internet/cable/phone services (Minneapolis, St. Paul: house, live, price)

[babymango]

Are Comcast and Qwest pretty much the only options? (I'm moving to St Paul in a month and trying to do the research while i still have the internet here... we'll be in Merriam Park area if that makes any difference)

[golfgal]

It depends on what companies service your particular area. Comcast and Quest are not in our area at all. Unfortunately most cable companies have a monopoly for their service area and you really don't get a choice.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by babymango

Are Comcast and Qwest pretty much the only options? (I'm moving to St Paul in a month and trying to do the research while i still have the internet here... we'll be in Merriam Park area if that makes any difference)

With Qwest DSL you can have Qwest provide the DSL connection but use another ISP if you want.

I used to use VISI when I was up in the Twin Cities, and I still do for e-mail. :-)

[Clifford63]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

With Qwest DSL you can have Qwest provide the DSL connection but use another ISP if you want.

I used to use VISI when I was up in the Twin Cities, and I still do for e-mail. :-)

I highly recommend VISI for ISP if you go with Qwest DSL. I had this for many years until I moved to a place where DSL speeds were not acceptable. I sitll use VISI to catch my mail on my domain and they do a great job, where comcast is a joke when it comes to reliabilty (phone and cable more than Internet), customer service, and pricing. Only thing Comcast has going for them is the ability to deliver high speeds to more area than qwest.

qwest website has the ability to show you what speeds are available. I would say don't go DSL unless you can get 7 Mbs or better. Many areas in Minneapolis and St. Paul are able to get that. I was able to get 20 Mbs at my house in Minneapoilis, but 7 was plenty good for me.

Comcast has economy service that is meant to compete with DSL for about 25 a month but it is only 1 Mbs service, and you can get the 7 Mbs from qwest for that price - translation: this is a screw job

The next increment from Comcast is 15 Mbs which is pretty fast and this is around $42 a month plus fees.

The true upside with qwest DSL using another ISP, is you never have to deal with qwest support unless there is a physical issue on the line, which is rare. You deal with somebody like VISI that almost always answers the phone in less than 2 minutes instead of having to navigate a menu system and wait forever. I would say both qwest and comcast have issues with quality on tech support and comcast wait times are almost always at least 15 minutes based on my experiance. Comcast Internet seems fairly good in terms of reliability, but they do tend to shape user behavior and do stuff that can be annoying like force your IP to change often.