Earthlink DSL?

[Charlievibe]

Hello to all of my friends out here. Sorry I have been so out of touch. Research and working full time are eating up almost all of my free time. So, hello to those whom I have not spoken in a while and yes, I am still alive and still driving my baby Vibe.So anyhow, to try and come into this century, I am thinking about trying out DSL from dial-up. Does anyone out here have Earthlink DSL and if so, what do you think? Is the service pretty reliable? Our dial-up bites, we get disconnected all of the time.If you don't have Earthlink but would love to offer up something, please let me know. I did a search for this topic (Earthlink DSL) and did not find it, so if there is already one started, would someone please point me in that direction?Thanks,CV

[keithvibe]

it all depends on your area and what is serviced in your area. Verizon is used by my parents and is quite reliable. Check with your cable provider and phone providers in your area to see if they service your area.

[jake75]

PART 1. I had Mindspring dial-up. Mindspring was bought out by Earthlink. When Earthlink first offered dsl here several years ago I signed up - it was $49.99 a month. It is now $39.99 a month. They use a separate telephone line. COVAD does their local connection work. The only problem I have encountered is their stupid tech support - thank God outages have been few and far between but when it has happened they always say it is in "my set". They blame it on hardware, on software, etc. etc. etc. Takes a couple hours to go through all their telephone guidance - change this setting, change that setting, reverse the wires, etc. etc. I am moderately computer savvy and I knew it was not my hardware or software. One time I finally got tired of this and asked for a supervisor. Another time I hooked up my laptop and it could not connect either. That finally convinced the Tech person it was not my hardware of software. The problem has always been with their connection.

[jake75]

Part 2: We live in an area serviced by Ameritech which became SBC (aka Son of a ***** Company) which became AT&T. For my wife's internet connection we went with the phone company. They supplied the modem etc. for about $15 shipping and handling. It piggybacks on our regular phone line but you can use the phone and be on the internet at the same time. It was $12.95/mo for the first year contract; then they wanted $34,99. I called to cancel and they said "wait - we can give you a rate of $19.99 if you agree to a year contract." Her AT&T dsl works as well as or better than my Earthlink. Part 3: My son has service through his cable provider. His has never gone down.Part 4: When I retire I might switch from Earthlink to a lower cost dsl or cable service but for now keeping the same email address is essential so they have me locked in.

[scott_h]

I've had Earthlink DSL for over 2 1/2 years. It's the only high speed option where we live (besides satellite). I've had no issues at all. I can only think of one outage, and that was fairly short if I remember right (was quite a while ago). I'm on call 24x7x365, and have to dial into work at all hours, so reliability is huge for me. I've got no complaints...

[Charlievibe]

Keith, Jake and Scott,Thank you so much for your input, I like hearing everything. I am not certain why this is such a difficult decision, but it is - I had an easier time buying my house. I just want to make certain I don't get myself into some sort of deal with Earthlink and then be stuck. Jake, cool, another mindspring person!!! I was with Earthlink/Mindspring before they were ever Earthlink/Mindspring. When I first signed up, it was through my school and they were called CampusCWX. Mindspring bought them out and you know the story from there.Thanks so much for the excellent input, I truly appreciate it.