ISP choosing

iolo

Hello H&A Forum.

I'm moving in a few weeks out of DC proper and back into the warm embrace of statehood and full voting representation in Congress. In other words, I'm moving a third of a mile to Takoma Park, Maryland (in Montgomery County.)

I've had Speakeasy DSL for about five years, and have generally been happy with it (although it seems pricey to me, yes?) There are a lot of bundled cable/isp/phone deals to be had these days, and I wondered two things:

1) Is there any real difference these days between cable and DSL? I don't play FPS or other ping-reliant games on-line. Priorities are a connection that is up as much as humanly possible, decent or better tech support, and speedy browsing, downloading, and uploading. Is there another option I should be looking at that I don't even know about (fiber optic maybe?)

2) Anyone in Montgomery County, MD (and Takoma Park in particular) care to weigh in on their experiences with RCN, Comcast, and Verizon? I hate Verizon but will use them if I must (e.g. my cell phone is on a Verizon plan because they are the only ones who currently have coverage in the Metro). I hate Comcast less, but after suffering under their cable monopoly in DC for a decade I'm keen to give my money to someone else if that's a viable option. I don't know much about RCN. Anyone using them in MD? More broadly, how should I pick an ISP? Are these cable/phone/internet deals all junk? I researched here as much as possible (although that is tricky because there's a 4+ character rule on PA searches, and, well, neither "isp" nor "dsl" fit that bill.) I did find dslreports.com here in H&A, but I couldn't really discern a signal from the noise if you know what I mean. Most of the talk about RCN in Montgomery County was from 2003 or earlier.

Bonus Questions!

A) If I switch to cable from DSL, I can just get an external cable modem that works like my current router, yes?

My wife and I are considering getting a laptop (so that I'm not necessarily booted from the gaming rig when she needs to work in the evenings.) If we may be adding wireless to the picture someday soon, does that impact the cable v. dsl and ISP decisions?

Thanks for any light you can shed on this.

TrippyDK

Im from the Gaithersburg region, and frankly, Comcast has been shitty. Dont't get me wrong, the service is usaully good when the internet is up, but when it goes down, its hell. It can take at least a week to get someone out to my area, and when they finally get here, they tell me they need to get some part, and it could take another week or so. Take that, and add in random crashes, sometimes slow service, and terrible phone service, your in for a pretty shitty experience sometimes.

However, take this with a grain of salt, because I have no experience with the other ones. Also, FIOS is coming to the area through Verizon, and there site will tell you if you have access to it or not.

khain

1) The only difference may be upload and download speeds, for browsing theres not going to be a difference and for downloading there might be but its probably not going to be huge. I believe Verizon does some fiber optics but it may not be available in your area.

2) I don't live in your area, but I remeber we had a thread a little while back and some one who worked at Verizon said their tech support was terrible.

A) You need a external modem, Comcast at least gives you one for free that you have to return when you leave your contract. Its not in place of your router, but in conjunction with it you plug the modem into the router and you should be good to go. (they may make modem+router combos but its not necessary)

No difference, wireless would be entirely based on the wireless router you own.

Feral

Iolo wrote: »

1) Is there any real difference these days between cable and DSL?

Not really.
Theoretically, cable should be faster and more reliable in general, because coaxial cable is better than phone cable for transmitting data, but in the real world it's a crap-shoot.

Iolo wrote: »

Is there another option I should be looking at that I don't even know about (fiber optic maybe?)

I don't think FIOS is available in Washington yet, but the people I know on the east coast who have it absolutely love it.

iolo

Thanks for the information.

Anyone using RCN for cable (tv or internet) anywhere?