Swithing ISPs from Comcast@Home to WideOpenWest

[Clocker]

I'm switching from Comcast to WOW this Saturday. I'm getting a good deal I think. With COmcrap, I was paying $81 (out the door) for basic cable (with one cable box) and internet access.

With WOW, I'll have 120 channels of digital cable (with one box) and the "Advanced" level of internet access. The 'Advanced' access is 1.5mb download and 500kb upload although many are getting 2mb downloads (see how long that lasts I guess). All for $10 LESS per month (for the first year). After 12 months, it goes back to $81 per month but I will have more service for the money. Installation and everything is free.

I think WOW has a great strategy with their three tiers of internet access.
(The rates below are for subscribers who get basic cable with the digial add-on package):

WOW! Internet Value: $19.95 (Download Speeds Up To 112Kps)
WOW! Internet Basic: $29.95 (Download Speeds Up To 500Kps)
WOW! Internet Advanced: $34.95 (Download Speeds Up To 1.5MB)

Cable internet access (not that fast but no phone required with all the other convenience of cable) for $20 per month is great. PLUS, it will keep all the users who don't really care about the fastest performance from sucking up bandwith others (like me) want....

Clocker

 

[timwhit]

That is a great deal. Especially with the 500kbps upload, that is unheard of for cable. I pay around $42 for 1.5mbps down and 128kbps up.

What's the website for WOW, maybe I can get it here???

 

[Clocker]

www.wideopenwest.com

Clocker

 

[CougTek]

Ok, first you Americans have special disvounts on some pieces of hardware from Dell. Next, you have free shipping from every damn web stores. And now you have special discounts on cable internet access.

I HATE YOU!!!

 

[Clocker]

Ok, first you Americans have special disvounts on some pieces of hardware from Dell. Next, you have free shipping from every damn web stores. And now you have special discounts on cable internet access.

I HATE YOU!!!

Cougtek....

At lest you have free "healthcare" and good beer over there.... :beer:

 

[CougTek]

I haven't been sick enough (or injured) to need hospitalization for at least 10 years and I mostly drink coffee, not much beer. But I buy hardware every month (for myself, I mean) and I pass a good 6-10 hours/day on the Net.

That's why I still hate you ;-)

 

[Tannin]

Good Lord! Tim is back!

I thought he was going to be too ill after his massive binge on Saturday night, and need a little of your excellent Canadian hospitalization for about 10 years.

 

[Mercutio]

We don't all have broadband here, either. As I understand things, in Canada, every tiny little town has some kind of broadband PoP.

Universal free healthcare, good beer, broadband everywhere. Oh. And anyone working overtime in Canada gets paid for it. Even those on salary. If I could handle the weird parliamentary system and all that clean-ness, I think I'd probably move.

Come to think of it, I'm not much for French, either, but I suppose they don't see much of that in, say, Vancouver (no offense CougTek, I just don't speak your language).

 

[CougTek]

Universal free healthcare, good beer, broadband everywhere. Oh. And anyone working overtime in Canada gets paid for it. Even those on salary.

Yep, but they almost all give it to the government. Taxes are a lot higher in Canada than in the States.

About the language, if you don't plan to learn French, then by all means, don't move to Québec. We are invade by non French-speaking people and I'm sick of it. When I walk in the street, I sometimes have the feeling that I am the stranger and they are the locals. The latest numbers I saw showed that over 53% of the people living in Montréal are not French-speaking. I don't mind diversity, but 50% isn't diversity, it's invasion. I would like to feel I'm home in my own country. The most annoying is that most of them address other people in English at first instead of speaking French. I even met an old chinese woman who asked something to a bus driver in chinese and she was all pissed off that he couldn't answer!?!? I don't mind tourists, but I can't stand locals who refuse to learn French. If someone plans to move to Québec, please also plan to learn French, otherwise, there are better places for you.

I'm glad some people realize that if they don't want to speak French, there are more appropriate places in North America.`

Don't take me wrong, I don't hate english-speaking folks (see my post count as a proof). I have nothing against English speaking persons in Australia, in UK, in US and elsewhere, except for those in Québec because I see them as a treat to our society. I presume you would all feel the same if, by tomorrow morning, more than half of your neighboors would suddenly be French-speaking and act like if they were expecting you to talk to them in French as well. (Bill, don't tell me about the old retired Québécois in Florida, I know. But if I ever go to Florida, don't worry, I'll speak English).

 

[Buck]

If someone plans to move to Québec...

Never, not after you sold your hockey team! True, they were always in last place, but look at what they've become - Stanley Cup champions! Maybe it was good that you sold them.

 

[CougTek]

I was talking about the country, not the city.

 

[CougTek]

I figure I should have writen "in Québec" instead of "to Québec". I wasn't clear, sorry.

 

[Buck]

I figure I should have writen "in Québec" instead of "to Québec". I wasn't clear, sorry.

Don't worry Coug, it's not your english, it is just my attitude.
:lol:

 

[Bartender]

Coug, Buck has just been in a ripe mood lately, just ignore him.

 

[Mercutio]

Yep, but they almost all give it to the government. Taxes are a lot higher in Canada than in the States.

Which is different for me... how? Even if your tax laws are as goofy as those in the states, 50% is 50%.

 

[CougTek]

You are suppose to be topped at something like 37% taxation, whatever's your salary in the States. Here it is ~47% IIRC. How can you pay 50% taxes in the States? Even Bill (Gates, not Green) doesn't pay 50% taxes on the revenue he declares.

 

[timwhit]

Mercutio is self employed that's how. He has to pay the taxes that his employer would normally pay for him.

 

[Sol]

Bastards
The only cable in Ballarat at the moment is Neigbourhood Cable. $140 a month will get you 95Kb up and down obstensibly. However, due to thier use of packet shappers because they oversold thier bandwidth, thats actually more like 3Kb up and down for all practical purposes at the moment. Also the wonderous $400 or so installation fee (up from $200) including cable modem. The wonderous plan for fixing thier bandwidth problems? Limit downloads to 3Gb a month so that most of their customers cancel their subscriptions. So dial up is currently the fastest method of internet access in town short of subjecting yourself to Telstras ADSL.
With the state of our health care system try telling us we've got it good.

 

[Pradeep]

$140 per month! :eekers:

I would have suggested Austar broadband (previously chello) which had wireless downloads (I had over 3mbit/sec at times, and they only bitched if you went over 10 GB) and dialup uploads for about $65 per month ($55 with austar tv bundle), but they went titsup in January. They didn't even bother collecting the PCI card and receiver dish.

 

[Sol]

There is a less expensive $70 a month option. 60 odd Kb down 10 or somthing pathetic Kb up. 3 gb a month download limit. Currently these connections are running at well and truly less than dialup, with most customers getting kicked off MIRC channels because they are too slow.
Titsup would seem to be on the cards for NC also as I really can't see any of thier customers really trusting them again even if they do manage to ride out the current crisis.

 

[James]

I'm just about to swap from Telstra DSL ($95/mo, 512k/128k, 3GB ul/dl limit) to Internode ($129/mo, 1,544k/256k, 3GB dl only limit, or an extra $20 a month gets me an extra 1.5GB).

The way I use the net isn't particularly browsing and such, it's mainly downloading patches and movies and games, and speed is more important in that context. I don't like leaving my machines on all the time for big downloads if I can avoid it either.

$129 (USD65) is a fair amount to pay for Internet access, but I'm funding it by getting rid of my second phone line. I can do this by switching away from Telstra (who insists I have to use their local and LD service if I get ADSL from them). It was actually cheaper to get a new phone line and put the DSL service on it than to switch carriers on our primary line...

With Internode, since they're not a carrier, I can continue to use whoever I like on our mainline and put the DSL service down it as well.

 

[Sol]

How can you download movies and games with a 3Gb/month limit? With that speed you'd do that in a day. Just one game and two movies of middling quality and that's your month. Even 4.5Gb wouldn't last more than a week.

 

[James]

How can you download movies and games with a 3Gb/month limit? With that speed you'd do that in a day. Just one game and two movies of middling quality and that's your month. Even 4.5Gb wouldn't last more than a week.

Well, I don't have much choice but to fit in to a 3GB limit. Thanks in part to Telstra and in part to our physical location in the world (ie. not next to or in the States) that's pretty much the only option. It's not financially viable for companies to offer unlimited downloads in a home context.

FYI, our RRP for a 2Mb connection with unlimited downloads is A$12K/mo.

 

[Jake the Dog]

james,

how long can you hold out with pondscum, sorry i mean bigpond? optus and ozemail have announced the delivery residential dsl in the near future.

 

[James]

I'm switching to 1.5M/256k on Internode.

I just need to figure out how to reduce us down to one phone line, or save us a bit of money. Since 1.5M from Internode is $30/mo more than Telstra's 512K service, I feel a bit bad spending the extra $. If I can get rid of one of our two phone lines, then it's essentially a zero sum game and I don't look so bad.

So I looked into Faxstream Duet-type services (distinctive ring to all you US types) and guess what, Telstra are the only ones that offer such a service. Hmm. My fax doesn't support distinctive ring either, so I'd have to buy one of those Stealth Decoder things (sounds like something you'd get free in a cereal box, but it costs $98 from Dick Smith). So a bit expensive.

Just yesterday I discovered this service from Telstra, home ISDN - you get one ISDN line and one standard phone line for only $18 or so each, much less than what they're planning to raise their line rates to. And the local call rates are cheap, so there must be some catch somewhere.

I would never sign up with Ozemail, their service sucks; as for Optus, I can tell you that they haven't even started to design the residential product, so it's a good 6-9 months away at least. The plus point about Optus is at least they have gobs of available capacity; 2.2G to the US last I checked.

Now You Know All. :wink:

 

[Cliptin]

I'm not sure if this is what you were refering to but there are little boxes that sit in between the fax machine and phone line and listen for CNG tones.

ComSwitch® 300

 

[James]

Yep, that's the sort of thing. Here it's called the "stealth decoder" and it costs the equivalent of USD45-50 for one that supports 3 lines.

 

[Cliptin]

Yep, that's the sort of thing. Here it's called the "stealth decoder" and it costs the equivalent of USD45-50 for one that supports 3 lines.

The one above costs $30 for 3 lines. Perhaps it is almost my friend James' birthday. :lol: :wink:

 

[James]

Phooey! You're seven weeks late.

 

[Cliptin]

No, you're seven week late. :lol:

BTW, Do the same Oz laws apply to gift-giving and buying second hand as apply to new purchases.

 

[Pradeep]

If you are referring to customs the same duty applies whether it is a gift or not. It all depends on how you send it. If you send it via a courier company such as FedEx, DHL etc, Customs will open it and assess duty (there is a limit of AUS$50, under which they will not charge). If you send it snail mail via USPS, chances are they won't open it. There is no US$200 dollar limit per day for gifts like there is in the USA.