SBC DSL or Charter Cable?

[fawhfe]

Right now I can choose between

3000/256 charter cable for $27/month for the rest of 2004 and $40/month for next year
384-1500/128 SBC DSL for $27/month or
1500-3000/384 SBC DSL for $37/month

I don't really need that much bandwidth (prolly around 200-300 kbps for music stream) but it will be split between my roommate and myself so I don't know if the 1.5 meg is going to cut it, especially given how crappy SBC is in general (I have it at home, and already know how much SBC sux, but still, it does cost less...). This will be for a one year term so the diff between 1.5 meg and 3 meg is about $60 split between us. I guess I'm just wondering what peoples' experiences have been with the speed on 1.5 meg SBC DSL to see if it'll be enough...

And yes, I know these speeds suck but they are seriously the best we can get. Makes me wonder just how difficult it would be to run a mile of wire from a dorm room for 15 mbps .

 

[zimu]

i'd personally do charter cable. i'm guessing upload speeds are way superior and ping is much better too.

i always preferred cable. and its not much more. i definitely would rule out the 384-1.5 dsl, don't trust that.

and i'd cough up the $3 extra a month for sure to get far superior connectivity.

 

[zimu]

p.s. yuo need a poll

 

[dc]

how's the upload on the charter plan?

for the $37 sbc plan it's up to 384Kbps upload. and sbc has been pretty good for me the past few years. i'm on the 6Mbps/600Kbps for $45 plan.

 

[TwiceOver]

Just switched to charter from the local phone companies DSL plan. 3m/256k. Save $10 per month over my previous 1m/256k DSL plan.

 

[Pliablemoose]

I dislike both companies equally, neither one can keep their billing straight, the errors are always in their favor.

SBC has a horrible orginizational plan for support, seems like once a year they have a major fvck up with my line & it takes days to wander through their tech support people to get it fixed.

Guess I'd go with Charter if I had the choice (& dump by phone line all together).

 

[fawhfe]

Yeah I should add that charter is 3000/256, SBC is 1500/128 or 3000/384. Also, a while back a friend of mine got a notice from Charter to stop using file-sharing programs. Does anyone know if Charter is still actively pursuing that? (If it matters, all my downloads should be legal)

edit--My original plan was to go with Charter and dump the local service too but my roommate seems to want a land line.

 

[murphy55d]

Jesus christ!! When I had Charter(now Atlantic Broadband here), I was paying 59/mo for 1.5 cable!! WTF

 

[fawhfe]

Originally posted by: murphy55d
Jesus christ!! When I had Charter(now Atlantic Broadband here), I was paying 59/mo for 1.5 cable!! WTF

Heh. How long ago did you have it? High-speed internet here has dropped in price a lot recently. About 1.5 years ago we were still paying $45/month for 768/128 DSL whereas now it's $27/month for this 384-1500/128 DSL (actual speed is around 600-700).

 

[murphy55d]

I have it NOW! I mean Atlantic took over for charter and AFAIK the prices have not changed. I know my speed has not.

 

[dc]

since, your roomate wants a landline, i vote dsl.

 

[RobCur]

dont furget the 200.00 cancellation fee if you have to move all of a sudden. to avoid these fee you must move within another sbc territory and have telephone service or dsl. you must also renew every 12 months to keep your bill low or will revert to 49.95 for standard, 59.95 for expert pro.
their billing department is incompetent, you have to call them often to correct their mistakes that is often in their favor... they will first try to talk you that its just pre-billed aka pro-rate but is really SCAM!
sometime they will bill you in advance, then bill you normal rate the next month forgetting to deduct your over payment from last month on purposely. call once or twice will not solve this problem, must call at least 3-5 times before they will even budge!

 

[Hammer]

SBC has the worst billing dept of any company ive ever dealt with. be prepared for some hijinks.

 

[Ausm]

I have charter and they rock...

Ausm

 

[NightCrawler]

My cable company sticks a lot of fees on in addition to the regualr price so it really isn't worth it. SBC has been reliable and always just 26.95 or 36.95 depending wich you get.

 

[slpaulson]

I don't have any complaints about charter.

 

[brtspears2]

Charter works great. Though the upload is slower than the DSL, I find I do not need such a high rate of upload. When I had a large upload speed in the dorms, I just found myself hosting a lot of junk.

 

[DaveJ]

I have Charter and the service is excellent. However, they just jacked my monthly rate up $10 because I don't subscribe to their "digital" cable service... :|

Dave

 

[torpid]

I live in madison too and I prefer SBC by a lot. It does depend on what part of the city you live in, though. Outages (ed: for cable) are a regular occurrence in some parts of town. Also, charter blocks certain ports, or at least used to. I also found the latency on the connection with charter to be somewhat bad most of the time.

Also, SBC DSL comes with a lot of yahoo features, such as 2gb storage. They also have much better custome(r) support thus far, though I haven't had to delve deep yet.

I say this having used charter for 3-4 years and DSL for about 6 months now.

 

[RobCur]

sbc=hell
scam i tell you! often I get billed twice or even doubled on the same month!!!
you have to beg them to get out of contract if you been a customer for many years but just recently renewed, have to disconnect service. you are entirely at their whim in this situation....
This not only upset me but also costed me much aggravation, and inconvenience to have to call them and be put on hold!!!!!!!!!!!! for 30min to an hour.

 

[Beller0ph1]

Charter. Though the DSL depends on where you live. I know some people who have very good speeds on their DSL modem, but we have had good consistent service with Charter. Now if only the cabling in our house didn't suck.