As many of you know

I have switched from Charter broadband, and TV.

To Direct TV, and Verizon DSL.

Why? The price was not right bob! I was paying one hundred and fifty dollars a month $150.00, with another ten dollar INCREASE on the horizon (Making it $160.00). I saw the writing on the wall and pulled anchor. With my current set up I’m paying one hundred and twenty dollars a month ($120.00) for services that equal and in MANY respects surpass that of cable. All prices are extamits I did not feel like digging through my bills.

Lets look first at Verizon, I’m paying I believe its what 20 bucks a month, maybe 30? I frankly do not recall off hand. Point is its cheap, dirt cheap for a 5mb connection, which normally will exceed that in the off hours at night. I have been up to 6.5mb down,and 4mbs up late at night. During the day I average 4.5, with a 1.2 up. Granted Im very close to the server.

This is not what tops the cake, Verizon seems to have good security. While a friend was pinging me I’m not sure if he PINGED ME, or my ISP server. It said I was in seatle near Chris, when I’m indeed in southern OREGON! None of my logs showed him ever pinging me. Nothing but local pings were on my list. So that makes me wonder if I was pinged or not. I tried to ping him and came back with no response, he suggested I turn off my echo call in my router (Westell Unilink modem/router combo DOES not have that setting with my firmware. I even had a replacement shipped and the same effect. But thats ok ping away.)

Point is its allot more secure then Charter ever was, and that makes me feel all warm and techy inside.

Direct TV, lets get into the TV side of things. I will simply run off a numbered lists of things that make it FAR better then cable.

• News Mix- I can watch all the main news networks on one channel and get every side to a subject instead of one biased report.

• Sports Mix- Now I can see what games are playing, if more then one are on that I want to know about I can stay on the channel and watch them both, or switch from one to the other.

• Stability- While there have been some momentary loss in signal late at night, most the time its allot more steady and I do not have those pesky emergency program tests every two hours!! Yes it was THAT bad here. Every two hours the sound would cut out and wham, a bulletin “A MONTHLY test has been issued.”, monthly?? MONTHLY? I just saw that TWO hours ago!

• Picture- The picture quality is the best you can get without going HD, I’m telling you!

• Better remote- I love the remote it works even with my Color Trek TV by RCA, try to find a universal remote that works with one! There’s does, I looked all over for one when my original remote broke and could not find one. I had to beg a friend to buy one on a auction site for me so I could use my TV. My remote is worth quite a chunk of change due to its rarity.

• The guide- I personally love the category approach, when I want movies, I WANT movies! I do not want to surf through every single other channel to find one like you had to do with Cable.

Thats not the half of it! Lets talk about internet down time. I would lose my cable internet every SINGLE night at 12AM sharp, tell 1:30AM sharp. Every single night, no matter what. Since having DSL, there has not been a SECOND of down time at all. None! Zip, zero! You get the picture? Was it easy to set up? Heck no! Was it worth getting set up thou? Yes!!

I do not like anyone, I DO MEAN ANYONE, forcing me off line at any given time when I’m paying for a 24/7 internet connection on a BUSINESS line, when I called and canceled everything, I TOLD THEM that there downtime was the main reason which they replyed “It must be the main feed to your property“ BS! I am on the SAME grid as the hospital for cable, AND power. So if I have issues, they have issues. And if they have issues you will get a lovely call from the FCC for causing instability in the emergency response system locally! So do not give me “A problem with the main feed“ line, oh and my branch off that line? Yeah! Its good, it was replaced when I moved in buddy, first thing I had them do.

Oh but wait!! No no, wait!! Here is the best part. They wanted to charge me four hundred and FIFTY EIGHT ($458.95 cents to be precise) lovely American green backs for equipment I never EVER got. Yup, they charged me for a DVR recorder for the TV that I never got, a second modem I never got, and a VOIP box I never received. I told them off in there office, and they told me WHAT I expected, (Wait for the shock.) that it was a “default list of items they ship out.“ But want to know what I did? I brought with me a statement from a friend that properly indicated what he had that needed to be brought back, which was a Modem, and cable box. I threw that in his face, and he just looked at me with this “Oh no.” wide eyed look.

In the end I did not have to pay anything, and they left my cable on for two days past the shut off date. Which I only knew about because I still had a small 10″ screen downstairs hooked to the cable and it was still working.

So Chris has problems with Comcast? Try living with Charter. They do not cap or traffic shape,but they sure as hell try to squeeze every dime you have worked your hands to the bone for!

[tags]internet, security, charter, cable, verizon, dsl, problem, comcast, theboredtech, thegnomelocker[/tags]