What is the best internet provider in Portland? (Hillsboro, Lake Oswego: lease, how much)

[moemeddle]

What is the most reliable and not the most expensive internet service to get in Portland? I just moved here and am wondering what service to get. I do not want cable or a land line, so bundling is not an option.

What internet service do you use and how much is it a month? I live in SE.

Thanks for your help!

[khyron]

Originally Posted by moemeddle

What is the most reliable and not the most expensive internet service to get in Portland? I just moved here and am wondering what service to get. I do not want cable or a land line, so bundling is not an option.

What internet service do you use and how much is it a month? I live in SE.

Thanks for your help!

I'm guessing you meant to say inexpensive.

On that note, I'll throw in a recommendation for DSL from CenturyLink (formerly/also known as QWest). Everyone's situation is different, but here's mine:

I don't watch TV, at least, nothing beyond broadcast HDTV (which is quite ample here in southwest downtown). I don't need landline or VOIP (fake landline over the Internet) phone service because I only use our cell phones. This rules out Comcast for me, because their standalone ISP service is rather costly.

I don't live in a building/area which has FIOS available from either Verizon or Frontier, so that's out.

Nothing I do online falls under the category of "would actually be noticeably faster" if I had FIOS anyway, but on the other hand, much of what I do does require more "oomph" than Clear could provide wirelessly.

None of the other DSL providers (who would all be reselling me service over the CenturyLink line into my building) could match the price that CenturyLink themselves gave me. Oh and since I happen to have cellular with Verizon, they throw me a bundle discount (and it doesn't mess with my cell contract at all, which is a precious grandfathered one with unlimited data).

We're currently paying $20/mo intro, and after six months that goes to $35ish/mo as I recall (due to the VZ). I think the unbundled post-intro rate was $40/mo. Since there's no voice line on my DSL, there are also none of those random fees and taxes that have to appear on a "phone" bill by law. I do have a phone number from them, but it's purely for billing purposes (no actual dialtone). We're also renting a modem at $5/mo, which is a better idea than buying one right now (unless you happen to have one) because CenturyLink is going to be making massive infrastructure updates to the formerly QWest network and when they do, they'll be making newer modems available (same lease price).

P.S. in our experience, the mall kiosks have better deals than their call centers for signup (we talked to Kris at Lloyd Center)

[hamellr]

In my opinion, having had broadband personally for nearly 20 years in various locations all over the Portland Area, and having had to deal with all the major providers via various jobs, they're all pretty much interchangeable.

Customer Service is usually universally bad to down right useless until you get to the one guy who actually knows anything. The onsite techs range from good to useless. Everyone is trained to do one or two things to fix a problem and can rarely "think outside the box." I've had to rely on my own knowledge, and personal contacts within the industry far too often. I don't see how normal users can stand it. But then I do pretty much live or die by the Internet. My work has always relies on it for pretty much everything.

Prices at the low end tend to be about the same across the spectrum. You'll save ten or fifteen dollars, but have slightly worse bandwidth over another company (or service from same company.) Portland is also full of re-salers as khyron pointed out above, so be sure to ask if it's a resold service and then go that company for the best deal.

From a reliability standpoint, try to get FIOS. Cable and DSL both have their plusses and minuses, in some places they're great. In other's they can be totally worthless due to a variety of technological problems that I won't bore anyone with.

DSLReports Home : Broadband ISP Reviews News Tools and Forums is the go to place to find out what service and companies are in your area. Along with reviews of each company and their services. They'll also give hints on how to save a few dollars here and there.

[cherriterri]

Originally Posted by khyron

I do have a phone number from them, but it's purely for billing purposes (no actual dialtone).

Um That's an actual phone number and a does have dial tone, otherwise your DSL would not work. You can't call out except for 911 if you hooked up a phone to a jack (usually at the box, lines can be blocked inside). However, people can call you.

They dont tell you that, but I worked for Century Link, BVUOptinet - a FTTH (fiber) company, and Pacific Bell way back when. Its true If you dont try to call anyone, there are no records for the calls; especially now when everything is on computers. Its too much irrelevant information, so they are basically not caring unless you do something to make them care.

[ratchetjaw]

Well, yes and no. It is possible to maintain a loop with no voice band at all (sometimes not even common battery, depending on the type of service*), but a constant DSL signal. That's right, you can't even call 911 from it. It's called an "unbundled" line if I recall correctly. They're meant to support DSL and other data comms, but if you were to connect a telephone or an inter box to it, you would hear nothing except the power supply hum you would get from an idle unbalanced line. Unbundled lines do have numbers, for billing and accounting purposes within the telco. But if I were to try calling into my ADSL line, all I would receive is a reorder signal since there is no analogue service on this line.

They're not terribly common these days (in fact I had to go through hell to get Q West to change this line to one 3-4 years ago) but they're out there.

* I think ADSL has to at least have common power in order for the customer-side transceiver to detect the line is active and usable.

[Steve Pickering]

They are all about the same. It's called competition.

[urbanlife78]

Don't go with CenturyLink, they have some of the worst customer service I have dealt with and their process to setting up new clients is extremely slow. And then you run the risk if no one ever shows up during your scheduled hook up time, all Century Link will do is set up a new hook up date at a later time even though it was their own fault for failing to hook up service.

They might be the cheapest service, but you get what you pay for with CenturyLink.

[Tipsy McStagger]

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

Don't go with CenturyLink, they have some of the worst customer service I have dealt with and their process to setting up new clients is extremely slow. And then you run the risk if no one ever shows up during your scheduled hook up time, all Century Link will do is set up a new hook up date at a later time even though it was their own fault for failing to hook up service.

They might be the cheapest service, but you get what you pay for with CenturyLink.

They are spectacular in my current area and am sorry to see that their speed tiers are so limited in Lake Oswego (20mbps). We had to go with Comcast for the impending move as no other alternative was even close in terms of bang for the buck.

Here we have had flawless 50/5 service with CL for eight years with not a single service hiccup, and a dedicated data pipe (data rate never varies), and no monthly data caps. Not as optimistic about service with Comcast.

I've got one eye on CL or Google gigabit in the future.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by Tipsy McStagger

They are spectacular in my current area and am sorry to see that their speed tiers are so limited in Lake Oswego (20mbps). We had to go with Comcast for the impending move as no other alternative was even close in terms of bang for the buck.

Here we have had flawless 50/5 service with CL for eight years with not a single service hiccup, and a dedicated data pipe (data rate never varies), and no monthly data caps. Not as optimistic about service with Comcast.

I've got one eye on CL or Google gigabit in the future.

I never even got their service hooked up, their customer service killed it for me. I expected them to fix their mistake, not tell me "tough." If Google ever decides to come into the Portland market, it shouldn't be hard for them to run CenturyLink out of the area.

[bler144]

I only used CenturyLink briefly, but I can't say much positive about Comcast. Support isn't all that helpful, and we're paying through the nose since we don't get the 'benefit' of bundling other services into the steep price.

When we were in Hillsboro we were on Verizon->Frontier, and we got slightly better service and a much better deal. Alas in Portland it seems to be a matter of deciding which of the two bad options you can tolerate.