[BC] Kissing and IP Provider Goodbye...

[Broadcast List USER]

This leads into another issue that is pretty key to me:

Don't put all your eggs in one basket!

I have three choices of fairly fast Internet at my home, excluding the  
satellite providers.

Comcrap, who I have to admit, have been giving me fairly good Internet  
service for the last year.  The only thing that sent me back to them  
was that Verizon was falling down on the job, and because I am in a  
FIOS area, I had to use the FIOS Customer Service Group, which was way  
understaffed, so service really sucked.

Verizon FIOS, that I wouldn't use for the reason above.  I am not  
going to wait over an hour each time I need someone.

Verizon DSL, which I was happy with, until the "modem" failed and they  
refused to replace it until I canceled.

Finally, I also have various cellular providers data services.   
Verizon and Sprint do OK at my house, but AT&T took away our great  
coverage on July 2 of last year.

I use Comcrap as my main provider and use Sprint PCS as my data back- 
up.  There are many routers that will split the traffic or use the  
cellular data card as a back up.  I use Cradle Point.  It works GREAT.

VoIP kind of falls apart when Comcrap is unplugged or fails, but it  
will work with only one line in use.  E-mail works fine on the Sprint  
PCS card.  Web browsing is slow, but acceptable.

I have a customer referral account that gets me the $60/month  
"unlimited" data for $50 a month.  The lack of redundancy issue is  
that when I travel, I yank out the Sprint card and throw it in my  
computer bag.  Oh, well, but I'm not home at that point.

If I really needed redundancy, I would have a cable modem and either  
DSL or FIOS and use a load splitting router.  They exist.  Some of the  
best are just north of $2,000, but if you REALLY need redundancy, it  
is a good idea to spend an extra $40 to $60 a month for it!

It just blows me away when I hear, "Comcast really screwed me.  I make  
$1,000 a day off the Internet, and when they go away, I get no cash  
flow."  Really?  Why not have a back-up?

--chip

On Feb 26, 2010, at 5:20 PM, broadcast-request at radiolists.net wrote:

> Message: 28
> From: patrick roberts <radiowavesokc at gmail.com>
>
> My experience with ATT is that, if you are within a reasonable
> distance from the CO and have decent pots service, you'll have a very
> reliable service from them.  They rarely break, which is reason #1 for
> me staying with them.  Reason #2 is they don't generally play port
> block games.  Our cable co. here does.  They customer support is poor
> however compared to the cable guys.  They are also slower than the
> cable guys.  The reliablity for me makes me stay.  I know people that
> have cable internet and have several outtages a year.  If I have more
> than one a year, it's unusual.
>
> PR