On the one hand, it’s been good for me, not having internet at home since the flood. It’s been good for my tendonitis. Typing and clicking all day at work and all night at home isn’t good. Confining my internet access to the office has helped control my online habit.
On the other hand, I’m never truly cut off from the net with this Blackberry, which I’m using to type these very words. It’s pretty handy, but I’m tired of seeing the internet through this 2 1/4″ x 1 1/2″ screen. The software is adequate but no match for what one can do with a real computer.
So I think it’s time to knuckle down and get in line for some real internet here at home. We had BellSouth DSL before the storm and it was pretty damn good, but I’m pissed off at BellSouth for any number of reasons, and I’d rather not give them my business. I thought I’d wait for Earthlink’s citywide wireless service, but with the recent departure of the city’s Chief Technology Officer, I imagine it might be a while before that’s available in Mid-City. Cox cable internet might be more attractive if we were cable television subscribers; I’m also leery because I’ve been hearing from a lot of people who have been having problems with their Cox service.
So that leaves — what? Verizon Wireless? My boss has it, and likes it, but I’m not sure how fast or reliable it really is, or even if it’s available at my location.
I’ll need to do some more research. In the meantime, I’m open to suggestions. My one unusual preference is I’d like a relatively fast upload speed. I upload some large video files from time to time.
I use Speakeasy DSL. I got the version that doesn’t require a landline. It costs $5 extra a month so it’s $55. It’s like $60/month with taxes. Upload spead is pretty good 386k.
Go for Bellsouth’s Wireless Broadband, it’s really fast, and the price is equivelent to DSL.
I don’t notice the difference between DSL or Cable, and I’m a speed whore.
Costs me $56/month, and that’s with paying off the modem.
Go with Cox. I’ve heard that if enough people subscribe to Cox, Nagin will come out of his hole, and if he sees his shadow, we’ll have 12 more months of planning.
I’m running cox now, but at my temporary apartment I had DSL cause I was pissed with the Cox people jerking me around and giving me setup deadlines that never happened. Bellsouth only just recently set up lines here in Lakeview a couple weeks ago so I went with cable again. It’s only gone out once for me in the last 4 months.
Only annoyance I had was the “installation.” I set it up myself but the wire coming from the street wasn’t active. The guy came out to check it and fixed the box at the street. Then he looked at the line coming into my house and decided to help me out. He crimped a head on one wire so I could make an extension to run through my attic. I think that one crimp cost me 100 bucks. They’re supposed to fix it free if its on there end, but I let the guy “work” on my house.
I’d also vote for speakeasy. I was a customer of theirs from 96 up until I moved in with my girlfriend last year, and her apartment comes with cable. They’re good people. Unfortunately, they’re probably leasing the line from BellSouth, so you’re not economically eliminating that middleman.
Dude, rock the Sidekick 3!
Or, alternatively, BellSouth DSL, I guess. I’m partial to cable for many reasons, but you know, Cox is ruining it for everybody. When will N.O. start to get fiber-optic home access? (I hate to ask that.) It worked really, really well for digital tv and 75M/sec internet speeds.
I like HBO, so I had cable anyway. I went with cable modem to eliminate the phone company from my life. I tried Verizon while evacuated in Houston and found it unreliable and expensive. I’ve been very happy with speeds and reliability of cable internet, but my router sucks.
I’m glad you brought this up. I was going to write you at someone else’s suggestion, actually, but figured upon reading your site that you had enough going on!
In any case. I’m about to move to New Orleans, and am told that BellSouth DSL probably won’t be available in my neighborhood (near City Park), and that Cox is what everybody gets, generally. I’d gladly go with BellSouth wireless, however, even if Cingular sucks. It’s just . . . if you’ve ever had satellite cable with a stable dish, you’ll never go back. I’m with Comcast where I am now, and had Dish Network in a city I lived in two years before (with wildly overpriced Comcast broadband service–you could at first get it separately at no additional cost, then the company started trying to force their cable service down everyone’s throat).
There’s really no comparison as far as general quality goes with satellite v. cable, and the dish service cost me far less. The dish wins. And Cox will charge $100 just to turn the service on if you don’t have cable and digital phone (which is also less than thrilling once you’ve had a VOIP connected phone, which you can use to call friends all over the country at no additional charge, as if the entire US is a local service area).
Meanwhile, the DVRs my current cable company puts out with Motorola are Grade D. I have a hard time getting the thing to change the channel if I’m four feet from the box sometimes. I can’t imagine that Cox is much better (and read online that they use Motorola; any idea what they use in NOLA?).
Yeah, I’m a geek, I suppose.
Oh, I should have said, Once you’ve had satellite via a stable dish, you’ll never go back, unless you move to a new place and the apartment you choose is way to stylish and has a big kitchen (my current residence, not the upcoming one in New Orleans) but, alas, there is no place to put the dish.
I had Cox in Rhode Island. They actually were pretty good. We had cable and and it was really fast. Course that could change depending where you live but living in Providence, there were tons of people in our neighborhood and street.
Another good thing about cable vs dsl, is with cable there’s usually no contract and I know Cox doesn’t have a contract.
Sounds like we’re in the same boat B. I hate Bell South and Cox both. I don’t do cable for that reason. The only reason I keep a phone line is because I need the analog connection to record phone interviews. I’d love to get a high speed connection, but can anyone really justify 50 or 60 dollars a month just to have a connection. It seems like such a major effing rip off. Especially for those people who do the whole cable, connection, phone deal. I hear people paying $150-200 plus a month just for their media connections! I don’t see the sanity in that. I’ve been doing a crummy little PeoplePC dial up for normal email and blogging. When I upload or download files, I go to a coffee shop, and that happens once or twice a week.