We have SBC Ameritech. It pretty much, kind of works. We lose about 15% of our e-mails into the ether. I think that is Yahoo's problem, or more correctly, our problem with using Yahoo's e-mail.

We can tell when there is a problem when one day I 400 e-mails then the next day I get 20. Hmmmmm. WE got a message this morning: "You're over your storage limit" So what happens to the messages we were supposed to receive while we were over, like during the middle of the night, before we caught it?

Again though, that's not a DSL problem. Technically, like most things, it's user error.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

I had Qwest DSL about two years ago, when I had money. It was great. I was running an old AMD K-something 266 MHz w/W98 and it did just fine.

We have Comcast here at work, which does fine 90% of the time. My work station is a P3 833 on XP Pro.

Brett

I have DSL and it is great, but expensive. Dial up is a dog. I couldn't go back to that.

Get broadband. You won't regret it.

In Portland, we have Comcast Cable (broadband). Mine seems to work pretty well - very rarely any technical issues or downtime. Pricing is around $45 per month. I have it in combo with my cable service, so it's $88 per month total. I personally think that's too much, but I don't seem to be complaining when I'm surfing the net or watching t.v., just complaining when the bill comes in ; )

I have RCN broadband. I don't like them much, but it is a monopoly in MA, where the companies negotiate with the municipalities to be the sole cable providers. If you're lucky, there might be two to choose from.

In any event, the service itself is okay. I'm at the end of the local circuit, and I'm pretty far away from the uplink, and have to share with a lot of other people(cable providers typically use shared collision domains, where everybody on the same hub has a fixed maximum available bandwidth to share), so at peak hours it can be a bit slow. DSL would eliminate bandwidth contention, since you would have dedicated bandwidth.

I've had broadband since 1999, and I would absolutely never go back to dial up.

I have a bunch of computers, from a PII-350 running win98(that I am on now) to a 2.6GHz P4 running XP. The web-surfing experience is the same for all, since the limitation is the internet connection, not your processor's power. A faster machine would process and render content faster, but for typical surfing of static content, your current machine is probably fine. I have watched the streaming video of Kona with no trouble beyond the connection dropping.

Good luck.

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I work from home 3 days a week, and as a requirement, we need to have a broadband connection. Went with Comcast Cable, and never looked back. Its a wonderful thing, and I've had fewer problems with multiple computers than some of my coworkers who use DSL.

There's just something about a 2600Kbps transfer rate that I just can't live without anymore.

Kinda like the mp3 player I recently got for my wife... Better living thru science.

I just got SBC/DSL a few weeks ago and couldn't be happier. They estimated 1.5 - 3.5mb down and 360kb up. Once I turned it on, I consistently get 4.5mb down and 510kb up. Smokin' Also got a wirless router which is on the way to changing my life. Use the laptop anywhere in the house. Cool.

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David

We have roadrunner through Time Warner and it's great. It's always on and it's fast as hell.

We're running Earthlink Cable and wireless-B in the house. two computers, one PDA, one printer, and one cable connection all networked.

I hope everybody who has posted they have broadband can also say they are running somekind of a firewall, and have 128-bot WEP turned on if they are running wireless.

There are free software firewalls that are easily downloaded.

I just got another Linksys router with a firewall, so as to elimitate the need to run a software firewall on my old dinosaur P3-500.

Excellent point. A firewall is mandatory. I use a Siemens Speedstream, but have used a Netgear in the past. Many of the new models are inexpensive and effective. Your WEP point is also well made. One thing to look for there is that in some cases the wireless network card might not be compatible with a wireless router from another company. This is not always true, but sticking with the same brand is good insurance.

For example, I have a Siemens wireless route and Dell network cards, and they work fine without WEP, bu if you turn WEP on, they no longer work together. This is, apparently, a well-known problem that affects as many as 25% of wireless cards due to varying WEP implementations.

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Comcast cable modem with Firewall/Switch for 4 machines. I am so used to T1 access at work that I practically cried when I had to use dialup for a while.

Switched from dial-up to CABLE (Comcast) 3 years ago... became addicted to +1MBps eversince!

Cable Modem + Wireless Router w/ firewall + Software Firewall (I realy like to control the apps activity)

I considered switching to WIDEOPENWEST (faster & cheaper) when I moved a year ago but no luck w/ coverage in the area.

A good source for info & speed tests: http://www.dslreports.com/



Eric,

It seems like I am close to your broadband speed... one down, three(sw-bk-run) more to go! ;)

Have Charter Cable's basic cable which is only about 15 channels but only $15 a month and their silver cable internet for $30 a month so the total bill is about $45 a month and worth every penny. No busy phone lines (2 teenage boys) and though not the speediest broadband the 400 kbs downloads sure beats the 5 kbs dial up we had. I will never go back.