Broadband: Promise and Solution
Timing is easy, as I was living in a trailer park in South Austin, the first time I experienced DSL at home, Oddly enough, I was visiting a cop in El Paso, first time I saw a cable modem. Cable modem was wicked fast, pushing 2 or 3 MPS at the time. DSL was double what the regular (fast at the time) modem ran, or 128 (+/-) versus the 56.6 dial-up. AOL and free CDs?
Check it out in the horoscopes, under “Gemini.”
I just paid my new phone bill. AT&T, the Deathstar? $24.95 per month for DSL.
Not bundled, not anything. Installer guy didn’t look askance when I explained there was no landline. Means the wall plugs didn’t need those “DSL filter” things.
The first DSL I had was through Earthlink, and I was connected to them because I had an account with Netcomm — and Earthlink offered, I’m guessing here, but it was DSL for not much over $90 per month $30? I’m unsure. I think it was $40-$50 range, and when Time-Warner offered to bring me cable a modem for only $30 (plus cable TV, which I didn’t own a TV set, so it was a problem)… $60.
Here in San Antonio, Time-Warner was spotty at first, but worked well for years. Then they tripled my bill. I tried three times to get it cancelled, and finally, I had to politely return all the hardware, along with a mild suggestion about places and “Sun don’t shine” attitude.
Local Time-Warner phone support pretty much sucked for me. Throughput? I was paying for 10 mps, and I was easily clocking at 20 mps on most tests.
The TV with an Apple TV and Netflix, Hulu Plus and so on? That’s hooked up wireless along with multiple phones, iPhones, iPads, iMacs, tablets, readers, notebook, laptop computers.
The standard issue AT&T “broadband” is slow as a molasses. That’s a downside. If I click the “wifi” off on the tablet, my iPad shows the AT&T LTE coverage to be good at between 6 and 15 MPS throughput.
Where this was going, since the days of trailer in South Austin — before a trailer in South Austin was cool — I’ve been waiting on broadband that costs less than a dollar a day.
It doesn’t really keep up with my demand, but the price? Finally, real internet connectivity for less than a dollar a day.
For once, I’m not sure how long this will last, but after Time-Warner tripled my bill with no added services, yeah, after that? I’ll gladly pay AT&T for slower but fully functional DSL.
It’s a promise, made more than a dozen years ago, about “Broadband for all,” and the deal is? It’s finally here.
Hulu Plus – Hulu, LLC
hashtag #justsayin
Who owns what?
myAT&T – AT&T Services, Inc.