Goodbye AOL! Hello...?

[Aladdin]

I've had it with AOL, and the lack of help I get from their service line in India, halfway around the world.The only question is who to go with now. Currently I have dial up. What does everyone else have, and how happy are you with your ISPservice???

[Morrigoon]

in a word...

CABLEMODEM!!!!!!

talk to your cable provider (and look into cable phone too, it's cheap!)

[penguinsoda]

I have Earthlink DSL. Its ok, I don't have to many problems with it. I've been with Earthlink since I've been online. But if you have access to cable modem and can afford it go for it! You won't be unhappy!

[Hilsbro]

i have Verizon DSL....we also have the telephone internet bundle. I get unlimited local and longdistance for the set price...it is pretty cool

[Aladdin]

Thanks, Morrigoon, I am considering DSL/Cable, but my cable provider is Cox, and I despise them almost as much as aol.

[Alchimedes]

Glad to see your making the switch from "A-o-ell" Comcast seems to get alot of good reviews. I have had SBC Yahoo(now AT&T for about 4 years now, and it has improved. Good luck

[Kaye]

I have broadband with Roadrunner/Timewarner.

Service is pretty good. No complaints yet.

[NeverNeverland]

I also have SBC, now AT&T. It's as good as any. check your telephone provider to see if you can get a bundled DSL package.

[Hyperbole]

Bravo for ditching AOL!!!!!

If you're wanting to stay with dial-up, check out DSL Extreme. Great prices. http://www2.dslextreme.com/

For broadband, I've had Verizon's fiber optic internet, and it was outstanding.

[Bruce Bergman]

I'm looking to bail for DSLExtreme DSL myself, unless something better comes along.

I have Earthlink DSL over "AT&T"(Pathetic Bell) lines now, and it works, usually. KindaSorta. Most of the time... (Dies for no good reason once or twice a year, comes back in 12 hours or so.)

But if you have problems, it's the same 'India Heck' that you are dealing with, with the added fun that they will stop if they hear the words "router" or "firewall" - they expect to see only one PC hitched direct to the modem unless you're paying $10 extra a month for their "Home Networking"...

Cable is faster if you consider raw speed - but if they load too many high-use customers on your segment of the cable system, it bogs down in a hurry. All it takes is a few perople using VoIP phones or downloading video files to submarine the speed on the segment. If it's particularly bad, dial-up would be faster.

DSL is "slower" than Cable, but that chunk of bandwidth is all reserved for you - at least back to the phone switchroom. If they overload the backhaul data line out to the rest of the Net, that's another story.

And we then get into potential "Net Neutrality" problems, where the cable company or the phone company have the potential to assign "speed limits" on other services in preference to the ones they own (or get paid for) - or block access altogether. I would prefer my Net service comes from an ISP where "they sell Net access" and they don't have incentive for that conflict of interest.

It has already happened - Someone had to sue a small cable company in the Midwest because they were blocking other VoIP phone services that were "using up all the bandwidth" - so they could sell their own VoIP phone service in competition with the local phone company.

--<< Bruce >>--