[CLUE-Tech] Qwest DSL Pricing Change

[Collins Richey]

On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 00:27:36 -0700
Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com> wrote:

> On Saturday 28 February 2004 03:29 pm, Collins Richey wrote:
> 
> > A little <ot>.  Some of us don't have the luxury of saving money
> > with DSL.  I doubt that Qwest will ever update their equipment such
> > that I can use DSL (Hampden & Tower area).  Sigh, so I'm stuck with
> > Comcast cable which is good but expensive.
> 
> Define "expensive".  

Expensive is $56 a month (including modem); it's $10 less if you also
pay for comcast TV services which I don't use.  There is also a super
high speed internet service which costs more, but I've never
investigated that.
> 
> Whenever I've priced it, the two services came out to similar pricing
> for the same levels of service.
> 

Exact levels of service (upload/download rates) don't matter much to me.
 Either service is faster than 56K dialup, and IMO, that's what counts. 
My area has never supported DSL, but I've always noticed that basic DSL
rates are quoted cheaper than my Comcast service.  Since I can't DSL,
I've never read the fine print.

> Or have cable rates gone up that much lately?  (I don't "feed the
> pig"... heh... as Dish Network would say... so I wouldn't know.  I've
> been a happy customer with Dish for almost as long as they've been
> around, and like supporting a Colorado-born company with my
> entertainment dollar.  They also seem to try to please their customers
> a lot harder than Comcast or AT&T did before them.)
> 

Cable internet service went up about $10 when Comcast took over from
ATT.

> Can you order Cable Internet from Comcast without basic cable service?

Yes, but they rip you off an additional $10 for that privilege.

> 
> The only major difference I've seen between the two other than the
> above is: 
> 
> By using an alternate ISP on Qwest's DSL network, I have access to
> cheap additional static IP addresses, where that would be impossible
> to find (either an alternate ISP *or* cheap statics) on cable.  Choice
> is good.

Yes, that is good, but I have to take what I can get (no DSL service
available)

> 
> Speaking of that, if the PUC already requires Qwest to open their DSL
> network to competing ISP's, why don't they require Comcast to do the
> same thing?  
> 

Good question.  I don't have an answer.

In summary, I've been on cable since att at home days.  The costs have gone
up, the service (with limitations) is excellent, but it would be nice to
be able to put up a server with my own web pages on my local lan.

The only real drawback I've found since the Comcast takeover is the
fact that Comcast does such a lousy job suppressing infected Windows
machines on its network that a number of spam blacklisting services dump
the entire Comcast ip range!  This means, for example, I can't subscribe
to the xfce users list, because the webmaster is a hardass and believes
evey word that the blacklisting services offer up.

Ideal would be: if Dish Network would just support wireless internet at
a reasonable price through my dish!  This type of service is available
from other dish-type setups in other metropolitan areas.

A final aside: QWEST's query site for checking your phone number and
DSL availability has been broken since yesterday.  If they don't pay
attention to this, what else are they missing in terms of support. <g>

-- 
Collins Richey - Denver area
gentoo testing 2.6.3-rc2 nptl udev