Alternate ISPs (wifi possibly).

[warwick.hoy]

From the files of the computer illiterate.

I used to have comcast for phone, internet and TV. about 8 months ago I went down to just phone and internet and it was about 40 bucks a month and it was nice. The price recently increased to around $100. I recently acquired a cell phone (one for my wife and one for myself) and had my old landline number ported over to the cell number effectively canceling the phone service. So I'm left wondering,...why not tell comcast to pound sand all together.

So other than qwest or comcast; what else is out there? My laptop has a wireless card built in so perhaps a local wireless provider? What are the pros and cons of that? How secure (comcast comes with free Norton)? It appears that Verizon is finally locally available,...now that I have Sprint for my mobile,...Any other options?

[UncleFluffy]

These guys have a good ISP search engine:

http://www.dslreports.com/

http://www.dslreports.com/psearch?e=...te+Search+Form

[TheDarkReaver]

The ISP would not determine the wirelessness of your internet. That's what wireless routers are for.

So that wouldn't have to be a factor in your search.

[lunarpollen]

Internet service is one of the last great utility rackets in this country. There are very few providers (many locations only have one provider) and they have arbitrarily marked up the prices of service by *ridiculous* amounts, while providing piss-poor service compared with many other countries. They are trying to milk as much money as possible before they finally have to come down to earth or go extinct.

if you go the wireless route you will still have to be sent a wireless gateway by the ISP, which will connect to your home's phone line. That's what we do at my place, we have no cable or land phone service, only DSL through AT&T/Yahoo (which is crappy but our only real option), and the wireless gateway allows for either wireless connection or connection via ethernet cable. As long as your gateway is password protected, you are pretty secure doing the wirelss thing at home.

[iamlowsound]

Originally Posted by lunarpollen

Internet service is one of the last great utility rackets in this country. There are very few providers (many locations only have one provider) and they have arbitrarily marked up the prices of service by *ridiculous* amounts, while providing piss-poor service compared with many other countries. They are trying to milk as much money as possible before they finally have to come down to earth or go extinct.

if you go the wireless route you will still have to be sent a wireless gateway by the ISP, which will connect to your home's phone line. That's what we do at my place, we have no cable or land phone service, only DSL through AT&T/Yahoo (which is crappy but our only real option), and the wireless gateway allows for either wireless connection or connection via ethernet cable. As long as your gateway is password protected, you are pretty secure doing the wirelss thing at home.

We have great internet here in Canada, unfortunately we get raped for cell service. Seems strange that the US would have crappy internet service.

lowsound

[warwick.hoy]

So I wound up just contacting comcast,...getting a new promotion and dropping my bill a few bucks a month and I had them send me out a free wireless router.

I considered other ISPs but in reality,...comcast comes with free Norton AV and is easier than trying to pirate and crack any other anti-virus software,...so I just stuck with it.