The internet will never be a commodity service until it has the reliability of the wired telephone service, broadcast television, or electrical power.
This statement brought to you by the Time Warner Internet Outage.
Tag: earthlink
Meep! Meep!
Well, the cable modem installation is complete. We had to reset the router (couldn’t remember the &*#@ password), but that solved the router problems and I’ve changed the password to something I can remember). The connection seems faster than the DSL, although the CNET speed test actually shows it as a bit slower. Could just be network congestion.
ETA: An earlier test showed it slower. But it was clearly network congestion. Whereas the DSL line was ~1Mbps, the test just showed the cable modem at ~10Mbps, and I’ve seen it up to ~16Mbps.
The only thing that is odd is that I wasn’t given a TWC/Roadrunner login and password. No mind, as I went to their site and figured it out, and have already set my mail to be forwarded. I’m guessing I’ll eventually be sent some sort of welcome package. The modem itself looks pretty idiot-proof.
So we’ll see how this goes. The good thing is that now we have three independent systems: if the phone goes out, we still have Internet. Once we’ve gotten all the email off of Earthlink, I’ll call them and cancel it.
Internet Service Update – Questions on AT&T U-Verse
Well, our Internet is back. After an hour on the phone with Earthlink, it appears the problem was the ZyXEL modem. Luckily, I had our old Broadmax modem, and connecting it up solved the problem (after all the futzing with system settings for naught).
We’re seriously thinking about ordering U-verse for voice and Internet. I have a number of questions; I’d welcome an opinion from those that have Uverse. You can see a layout of our house here.
- Looking at the layout, all the computers, which are hardwired Ethernet, are in Bedroom 3. The current telephone service comes in, however, on the other side of the house in the garage. Should they be able to work this out, since I figure their remote gateway will need to be in Bedroom 3.
- What would be the right package? I’m thinking the 12Mbs download package, but I’m willing to hear arguments for other speeds.
- Are there any other concerns about this service I should have? Does anyone else have U-verse and can speak to its reliability?
Internet Service Frustrations
A quick morning post. Our Internet at home has been down since about 8pm last night. This happens occasionally with Earthlink, but always gets me thinking (especially as a spoke to a high-school classmate at the picnic who noted that Earthlink seems to be disappearing slowly). As background, we have Earthlink DSL, which is provisioned over AT&T (formerly Pac Bell/Pac Telesys/SBC) lines. We’ve been with Earthink, either as Dialup or DSL, for over 10 years, and pay $39.95/mo (although it could be $49.95—my memory is unclear). We have Verizon wireless for our cell phones and are happy with them; we use DirecTV for our TV service (the cable provider in our area is Time Warner).
So, given I’ve got the periodic frustruction, what should we do (results):
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