[CLUE-Tech] Business alternatives to DSL.

[David Anselmi]

Here's a summary of what happened with this, thanks again to all who 
replied:

David Anselmi wrote:
> Anyone have any suggestions how to provide Internet access to a small 
> office?  It's in an office building so I don't know whether Comcast et. 
> al. provide there.

Qwest doesn't yet provide DSL to this building.  If they did it would 
easily be the best value (around $50/mo. for 1.5M/1Mbps).

Comcast might be the next best at $95/mo for 3M/384kbps.  I assume that 
their residential rates aren't available at an office and that they are 
able to run cable into the building (which doesn't have it yet).

One thing we do with this is run an app over a VPN so I was curious 
whether they could increase the upload speed beyond 512k, if 384k turned 
out to be too slow.  Their AUP also prohibits servers and I wanted to 
know whether a VPN counted as a server (seems like it would) and how 
much a static IP cost (which then permits servers).

But I never got anything back from them.  When I called I got a "give me 
your info and a sales rep will call" person who couldn't answer any 
questions (thought that a static IP might be $30/mo which seems high). 
The sales rep didn't call within the 2 business days promised and 
calling back to check got me on hold.  So Comcast loses a sale.

Next best, which we settled on, was XO Communications.  They charge 
$150/mo for sDSL at 384kbps.  They could also provide phone service 
cheaper than Qwest and with a 2 year signing discount the total turned 
out to be the best.  We'll see how it goes, the office upstairs uses 
them and has no problems.

Next you can get iDSL at 144k from AT&T, Earthlink, Speakeasy, and 
probably others for $100-150/mo.  That seems pretty slow for the price. 
  I guess there's also ISDN at 128k for (I hear) $70/mo from Qwest. 
That's slower than we'd like so we didn't look at it.

Finally CBeyond was recommended but they only provide T1 services (voice 
and data) for $495/mo.  If you're spending that much it might be a good 
deal but we aren't there yet.

I didn't look at any of the satellite suggestions.

Dave