SF Bay Area broadband recommendations?

[firecat]

The OH wrote elsewhere:

So Speakeasy just got bought out by Best Buy. Ewwww! I'm not changing
immediately, but I'd like some current recommendations for broadband
choices in the SF Bay Area. We prefer non-cable but are willing to
consider anything reliable at this point (we currently do not have a
cable hookup).

Press release here:
http://www.speakeasy.net/press/pr/pr032707.php

Comments

[elainegrey.livejournal.com]

Up until rather recently we'd been UTTERLY DELIGHTED with Raw Bandwidth. We're not leaving yet, either. Might be our problem, but the owner communicates well with geeks and has been very supportive of the non geek friends we set up with them.

[opus119.livejournal.com]

I've been with Raw Bandwidth (formerly Tsoft) for all of this millennium and a few years of the previous one. They are terrific. It's really a one-man operation, and Mike is amazingly responsive and helpful. I've had DSL with them at two different locations, and each time the setup was a breeze.

Another thing I like about rawbw is that you can get a shell account on their BSD machine for cheap. I use this to read email when I'm away from home, which is almost every day. It's ever so much faster to use ssh and mutt than web-based email.

[bastette-joyce.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if "broadband" is the same as DSL, if you're not talking about cable, but I've always been happy with Sonic.net (DSL). If he doesn't need a static IP address, it's pretty cheap.

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

I use Sonic.net also, and in my experience they definitely have very friendly, helpful, knowledgeable, responsive tech people.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

"Broadband" means wide spectrum, so faster than dial-up. It includes cable, DSL, some satellite companies, and in my city, over the power lines.

[bastette-joyce.livejournal.com]

This is what I've always thought, but I've also heard people say "No, I don't have DSL, I have broadband," which may mean they don't know what they're talking about. But then, neither do I, so it just left a bit confused about the terminology. Thanks...

[necturus.livejournal.com]

Fuck. Speakeasy is my ISP; they are the only one I know that charges reasonable rates yet gives me two static IP's and allows me to run my own server.

Every time an ISP I use has been bought, service has gone right down the toilet.

This one doesn't take effect until next year; there is time to find another ISP.

Anyone but Verizon.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

I second the Rawbandwidth recommendation. We now have cable (for various reasons), but Mike Durkin at Rawbandwidth was always a delight to deal with, and was always very patient with my non-geek self. Fantastic communication the very few times there were outages. No question too obscure or too stupid. Nothing ever seemed to be too much trouble.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

We're pretty happy with Comcast, especially with the speed. It does go down approximately once every 2-3 months, but usually for only an hour or two. (We don't have cable TV, but we did at first, because internet-plus-basic-cable was only a few dollars more than internet-only during the introductory period.)

[kyubi.livejournal.com]

Casey's been using Raw Bandwidth for years, and has always been very happy with them.

[gconnor.livejournal.com]

I have been using plain old SBC (now AT&T I guess) DSL with a static upgrade for a while. Eventually I'll drop the static (currently $54) and go with straight consumer dsl. I would consider cable if I also had cable TV, but I've had SBC DSL for a while now (4 yrs maybe 5) and the TV is currently satellite

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

We're on Speakeasy, too. I wonder what this change will mean.

[gregbo.livejournal.com]

I've used Raw Bandwidth for many years; too long to count. My interactions with Mike have always been good. I only remember a couple of outages of an hour or more.