December 19, 2002
Broadband in San Francisco
It seems as if we have 30 days to find a new DSL provider. DirectTV, our current provider sent us an email yesterday informing us that:
With the dramatic change in the capital markets and the significant shift in the telecom operating environment, DIRECTV Broadband can no longer stand as an independent business...[and] will discontinue operations.
We chose DirectTV because, relatively speaking, it was a small provider and certainly not the nightmare which can be Pacific Bell. So now, we must look for a new provider.
Anyone in San Francisco have any good suggestions?
11 Comments
Speakeasy ( http://www.speakeasy.net/ ) has never done me wrong, and I've used them for four years.
I second the Speakeasy recommendation. My boyfriend and I both have accounts with them, and transferring from PacBell to them was amazingly painless.
Join the club. :-(
Speakeasy or Raw Bandwidth are the ones I'd pick.
More here: http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/000357.html
CLIQ in Oakland is a worker owned cooperative that provides DSL. They pride themselves on realistic pricing so they'll be around for the long haul, and on great tech support. They also have a neat deal where you can get your bill reduced by sharing a wireless connection with your neighbors.
http://www.cliq.com/services/dsl.html
Some of the members are also involved in the cool OpenDNS project
http://www.opennic.unrated.net
We're in the same boat...DTVDSL is going away. I called SBC and they said I would be without internet service for at least 30 days if I wanted to switch because it'd take that long to unlock my line or something or other. I'm going to try speakeasy tomorrow...hopefully they can switch me over without the delay.
Speakeasy rule my world. They've been nothing short of lovely since I joined up, and their attitude towards geeks is fantastic (up to 10 static IPs, you're allowed to share your connection as an open wireless access point, all servers allowed, free unix shell, etc)
Add to that great customer service (through a very powerful web-based system or a 1-800 number). Hell, even the music they play while you're on hold is good!
Make sure and call up and ask about promotions they're running. In the past, they've given away iPods and XBoxes to new subscribers. (Blatant cashgrab: Or subscribe through this URL, and I'll get $50! http://www.speakeasy.net/refer/167630 )
rOD.
Thanks for the feedback, folks. We've decided to go with Speakeasy. Even before signing up, we heard from a customer rep who called us to see if we had any questions (based on filling out a web form). The big plus is the dialup connection included in the package -- now we can cancel our Earthlink connection we've been using for trips.
I just signed up with Speakeasy!
Piece of cake web ordering! I'm impressed already :)
Please use this URL: http://www.speakeasy.net/refer/192014 and I get a kick back!
Please let us know how it goes with Speakeasy. Thanks, Tim
I just switched from DirectTV to Speakeasy... The modem came yesterday. It works great. The whole process was painless... and it may have been faster, if Christmas wasn't thrown in the middle.
I can't recomend it enough.
There should have been a "it took less than 10 days" in that last one.