71–76 of 76 posts
Lately, I don't mind connection speeds as much as I care about absurd data caps. It's almost 2014, for god sake. Are we still having to fight for our data usage?
Because anyone who uses more than 5GB a month is a pirate, don't you know?
Talking with Comcast on the phone can seem like talking to someone from another planet. When I moved last year and needed to move my service with me, I was instructed to just bring the Comcast box to the new place myself, and then call a specific number when I had connected it to turn service on. Great! I thought, that sounds easy. Well it turns out the people answering at that number (the number they gave me, rememb…
If you're a person with clue, get friendly with the folks at the local Comcast office, or one of the technicians. If you're technically inclined and can demonstrate that you're wise enough to only call them about issues with their network, you'll probably be able to get the support number for the local office.
>Of course, not everyone's home Internet is terrible. I dispute this. Is Google Fiber all right? Do you Silicon Valley folks get decent service? Because out here in the real world, ISPs are uniformly horrible. I haven't met or talked to anyone on the entire Internet who is satisfied, or simply not constantly enraged, by their ISP. It seems every single one is corrupt and incompetent at the same time.
>Of course, not everyone's home Internet is terrible. I dispute this. Is Google Fiber all right? Do you Silicon Valley folks get decent service? Because out here in the real world, ISPs are uniformly horrible. I haven't met or talked to anyone on the entire Internet who is satisfied, or simply not constantly enraged, by their ISP. It seems every single one is corrupt and incompetent at the same time.
I love my ISP, CondoInternet. $60, 100M symmetric. Upgrade to 1000 available. Free static IP, full IPv6 support.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's true that TWC and Comcast are the worst of all. But I have to disagree, not all providers suck. In my current town (Clifton, NJ) we can get Verizon FIOS and Optimum. Both providers are fighting fiercely for customers. I used FIOS for a year and it was great, no caps,full speeds and good support. I later switched to Optimum and it is fantastic, I've never been so happy with a service provider, they upgraded most…
that's because you have competition. Most of the places have no chioce. They are either stuck with optimum or verizon dsl. So you are in a minority. Also, clifton, nj is a rich neighborhood, thats why probably you have both fios and optimum.
About four years ago I used to live in the Bronx, and the only thing in my area was Optimum, and the service was almost as good as now.
It's about the company caring for the customers.
In the UK, we have loads of broadband companies who sell service through BT phonelines. (catch: you have to pay BT for line rental, which at £13/month isn't too bad, and you do get a phone number for that.) This acts very much like the "municipal fiber network" proposed in the article - all your customer service is with who you pay your bill to, and they set your download limits and any throttling (and there are more…
To get internet access you actually need two things: infrastructure and an ISP. Infrastructure is through one of two companies (although it may be more now? I'm not sure): Bezeq (DSL) or HOT (Cable). After that you choose your own ISP.
Typically infrastructure is the more expensive of the two, and the ISP is quite cheap.
It's also illegal to have binding contracts for utilities here so if HOT pisses me off, I can switch to Bezeq. If my ISP pisses me off I can switch to another one within 20 minutes. I think this latter point is actually the most effective in getting what I want from my providers. Customer service here is pretty awful usually (and this is from a person who used to live in NYC and had TWC), but when they know they risk losing you very easily it's easy to get what you want.
I think if you unbundle and do away with contracts you'll get a pretty powerful combination.