Broadband in SF

[edawerd]

Hello all,

I just moved to SF, and am in the midst of making the most important decision of my move: What broadband service should I subscribe to? I think ATT, Verizon and Comcast are available in my area. Anyone have any recommendations? I like to spend my nights hacking away, but don't need an uber-fast connection. Reliability is most important to me.

Thanks,

Eddie

[brett]

I've had AT&T for as long as I've been here (at first it was SBC). I've only had one outage that I can remember and service has been acceptable. Prices have gone down since SBC bought AT&T and changed their name and it seems like customer service has gotten better a little bit though I haven't had to call them many times.

Also it now looks like if you turn down some of the promotional stuff you can get the same prices w/o a year long contract which was not the case back when it was SBC.

[jdavid]

http://Speakeasy.net has always worked really well for me. I get 8 static ips 6Mbps/768Kpbs in Milwaukee, WI. I know they are on the west coast too. I also have to say that their service is top level. I feel like i have the Bently of internet connections with how well they treat me.I highly recommend them.

[nickb → jdavid]

Another happy speakeasy customer! Never had any issues with their service. Highly recommended.

[abrown]

They are all horrible companies but Comcast is very fast and won't make you sign a year contract like some of the phone companies. On the other hand I had ATT in SF when I lived there and the service was fine. Speakeasy is good but a little bit more than Comcast if you bundle internet and cable.

[kf]

Comcast throttles bittorrent; you may want to avoid them for pragmatic or idealistic reasons.

[solfox → kf]

Comcast seems pretty fast to me, but their customer support is horrendous - the only play in their playbook seems to be: "turn off the modem and reboot your computer"

[gojomo]

Been generally happy with ATT (SBC (PacBell)) DSL over the years. Price keeps going down, speed up as long as you ask to be on an updated promotion (which sometimes requires a 1-year contract, not a big concern for me).

Another option not yet mentioned: Astound cable (was RCN; see astound.net). I was happy with RCN (very fast problem-free service) for about 2 years, then moved to an area RCN didn't yet service. Might be worth a look for completeness.