internet and phone providers in Pueblo West (Canon City, Vona: house, to live)

[mpsgirl]

Does anyone have any recommendations for phone and/or internet providers that provide service in the Pueblo West area that might be better than the two big providers Comcast and Direct TV? Or if there are even any other cable/dish providers that would be recommended?

Given that we're sort of out in the boonies my biggest concern overall with all of the services is reliability and since we don't know much about the area overall, any input is greatly appreciated.

[McGowdog]

I live far out in the boonies enough that cable was/is not an option. So we've got DirecTV, Qwest land line and DSL over phone internet.

We get about 220K or kinda soso internet speed. We could pay more per month and get faster internet I guess.

We used to have wireless internet and still have the antenna for it and it had its own T1 and we were one of the first customers. It was screaming fast... for about a week. As the T1 took on more customers, it was useless.

I like DSL cable like I have a work. I think that's running from 750K to 1.2M. It's pretty fast, but there's faster for sure.

I hate Qwest and we only have the service because we supposedly need it for our satellite. I love the TV but I would never consider using the dish for internet; 80 bucks for lousy service, unless it's improved.

I tested my system at speakeasy and I was at 243Kb down and 215Kb up. That's dreadfully slow, but I've been able to live with it. If I want to play games we've got an old Ninetindo 64 and a PS2. Watching video or dealing with pics is a pain and requires putting on a pot of coffee. Still, a heck of a lot faster than dialup. I think prairie dogs have eaten through parts of our phone line too. The phone line travels 1.2 acre across our property too. Our land line is so noisy it's practically unusable.

[mpsgirl]

Wow...you sure make my future in the boonies look bright :P lol

We found out today after calling the company that DirecTV outsources their internet anyhow to a local company in the area we're moving into...but I found this very funny - They told us the installation fee is $199 (even though our house is already wired for internet) and gave us the name of the company that provides the service. We looked up the company and they advertise FREE installation!! This is yet another reason why I hate DirecTV. We'd still have to pay 2 separate bills - one to DirecTV and one to the internet provider, but DirecTV tacks on their own additional $20 fee for some crap like "managing the account". Needless to say, we'll get TV through them and ONLY tv.

Cable, like you mentioned, isn't available in our area so I don't have to worry about that now.

Is Quest is the only phone provider for the area? Or are their other small companies out that way? I'd rather have a traditional lan line as opposed to something like Vonage or any VOIP service because we're planning on installing a security system in our house and VOIP's rarely work with security systems properly.

[Crematia]

I have Qwest for my DirectTV, high speed internet, and phone. I got a package deal and I didn't pay that much for installation, they are trying to hose you. The DirectTV futzes out when it rains hard, other than that the services I have are great.

[mpsgirl]

I know I'm drudging up an old post of mine but we're finally pretty much fully in our house and I have a few questions again about ISPs.

McGowdog...was the satellite service your originally had by chance a microwave service?? That by chance had the name of a particular bug? I don't want to name them online at risk of getting in trouble, because I've got NOTHING good to say about them. When we FINALLY got service in our house w/ the wireless service (3 weeks after installing the hardware), it was fast...but that lasted about an hour. They always had excuses as to why it wouldn't work and so I finally said come get the crap off my house.

Hughesnet was another option for us but I find it insanely expensive for only 1MBPS. They're also a satellite service.

Qwest seems to be my only other option. They told me though that we have to have a phone line to get their service and I can only get basically their SLOWEST option, which is just barely faster than dial-up. Yet, the neighbor behind us who's property backs up to the back of ours has Qwest and their service is rather fast. Our phone boxes are right next to one another so I wonder why we can't get the same service our neighbors have?

Comcast told me they don't have service in our area yet and no plans for anything in the near future.

So, those aside, is anyone familiar with any other possibilities for our area? I had thought about calling Verizon about their wireless satellite services. Does anyone have an experience with them out here in Pueblo West? I just am not thrilled about getting gouged for SLOW internet service so I want to know what other options we have if any at all. We have DirecTV but that's currently the only service we have in our house but I know they use Qwest for internet anyhow.

[Josseppie]

My mom livs out there and she has Comcast for cable and internet, that is who I use in the city (Pueblo) and they seem kewl. I have qwest for phone service.

[McGowdog]

Qwest is giving us 1.2 or 1.5M service for a buck less/month than our 256K, but it won't kick in till January 5th.

I'm gonna be so fast that I'll be able to answer posts before they're posted! I'm gonna be able to win the Power Ball! Kewl, as Josse says!

[mpsgirl]

Ha, well, please share when you win the power ball.

We just can't get comcast out where we are. They came out and checked and they said they won't have anything out there for a while...yes, we're that far north in the area I suppose. We ended up going with AcuLink I believe is the name of it. We average 5M download speed and, oddly enough, 6M upload speed. They don't limit your uploads at all so it's been kind of convenient. Late at night when not many people are using the wireless signal, we get around 8-9M. I believe they charge us $50/month and for the speed, we just can't beat it honestly. We're paying more than qwest would have charged us, but really it's not terrible considering we don't wait for anything really. It's been a very long time since I've had anything remotely close to as fast as our connection speed is now.

But, at the moment it doesn't really make all that much of a difference because just my husband is using the connection because I just moved to London for 6 months, and just him alone using it, he doesn't do anything that really requires terribly fast speeds...it's more myself that needs the faster speeds. Either way, before I left for London, I was really happy with the service and as long as nothing really changes too dramatically at once, I think we'll probably be with them for a good long time.

[McGowdog]

Well, I haven't been able to win the Powerball yet... but our internet with Qwest is pretty fast now;

[SheridanL]

I have Bresnan Communications here in Canon City....I have no idea if it is available in Pueblo.
I have 2 different sattelite dishes (no good anymore, yuck) and also have Qwest dial up. We have an internet business so we need back-up!
We had comcast in Florida.