Verizon DSL vs Comcast Cable

[rlk at alum.mit.edu (Robert L Krawitz)]

   From: David Kramer <david at thekramers.net>
   Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 16:21:31 -0500

   On Saturday 21 February 2004 10:12 am, Derek Atkins wrote:
   > David Kramer <david at thekramers.net> writes:
   > >> I had to move from Speakeasy to RCN last year because my better half
   > >> really wanted cable tv.  Ugh.
   > >
   > > Why drop speakeasy?  We have cable TV and speakeasy DSL.  I can't
   > > possibly convey how strongly I like SpeakEasy.
   >
   > You mean that speakeasy will give you 2-3Mbps downstream
   > connectivity???  No?  Didn't think so.  But I can _consistently_
   > get this level of download capability on my RCN Cablemodem.

   No, but they did recently DOUBLE my upstream and downstream speed
   for free.  I have about 1.5Mbs down now.  If you can consistently
   get that kind of speed out of your cablemodem you are exceptionally
   lucky.

They rolled it out for everybody, didn't need any asking or anything.
I get the full 1.5 Mbps from well connected sites; sites that aren't
well-connected vary (although I typically get better rates through
Speakeasy than from work, and I work for a major company that knows
more than a thing or two about networking).

   But it's been such a pleasure to call first-line tech support and
   talk about Linux with them.  When I had a cablemodem, and I would
   call up to complain that my system was no longer listed in their
   DNS server so nobody could talk to my computer, they told me to
   reboot my computer.  Just a little different at SpeakEasy.  Sure
   you can get that level of knowledge from the "guy with a rack of
   hardware in his basement" ISP's but you never know when they'll go
   under.

I didn't understand DSL initially, and thought it needed a dedicated
phone line.  I already had dialup on a second phone line from another
ISP that shall not be named, and assumed that I'd have to lose all
service for a while.  The Speakeasy salesperson -- not even tech
support -- knew exactly what was going on and patiently explained it
to me.  He seemed genuinely happy to hear from a fellow Linux user.

The second IP comes in handy for my wife to use her work laptop (it's
configured to use only DHCP, she can't change it, and I don't use NAT
on our home network, so I put a DHCP server on my main box to serve
the second IP).

Reliability has been great.  Unscheduled downtime has been extremely
rare.