In My Experience... | Taking the plunge (again). (8011)

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Taking the plunge (again).
[ Posted by Dan on January 21, 2004 | 6 Comments ]

After the debacle of getting my broadband thru a fixed wireless provider, I have decided to take the plunge and sign up for cable based internet service from Adelphia (a name I do not trust). Adelphia is my only other choice when it comes to broadband connectivity in my neighborhood (which is a fiber based community by the way, so DSL is not gunna happen due to it being copper based).

A large community down the street from me is served by Adelphia and has historically suffered serious reliability and speed issues. That didn't fill me with confidence, but, when you're a crack smoker and you gotta get your bit fix, you'll dance with the devil. The 12 intro rate of $26/month was a major factor in the decision where I was paying triple that price for unreliable service. So taking the plunge wasn't too hard to do.

Of course the install didn't go very well. I have some networking experience and I know what a high pass filter is and what collision domains are, but still I had to have a couple of Adelphia techs come out and fiddle with my gear (it turns out the green box in the backyard needed some tweaks). Since then, I have yet to have an outage of any kind, but in the evenings the connection is dog ass slow where the fixed wireless solution was consistent in it's rate of thruput (when it was working).

I don't think I have EVER had an outage on my phone line (other than outages due to east coast black outs, hurricanes or Nor'Easters). Why is residential broadband so unreliable?

How old is the cable line in your townhouse? did they test it before the install?

When they did mine, they ripped the cable out and ran a whole new one into the basement.

How many cable jacks do you have in the house, how many are in use? get grounding caps for the ones that aren't, it'll reduce line noise and improve your connection *and* your tv quality if you're doing that, too. (And FWIW I've been told that if you have cable internet you get at least basic cable free even if you're not paying for it... they can't run one without the other. Small bonus).

Is that 12 months at 26? that's a hell of a good deal. Out here they might offer 3 months at that rate.

Part of the slow connection of course is just that that's a busy time for web use and your neighbors are all online, too... probably more than the equipment can readily handle, even if the pipe can take it fine. (dsl sellers like to point this out, but it's not really a difference... the dsl has the same problem, it's just at the central point instead of distributed, so everyone can have problems instead of just localized areas)

If they follow comcast's lead and bump to 3 Mbps connectivity, it should reduce the problem since they'll likely have to upgrade the hardware there anyway. But that's just a guess. I don't have speed issues with mine, we're not so densely packed out here in the midwest. :-)

-Posted by JC on January 21, 2004 04:17 PM

cable line: VERY new
line tests: none
coax ports: 10 (5 outputs for cable, 5 outputs for an in house cox network) all are terminated
the deal: 12 months for $26
slowness: definitely due to saturation
advertised speed: 3megabits down, 256k up

-Posted by Dan on January 21, 2004 04:44 PM

From what I've seen, the realibility of one's broadbanc connection is based on a variety of factors, which seem to be different nearly everywhere you go. I've had Comcast for a year and a half, and have had only a handful of outages which have lasted for less than 30 minutes or so, each. Other people here have had a horrible experience with Comcast.

I'm hoping that your experience with Adelphia is similar to mine with Comcast - I was guessing that it would suck (from what I have heard), but it ended up being pretty good.

-Posted by milbertus on January 21, 2004 05:02 PM

how slow is "dog ass slow" anyway? If you hit dslreports.com and do a line test, what do you get?

-Posted by JC on January 22, 2004 10:17 AM

Dog ass slow = less than 100 kilobits/sec (which isn't the norm but does happens sometimes)

-Posted by Dan on January 22, 2004 10:54 AM

Hmm. better than dialup, but not much.
I hope it works out for you in the long run. Eventually they'll have to upgrade the local loop (ok, so that's a DSL term, not a clue what it's called in cable terms)

Even at only 100kbps, 26 bucks a month isn't a bad deal... more than twice the speed of the more popular dialup providers, for 3 bucks more a month.

-Posted by JC on January 23, 2004 10:24 AM

Comment posting has been turned off because I don't have enough time and will to deal with the constant comment spamming. I'm very sorry and will fix this sometime soon (soon = before 2004 ends).