Well, I take back anything bad I've ever said about Cable Internet. I've always been a DSL fan, ever since my bad experience with Comcast Cable Internet a few years ago -- it became slower than a 56k modem during peak neighborhood use. In my new Cambridge apartment, I did not want to wait around for three weeks while the phone company configures a new line, provisions it for DSL, and then has the DSL modem shipped to me -- so I decided to go with Comcast Cable Internet. Comcast sent someone out the following day and everything was hooked up and ready to go. It's $55 for Cable Internet + Basic Cable TV.
So after a few days of screwing around with a spare Netgear router, I concluded it was defective and bought a new Linksys WRT54G router from Microcenter. It worked like a charm right out of the box. The first thing I did was visit Speakeasy's speed test:
Download Speed: 12312 kbps (1539 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 360 kbps (45 KB/sec transfer rate)
Holy Crap. The Upload speed may not be impressive, but the Download speed blows me away. I'm paying $55 a month for just DSL with Speakeasy in Lowell and I only get about 700 KB/sec. Of course the really nice thing about the DSL is that they give me a static IP address, which is really useful for me because I connect to my home computers all the time. Still, the Cable companies have really improved their network over the past few years.
I just moved to the second floor of the same building and had to have Comcast installed up here. Here are the results from Speakeasy’s Speed Test:
Download Speed: 21679 kbps (2709.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1652 kbps (206.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
These are insane speeds for $55 a month (which includes Basic Cable TV!).
MediaCom at work
Download Speed: 4757 kbps (594.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 416 kbps (52 KB/sec transfer rate)
I’ll have to check at home.
Can’t wait for fiber optics to hit the residents in town – WOOHOO! ETA is end of 2007. 😀