I remember back in 2006 when we first moved to the lofts, getting our Internet up and running was a top priority. From switching our billing addresses, setting up service appointments, and all of the other fun things that come along with moving, Internet was key in getting our new home up and running.
At the time, Adelphia Cable was the sole Cable Internet service provider and boy did they suck ass. From their customer service down to their network infrastructure, everything was terrible.
In the coming year, Adelphia ended up filing for bankruptcy and Time Warner took over servicing the neighborhood, but that transition was pretty rough for us as our Internet turned from terrible to just plain crap.
Fed up with our lousy Cable Internet, we signed up for AT&T "Elite" DSL at a promo rate of $20/mo for the first year, jumping to its standard rate of $35/mo the second year.
At first, we were getting pretty solid download speeds and all was good in the universe. But as time went on, things once again turned to crap.
Thinking it could be a wireless issue, I plugged my computer directly into the router, which did help a bit, but overall, didn't do much when it came to gaming on the Xbox/PS3 or worse, streaming Netflix movies.
A few weeks ago I was chatting with a neighbor and they were telling me how happy they were with their Cable Internet service from Time Warner after switching from AT&T U-verse. I looked up TW's prices online and found that their standard rates were not only cheaper than what I was paying with AT&T, but also allowed for more bandwidth.
Seeing that my AT&T DSL account wasn't on a contract and I wasn't getting anywhere near the download speeds I was paying for, I decided to give Time Warner Cable another shot, five years after first leaving them. The saddest part of all was when I called AT&T and told them I wanted to cancel, the thought of "business retention" never crossed the operator's mind!
Below is a screen capture of my previous AT&T DSL speeds and my new Time Warner Cable download speeds. From 1.33Mbps down to a whopping 25.21Mbps–it's a shame I've long outgrown my porno-downloading days.
As for pricing, get this–I'll be paying $180 LESS/year AND it looks like I qualify for a $100 cash card for telling them why I switched!
With Internet connection speeds this good I have no reason to not blog in 2012!
2 comments :
Great review. I have Time Warner broadband internet and am paying $41/mo for Basic. I've been an existing customer for just over 3.5 years now and switched over to DIRECTV for TV programming.
Apparently, what prompted me to switch was because of their rate hikes and charges for each receiver leased. Rather than have the bundle of internet and digital cable with Time Warner, I am keeping only the internet.
For internet, I was thinking of switching over to AT&T DSL because of their promotional offer of $20/mo, but suddenly came across your blog with the review. I've read reviews about AT&T DSL being crappy and intermittent from records in 2009 and 2010. I guess AT&T DSL has not improved over the years. Having had DSL in the past (with Verizon), I've found that nothing comes close to cable internet, not even DSL. The speeds attainable through cable is just so much faster. Another thing I didn't like about AT&T DSL was they had a 150GB/mo bandwith cap. Go over that and it is $10/mo more for each 50GB overage beyond the 150GB/mo limit.
I'm definitely not a fan of data caps–especially in this day and age of Netflix and other streaming media.
It's a shame this area isn't supported by Verizon FIOS. The connection speeds are crazy fast!
Glad I was able to help :)
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