Posted: 6/30/2006 5:48:26 PM EDT
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OK, so I'm bored with the same old crap on Cox Digital Cable, and am thinking about switching to satellite. However, I also need high speed internet, and have been really happy with Cox in this respect. I live in Gilbert. What do you guys recommend ? 1) Which satellite provider do you suggest ? Any pitfalls to avoid, or great deals to be had right now ? 2) Should I stick with Cox for internet access, or are other equally fast options available locally ? I need fast downloads AND uploads, and DSL is not going to cut it. I'm not necessarily expecting to pay less, but obviously I'd be happy if I had a bit more left over at the end of the month for the toy fund  .
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Satellite won't be any better than DSL, and could be worse. There is a lot of inherent latency in satellite, and some of the services still use a [shudder] modem for the upstream portion. So if you do chose to go that route, watch out for that "feature." I gave up on Cox for TV and went to satellite. IMHO, the satellite TV services provide a better picture. I still use Cox for internet, but I've learned to put up with their crap and usually have to dash off a letter to their CEO when they can't fix a problem (which is about every 18 months). Their infrastructure is pretty fragile, especially in the older (> 10 years) sections of the Vally. It's mostly analog and relys on commercial power, which is why it goes out more often that DSL. DSL is actually pretty good technology. You might want to look at Qwest's VDSL service. Back when I used to work for US West (as a tier 3 DSL support engineer  , so I *know* ADSL), VDSL was just rolling out and showed lots of promise. I know of a couple people who have it, and they think it's great. These are people that have also been down the road w/ Cox and Qwest ADSL.
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Greg Thanks for the advice. What up/download speeds can I expect from the latest DSL technologies ? I can live with Cox internet and satellite TV, but would be interested to hear if there is a better internet option out there. By the way, which satellite TV service do you have, and what do you think of it ? |
I have Dish Network for satellite TV, though if you're a serious sports fanatic DirecTV may be a better choice. Otherwise they pretty much have the same channel selections. ADSL comes in various speeds, depending on what package you order. I think the minimum is 256Kb (not so hot), and can go up to 5-7Mb depending on what package you buy. The reality is that ADSL is slower than Cox since most people get the 1Mb package and these days Cox is something like 3Mb download. However, depending on how many people in your neighborhood have Cox cable, ADSL can sometimes provide more consistent performance. Cox is also a shared service. That is, if you were to fire up a packet sniffer on your Cox cable modem, you would be able to see everything that your neighbors are doing on the internet. Pretty cool, actually. With ADSL, you have a dedicated link back to your ISP, so it's much harder for someone to snoop into your trffic. So there are tradeoffs to either. Ultimately, Cox is a better performer, but their service Sux. |
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Cox is now 6 Mb down unless you upgrade to the premuim package which is 9 Mb. It hasn't been 3 Mb for while. Also, I'm not sure how one can run a packet sniffer on the Cox network nowadays and see the neighbors traffic? I used to play with a packet sniffer a few years back and only viewed my activity. When Cox was new and still ironing out the bugs, you could click on Network Neighborhood and actually access computers around you, but not anymore. My Cox never goes down either. It's been very reliable in the last 5 places I've lived, old and new neighborhoods. Qwest HSI sucks! It's very slow and that company is awful. |
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Bottom line is both have horrible support & service. Technically speaking, my Cox connection is out of spec. Their standard is to have less than 4dB of loss from the pedestal to the home. Mine was at 10dB. After trenching my front and back yards, re-running part of the cable through the old conduit (with a winch -- yikes), they got it down to 8dB. Hardly worth the effort. Not too surprising, though. When I watched the cable apes yanking on the coax I told them it won't work because they have likley either broken or cracked the center conductor, and/or put a kink in the cable where it is snagged. They just gave me this deer in the headlights look and kept tugging. Guess they don't know much about coax cable.  On the Qwest side, they have mostly dialtone guys doing data work. They often have trouble finding all the load coils and bridge taps that have to be removed from a phone line to make DSL work well. And then you have to hope you're on 24 gauge wire and not some of the 26 gauge that was laid during the 80's and 90's for cost cutting reasons. When I was at US West (pre-Qwest days) I had to get to know some of the field guys so I knew who to send DSL work to to make sure it got done right, and more importantly, who could unfuck someone else's work. It's all hit and miss. Some people swear by Cox, some swear at them. Same goes for Qwest. You just have to fin the one that pisses you off the least. As for packet sniffing on Cox, I haven't tried in over a year. I may have to try it again just for kicks. I did like messing with my neighbor's printers since many of them didn't have security set.
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