I think they said I can do DSL within a 5 mile radius of the phone company's distribution box. I was less than 1000 feet from the one down the street so that DSL worked fine for me.
One reason I went with Earthlink was because of all the stories like yours about AOL. They would send me CD's about twice a week for a while but I heard enough about them to never try and install it. I could have gone on a pay as you go deal with Earthlink, but they gave me a "free" modem if I signed up for something like 24 months. I still have that modem in a box down in the basement. The only thing I did not like about DSL was that I had to put rf filters on all the other phones in the house. Earthlink would not supply those nor would the phone company.
Aside from the extortionist price for Spectrum's Internet service I can't say much negative about them. They promised me 100 megs download when I first signed up, but then when net neutrality became history they dropped it down to about half that. I could buy the extra speed for something like 50% more of the base price. I do get full speed here once in a great while, but most of the time they throttle it. No, they won't admit it but I have ways to measure it. It doesn't really matter in my case. DSL speeds would work most of the time for me. But if we did a lot of streaming I could see a problem lurking in the background.
Public WiFi is the thing these days, but I'd be very hesitant to go that route. I never connect my clever phone when I'm in restaurants or shops that offer it. I'd rather pay the price for data on the cell net than expose my phone to hackers on the public WiFi.
SPECIAL NOTE
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Any topic is acceptable, and topic drift is permissible.
Re: SPECIAL NOTE
Comcast charges their fees by what download speed you want to buy.
While Charter works entirely differently. I know folks getting their top speed at a price lower than our lowest speed price.
But we are stuck with Comcast, because the city promotes Monopolies, so only give us one choice to choose from.
I used to get telephone call from installers saying we now have Fiber Optics in my area to connect to.
I laugh at them because I know we don't. But to get them to quit calling, I would tell them to go ahead and send their installer out.
Ironically, it was usually the same installer that came each time, so we just sat and had a soda for about a half hour, then he would mark on his sheet, no viable connection available, hi hi.
He already knew from his very first visit here that DSL does not work on our antique phone lines with all the patches in it.
He even said, with that many patches, he's surprised that the phones even work at all, hi hi.
While Charter works entirely differently. I know folks getting their top speed at a price lower than our lowest speed price.
But we are stuck with Comcast, because the city promotes Monopolies, so only give us one choice to choose from.
I used to get telephone call from installers saying we now have Fiber Optics in my area to connect to.
I laugh at them because I know we don't. But to get them to quit calling, I would tell them to go ahead and send their installer out.
Ironically, it was usually the same installer that came each time, so we just sat and had a soda for about a half hour, then he would mark on his sheet, no viable connection available, hi hi.
He already knew from his very first visit here that DSL does not work on our antique phone lines with all the patches in it.
He even said, with that many patches, he's surprised that the phones even work at all, hi hi.