31 replies to this topic

[mikeb]

Hi, my wife and I just moved into the area and I run a business primarily out of the house. I went to Comcast and they have a deal if you get both high speed internet and cable but I already have a sattelite. Does anyone have any preferences about DSL there vs. Cable for Internet?? Thanks, we are moving in next weekend, nice to see a local chat.

[camay2327]

I have comcast cable for my TV and my internet. I am very happy with both, except for the price. A bit high but you pay for what you get.

Cal

[john]

We have Dish for TV and SBC Yahoo for DSL. It's pretty fast, and a lot cheaper than Comca$t. Since we have Dish, our Comcast bill (formerly AT&T broadband) went to something like $65 a month. It's not worth it.

[zach5]

Go with dsl, I have currently have comcast which was att when I first subscribed, but had to go through a lot of crap to get it. Our first problem, was installation, I guess some "idiot" decided to install the lines in the ground without seals, so we had to have all of that replaced. Then we find, whoever laid cable in our house had did it improperly, and there wasnt enough signal, so comcast had to run an ugly wire along the outside stucco of our house, and charge us for it. They also sent multiple technicians who seemed to have no clue what was going on, we had about 15 technicains come through, most not know what the man before did. So in all it took us about 3 months to get it installed. Next is their customer service which is horrible, when we subscribed, we saw an ad for 19.99 for the first 3 months, but they started charging us regular prices, so we ended up having to wait on the phone on hold for an outragously long time to even talk to anyone, then we got switched around a few times with operators, until finially getting the problem resolved. So far my veiw on comcast is that their whole operation of business just sucks. Next I hear on the news that in many areas comcast/att was improporly installing the ground, because they were installing the ground to the gas line or something. And then I go and research it a bit on www.broadbandreports.com and see that comcast has a very low rating by many users of that. So in all to sum up my story, I would reccomend dsl over cable because of how many problems that comcast has and the price you pay for comcast which is unbelievable. I myself can hardly wait until winfirst(surewest) starts covering folsom with fiber optic 10mbit/10mbit (for those of you who know what that means) internet.

[parklady]

DSL is by far a better deal - I had Comcast (formerly AT&T Broadband) before and I couldn't detect a real speed difference. All I know is that all Comcast does is keep raising their prices. As for the cable vs. dish argument, I think the dish is a good choice for the variety, but be ready for extra service. The winds and almost any inclement weather here can throw them out of alignment. Fortunately, Dish Network now has a monthly service plan that you pay $5.00 for with only $29.00 service call fee. Before it was outrageous at $119.00 each time they came out after storms or winds threw it out of alignment.

[folsomBlondie]

mikeb - welcome to myfolsom.com

[jtweagle]

Great advice all -
I have comcast internet and DISH cable. Comcast does charge an arm and a leg for the internet if you do not subscribe to both services. I will check into DSL. Any idea when Surewest may be coming to Folsom?
Best - Jeff

[kanda]

Comcast just doubled the download speed of their Folsom broadband service. Doesn't make any difference to me whether I'm surfing at 1.7mbs or 3.4mbs, but for someone who downloads a lot of large files, it might. (Then again, I understand there's some sort of monthly bandwidth cap, so if someone does download a lot of files, Comcast might not be the best choice.)

I also understand that Comcast will be dropping the $10/mo discount for the internet + cable bundle, effectively raising the price $120/yr for those who currently get both. I haven't heard anything official yet, just rumors on dslreports.com.

[BodenMaddox]

I can't comment on Comcast's service now, but I did sign up for them when I moved into ER, as DSL wasn't here yet. It was great and speedy at first, but as the place filled up with people, I noticed a real drop in service speed. When DSL came here, I went with it. It's by far cheaper and the speed I picked (1MBps down, 256Kbps up) is plenty fast for me and it's MUCH more reliable than Comcast was. Seemed Comcast went out every couple of weeks for varying periods of time.

[kanda]

Comcast has become somewhat more reliable, though it still goes down occassionally. I'm online for 50-60 hours, or more, per week, so I notice when it goes down. A noticable outage (lasting more than a few seconds) happens once every month or two. Generally it lasts less than an hour. Quick outages of less than a minute still happen a few times a month, but they don't bother me much.

I'm certainly thinking of changing to DSL, though, once that $10/mo discount is gone.

[BodenMaddox]

Correction... I have 1.5MBps down, 256Kbps up. And it is cheaper than Comcast was charging me too.

[mikeb]

Thanks for all the replies, I ended up going with Comcast and the speed seems very good. No problems yet?? $25 off a month for 16 months for giving them my old satellite (Didn't even have sat. service just an old box in the garage with no dish) with the TV/Broadband bundle. Free install and it looks like $75 month total for Digital Cable w/HBO in 4 rooms, Broadband and taxes. Happy so far, thanks again. Hope I don't have service issues and have to switch to DSL.

[BodenMaddox]

Good news. Thanks for the update. Good luck. :-)

[SGAKG]

Hi all,

I am new to the ER neighborhood and am looking for the internet options here. I did have comcast cable internet in the past and have stuck to that for now. But I do want to lower my monthly bill with DSL if possible.

Anyone here use SBC Yahoo DSL?? Do you know the distance from the CO for the area?? I am just a little sckepticle about the DSL performance as I found a website which gave the distance of the PacBell CO as 17037 ft from my address...!! I hear one has to be within 5000 ft for decent advertised performance. Any insights will be helpful. Or any other DSL provider with good service in the ER area will also be good to know of.

I don't want cable TV but just the internet, hence am looking into the DSL option.

Thanks,

SG

[Erika]

We had Comcast and have switched to SBC DSL. There is a package that guantees you at least what you're getting with Comcast and faster if you're lucky. I know for the first year it is a lot cheaper and you're not stuck with the Comcast cable fee.