Cutting the Telco Line Update

Last November, I cut my ties to the land line. Part of the hesitation I had about cutting my landline was giving up my almost totally solid Speakeasy DSL service and going to Comcast. For over a decade, I’ve watched people here and there have a terrible time with Internet service through a cable company. So, even though I was pretty motivated by the potential cost savings (to the tune of $1800 per year), I was a bit worried about the stability of my connection.

After all, the Internet is important. If it goes down, it’s a real drag.

Four months on, I’m pretty happy to report that it’s gone swimmingly well. I’ve not noticed any real issues with my connection. Most of the time, all I notice is that it’s blazingly fast—as promised by the hairless rabbit driven by an over-caffeinated fighter pilot commercials. The various speed testing tools show that I’m seeing between 20-28mbit down and 3-8mbit up, depending on test site. Since I’ve signed up for the package that is advertised to go up to 20mbit with PowerBoost, I’m a happy camper. Additionally, I haven’t seem to have run amok of any of the Comcast caps that people report. This is probably aided by the fact that I don’t run any servers at home any more or run software that puts a steady upstream of bits on the line (like BitTorrent).

The end result is that I don’t miss my DSL at all, nor my phone line. And, if my Comcast connection does go down (knock on wood), I’ve got the option to head out to a cafe or other WiFi spot—an option that wasn’t around a decade ago.

Update: I should note that just because this setup is working for me, doesn’t mean I’m unconditionally recommending it. As Peter noted in the comments, even though Comcast gives you a big pipe, they don’t like it when you take too big a chunk out of it on an ongoing basis, especially on the upstream side. If you’re looking for guaranteed capacity, you’ll likely want to consider other options.