Steven Buehler wrote:
>No matter which ISP you take, you are still ultimately stuck with Verizon's
>service since Verizon owns the "last mile" connection to the demarc. The only
>difference is who has to go complain to Verizon when it doesn't work (if you use
>an ISP other than Verizon, it's the ISP's responsibility to complain to them).
>The ISP's other than Verizon are simply reselling your local phone company DSL
>service at a small discount, which the ISP then fills in with its service fee to
>make an amount that's roughly equivalent. It is not dissimilar to dial-up
>service-no matter which ISP you use you are still stuck with your local phone
>company owning the line.
>
>The same goes for cable modem, except that it's the cable company that owns the
>last mile connection (Bright House offers Road Runner, AOL Broadband, Earthlink,
>or Internet Junction on the same cable connection, all for the same price except
>for AOL (which is $10 more)).
>
>
>
That's not entirely the case (re: having to deal with Verizon service).
While it's true that it is Verizon's lines that are ultimately used, and
most DSL providers will only be passing their Internet bandwidth on,
there are definite customer-service advantages to an alternative ISP.
For one thing, an alternative provider can make bandwidth guarantees
that Verizon may be unwilling to make. For another, if an alternative
provider promises a certain pricing scheme and is likely to actually
provide service and pricing as represented, whether or not the billing
department at Verizon is full of a bunch of crooks won't affect you at
all. Keep in mind that, while the raw materials (bandwidth,
essentially) all come from the same place (Verizon), you still have the
choice of whatever service packages are offered by resellers that have
the freedom to see to the disposition of their resold product in
whatever manner they see fit (within obvious limits).
It is, in this respect, very like a dial-up ISP as pointed out by Mr.
Buehler: keep in mind that telephone company ISPs over dialup have
pretty much universally sucked arse, NetZero has become a provider of
good service and good prices that are quite difficult to beat for dialup
(having previously been bad service at the best price -- free), and AOL
managed to make your dialup Internet service far worse than the
telephone company ever envisioned.
I guess it's analogous to using a limo service. Two services might both
be using Cadillac limousines, but if one of them hires drunkards as
drivers and the other only people with ten years of proven good driving
habits, there is definitely a difference in the quality of experience
gained when dealing with the two companies.
As far as cable goes, it's true that you're mostly locked into a very
limited set of features by whoever the local cable monopoly happens to
be. The cable networks are far more tightly controlled than service
provisions for DSL and dialup. It's my experience that the best way to
go with cable is generally to simply go with whatever ISP is going to
foist the least "features" on you and provide the best support when
something goes wrong. In my case, that has so far proven to be
Roadrunner, as there is no technical necessity to use their software
when connecting to their service. Simply plug your cable modem into the
cable, your router into your cable modem, and the rest of the network
into your router. Voila. Seamless Internet service.
On the downside, I'm experiencing random network dropouts (about once
ever two hours or so on average) that last for a fraction of a second.
It's just enough to crash an IM connection or drop a download in
mid-stride. I've got it narrowed down to the point where it's clear to
me that it's a problem at the cable modem or beyond it; I can bypass any
given component on the network and still get the problem, up to the
cable modem. I don't know if this is common to Roadrunner or something
particular to my connection, but I do intend to find out in the near future.
My apologies for the long email. I get carried away sometimes.
-- Chad Perrin----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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