better, than the cable modem service I've had elsewhere. Of course, it is slower on the upload end but we receive many times more stuff than we send.
I can't speak to the actual performance of Charter's internet service. Given the fiascoes I had getting TV service at all, then getting DVR service (they seemed to not know how to turn it on), the frustrations I saw with their own techs had with them trying to get our DVR service to work and then the Keystone Kops act when the DVR box failed, if we had a line of sight through the trees for satellite TV service I would not use Charter at all.
We wound up with Bell South/AT&T DSL. That was due to the fact that Charter could not seem to get a cable from the street to our house in any reasonable time. Then when they did, they canceled the hookup order and wanted us to wait another week or so for them to reschedule it (after they admitted they screwed up). Since Mrs. Mule and I both work at home, waiting for them to get their act together proved too much and Bell South had a DSL modem to me in two days. Too bad since I own two cable modems I would have gladly used.
We've been happy with the DSL service. Few outages, most are momentary and the speed seems plenty good. It is as good, if not better, than the cable modem service I've had elsewhere. Of course, it is slower on the upload end but we receive many times more stuff than we send.
I can't speak to the actual performance of Charter's internet service. Given the fiascoes I had getting TV service at all, then getting DVR service (they seemed to not know how to turn it on), the frustrations I saw with their own techs had with them trying to get our DVR service to work and then the Keystone Kops act when the DVR box failed, if we had a line of sight through the trees for satellite TV service I would not use Charter at all.
Thanks for the feedback. What kind of speed are you getting with DSL?
We are on their top-end plan (supposedly 6Mb/second). When I have run benchmark tests, we can download in the 2.5 - 3.5 range. It isn't 6, but I didn't really expect that, either. I should mention that all those benchmarks were run on a computer that is connected via wireless, so I may be losing some speed through that process. My wife's computer is wired to the router, but I've been too lazy to run the benchmark on hers (and I'd probably get yelled at for interrupting her). If I remember right, we uplink at 512k.
My last cable connection, which was in Virginia, was around 2.5. So, we gained a little on the download speeds and lost some on the uploads. By the end of the day it is probably about a wash, speedwise.
The current speedmatters.org report about internet speeds just came out; no surprise the United States lags far behind speeds in many parts of the world. Anyone that wants to read/download the report can find it at: http://www.speedmatters.org/content/2009report
can anyone speak to satellite internet providers for areas not serviced by charter or ATT?
I am really curious to find out if there are any options for high speed internet if you are a ways from phone or cable lines. If anyone is using another provider, I would be grateful if you could let me know who they are and how you like them...
Jon, when we moved here I looked into satellite ISP, especially when the Charter experience was swirling down the sewer. I don't remember much about it. DirecTV had a service that used a satellite. I think they now just partner with various DSL services and an all-satellite service called Wildblue.
My concern at the time was that weather and atmospheric issues would cause us problems. We also don't have a great line of sight for a satellite dish because we live amongst the trees, particularly to our south. Keep in mind my wife and I both have home offices, so probably 3/4 of the data that comes in or leaves is business related and outages, particularly during the day, are quite annoying.
Unfortunately, I don't know anybody who has or had an all satellite ISP.
I use Skyrunner for my service at home and at my restaurant. Small independent local company. It uses wireless radio receivers. I've been very happy overall. There are a few hiccups occasionally, but when that happens I call directly to one of the two owners and they are great about fixing the issue.
Skyrunner sounds VERY promising and I would be happier supporting a local business instead of a corporation
Thanks very much for the info! I have heard of Wildblue before from my brother in law and he mentioned some of the issues with weather and line of sight you mentioned. That will be a good second option if I can't do Skyrunner.
I really appreciate the help, I will update once I am up and running.
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