A couple of weeks ago, Jake was complaining about his Comcast connection going up and down like a roller coaster (only being kicked offline at random times is anything but thrilling or fun). I should’ve taken heed and prepared for the “worst.” Sure enough, for the past week, my Comcast cable Internet connection has been anything but steady. One minute, it works - the other minute, not-so-much. If I could predict downtime, this bitter pill would be much easier to swallow. ISPs don’t have to tell you when they’re doing anything, it seems - and consumers suffer because of it. I feel like I’m sitting on my hands when I can’t get online (at least, at home, when I’m trying to work). DSL isn’t an alternative in my neighborhood, sadly - or I’d jump all over it like a kid in the candy shop. Shayne (Lockergnome’s primary developer) has also been suffering Comcast outages in his northern California home. The problem isn’t regional - unless you count the entire United States as a region. So, here’s a word of caution for all you would-be Comcast customers: look elsewhere if you can.

Time Warner, for me, was a dream come true. I was a Road Runner customer when I was living in Los Angeles, and I can’t recall a time when I hadn’t enjoyed both their Internet service and/or digital cable offering. See, when things are working - nobody complains. Complacency is good (as far as I’m concerned) when it comes to your Internet service. It’s when things go wonky for longer than a day - and become unapologetically intermittent - that the yarn starts to unravel. My cell phone isn’t just for making simple calls anymore; I use the Bluetooth feature frequently as backup when Comcast decides to bottom out. In fact, I’m offline right now (at the moment I’m composing this paragraph, that is) - and will likely have to circumvent my broken Comcast connection again tonight when I upload the Report. You’ll be happy to know that I’m trying to turn offline lemons into online lemonade, though. I published the Comcast Connection Blues the other day, and someone’s already working on setting it to music.

[tags]dsl,isp,cable,time warner,comcast,cable internet,internet service provider,roadrunner[/tags]