OT....internet connectivity, thinking of going w/ cable Options

[Aaron Cox]

im thinking of going w/ cable....DIALUP SUCKS the big ...... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smash.gif)

[campbellcj]

I had Verizon DSL for a couple of years at my old place (LA) and it was fabulous. Cheap, fast and pretty reliable. I did not have the base package; it was one or two clicks up from that. 768KB up and down, IIRC.

None of the residential solutions will beat a commercial circuit on performance, overall. You will either suffer more outages, or more fluctuations in throughput...BUT you will pay a fraction of the bill too. I have a full T1 at my office for $500/mo, which is "cheap" for the area; this is for a 13-block of static IP's and 24x7 monitoring. (I used to pay $1500/mo before the competition got cut-throat). There is on average no variation in speed and no downtime, other than a problem we had recently when the ISP merged with a larger company and the transition was botched...back to normal now. The DSL I used to have was like $60/month, for half that speed.

Now I have a DirecPC/DirecTV satellite lashup at home, because I cannot get DSL or Cable here. My next best option was like $700/mo vs $120 or so for this. The overall throughput is great, usually 800-1500+ Kbps/sec but there is a lot of latency (lag to establish a new connection) and also it is subject to disruptions from major storms, winds, etc. Not much I can do though.