Looking for ISP suggestions (Cincinnati: sales, house, neighborhood)

[StPaulGirl]

Hello. I'm re-locating from St. Paul MN to Cincinnati (Mt. Lookout, specifically) in August, and I'm looking for suggestions for an ISP. I suspect I will need to go with DSL, since I prefer to have at least one static IP address, but I'm curious to know if folks have had a better experience speed-wise with cable. I use both Macs and PCs and would love to have a provider who has Mac-friendly support.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[CincinnatiGirl]

I have Road Runner which is the cable version here. I love it, my connection is fast, I never have to wait for pages to download!! I love it and would highly recommend it to anyone!!! I had Zoomtown, and it was horrible. It would go out for no reason, and you could never get ahold of anyone. You would get a message that says we are aware and working on the problem. And it would take days to get fixed!!!!

[jcsoruen]

Fuse.net has been satisfactory, and I've use it for seven years. If you have a laptop, it has the most wifi sites. Fuse.net is part of Cincinnati Bell, and they have a special rate for phone, long distance, wireless and internet. They have come to the house and installed their router, to which one can connect directly, or attach a wifi router.

We have elected to get satellite for our TV. In a previous neighborhood, road runner was fine until 3 pm, when the high schoolers get home from school, and then things slow down.

With satellite, one does have to put up with outs due to weather, but this has not been a significant problem

Fuse.net has improved its service, and will call you back within 20 minutes to service your problem. The 397help number is reasonable, but the voice of the person must have been picked as the most grating irritating voice I've ever heard.

[movingsoon2007]

I have zoomtown, and it's fine. We have had very few problems.

[Pathwalker]

Not to contradict anyone, but Zoomtown sucks. Or maybe it's just the part of town you're in, but honestly - I had nothing but problems with Cincinnati Bell. I would be paying for 3MB download speeds, and often times I wouldn't even be able to get a connection until late in the evening and overnight hours. I'm as serious as I can be. I don't know how many times I tried talking to their tech department and all they could say was that it was a problem with the phone lines! But that didn't make sense, because my phone service worked fine, and as I said, I was able to get online during overnight hours. I tried to tell them the problem was with THEM, and they insisted it wasn't. So I dropped them like a hot potato. I went back to dial-up at first and then switched to Road Runner cable through Time Warner.

Then, just a few months ago, a C-Bell rep came around and wanted us to switch from Time Warner's Digital Phone, and go with Cincinnati Bell phone service. I told him I already had Road Runner, and that I would need Zoomtown if I switched. I told him I'd had problems with Zoomtown previously, and he said "Hmmm, that's strange." He assured me there should be no problem, and that they had recently increased their speeds to ~5MB. Well, that was comparable to what I was getting with Road Runner, so I agreed to give Z-Town another shot.

Well, sure enough, the VERY DAY they got the new wiring installed and hooked up my modem, I tried to go online. Well, guess what? I couldn't even connect at 1MB! I was FURIOUS. I immediately disconnected it and hooked my cable modem back up and started once again getting the 4.5MB speeds I was paying for.

Cincinnati Bell does NOT have my support with respect to internet service. I regret that we have to use them for phone service, but we need the phone when power goes out.

I would highly, HIGHLY recommend going with Road Runner cable through Time Warner. I have NEVER EVER EVER had any problems with them, and I have NEVER had a problem with sharing the so-called "broadband pipeline" with my neighbors. And even if there WAS a problem, Time Warner consistently increases the capacity. In fact, within the past 2 weeks, my cable speeds have been increased once again. I now get a consistent download speed of 6.5 MB. That's incredibly faster than anything I've ever had.

Stay away from Zoomtown and DSL. Go with Road Runner instead.

[jcsoruen]

Its quite unusual for Cincinnati Bell to have someone come to one's home spontaneously. Bizarre is a better word.

I use Internet Performance and Speed Test and generally get 4Mb transmission using both text and pictures on fuse.net

It boils down to service and cost. Both are quite satisfactory. Changing one's e-mail is difficult, and reliable e-mail is important. Since we have satellite, and the price is less, we're happy.

[Pathwalker]

I thought it was a bit unusual for them to come around, but he was a legitimate C-Bell sales rep. I checked it out. I guess they were just trying to drum up more business.

[zorst]

I've had problems with Cincinnati Bell's internet offerings. I do use them for my cell phone. It's like when downloading you start out fast but within a matter of seconds you drop to a rate of like 9kps versus the 26kps you started out with. I've experienced not being able to logon at peak times. If I wait too long the overnight sync of all business starts which also seems to clog the pipes. Very frustrating when you are paying for broadband. We have a Cincinnati Bell T1 connection at work, which seems to do just fine. Get yourself a T1 connection and I'm guessing you'll be fine.

I've gone to Current for my home ISP and am very happy with it. However Current is not available everywhere in Cincinnati. I don't know if they are Mac friendly as I don't have a Mac.

[Pathwalker]

I thought about Current myself, but they seem to be slower than molasses in January with respect to getting it rolled out into other areas of the tri-state. Plus, from what I've read, they don't really offer much more than 2 MB download. Is that right?

Current would be really cool to have. You can have your computer virtually anywhere you want because the broadband signal comes through the electrical wiring. You simply plug in the modem and you're set. Nevertheless, I'm going to stick with Road Runner.

[zorst]

Originally Posted by WCRob

I thought about Current myself, but they seem to be slower than molasses in January with respect to getting it rolled out into other areas of the tri-state. Plus, from what I've read, they don't really offer much more than 2 MB download. Is that right?

I think there has to be a certain density of population for it to be cost effective. So Suburban areas where everyone has a big yard. may never get Current.

I'm not sure what you mean by 2MB download. 2MB/second or a maximum of 2MB of information per download? I've downloaded some rather large pdf's (678pages of a manual) without a problem. I'd call them ask them. They were very patient with me when asking questions.