Seems this is my day for rants…
America’s Third World Countyâ„¢. Gotta love it.
Example: the local mom n pop “baling wire and chewing gum” telco that serves 2.5 communities with 2 exchanges (yeh, it’s long distance to call between the two exchanges, and “.5” cos one of the communities is so small it doesn’t even have a post office), has offered “DSL” service for a coupla years now. Really, it only offers ADSL, but who’s quibbling?
But catch this: the cable tv company I have basic tv service through (I qualify by about 150′–that much further west and I’d be “outside the service area”) offers broadband access as well. Here’s a brief rundown:
My cable internet access runs me about $55 a month, including my basic tv service (which strangely has provided us with about 65 channels). Add onto that the $25 I pay for VOIP ($5 of which is taxes!) and my total internet/tv/long distance phone runs me just a frog’s hair under $80 a month.
What do I get (apart from great tv reception and—sometimes—a decent selection in tv viewing)?
My download speed runs regularly in the 4.5-5 mbit/s range, with my upload speeds regularly well above 250kbps. Fast service on outages. Good tech support if I call at night (daytime is fulla know-nothings, apparently), and the personal cell phone number of the local tech/onsite serviceman.
What would I pay JUST for DSL internet service that approached those speeds via the local telco (not including the VOIP and cable tv costs)?
Well, I can’t. The fastest speeds offered by the local telco are 1.5mbit/s download and 512kbps upload… for $180/month.
$55.50 with the telco yields 128K up/64K down speeds.
And all this with the wonderful service of our local telco that stalled me for SIX MONTHS* one time when all the local internet access I could get was dialup access through them… and the drop line that was the telco’s property was demonstrably bad and causing modem disconnects.
SIX MONTHS* to get the telco to actually test the lines and replace its faulty equipment… a 30-year-old drop line.
And I’d want my “broadband” service with them because…. ?
heh
As soon as I feel the e-911 service with my VOIP provider is solid, I’ll likely dump my local telco entirely. (Besides, how much is 911 service worth here, anyway, since there are no maps showing where we live? heh). Heck, the $25 I pay for all the phone calls anywhere in the US and Canada I want every month wouldn’t even begin to cover LOCAL “long distance” calls on the local telco, let alone the caller ID, voicemail, CHEAP (as in no LD charges at all) faxing, and loads of other neat stuff that’s all added expense when going through the local telco.
(It’s no wonder telcos in the state are trying to regulate cable companies out of providing VOIP services, is it?)
Nah. I think I’ll stick with much, much better service for less money. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
[*Yeh, the telco would send a guy out who’d hook up a handset to our box and say “Sounds fine to me… du—uhh”–dumbasses. Finally rousted the guy in charge of service personally and had him bring some REAL test equipment… and leave the deaf and dummie somewhere else.]