DSL or Cable

For $90/mo you can get both and have all the dependability you want. Get the home cable bandwidth and the dependability of DSL if the cable goes down. With two different providers, you have much less chance of down time.

Home DSL should be less than $40 from what I've seen. I generally would avoid business anything - they don't seem practical to me.

I have no doubt that their t/s for home users is non-existent if not dangerous. The question is whether their business t/s is any better. I don't mind paying $100/mo if I got reliable service and responsive t/s. I guess I'll sign up and see.

I'm not as interested in their assurances as in their deliverables. I've had assurances before that did not exactly pan out...

That does raise the question. Does Comcast have quality assurances as part of a business account?

Well the important ones are the ones you can get them to sign off on. In other words a legally binding contract.

In article , LurfysMa wrote: :I have had DSL for several years. I think it's from XO/Covad. I'm not :sure because I get it through the company that we lease our computers :from so I don't pay the provider directly. : :The leasing company is no longer providing broadband service as aprt :of the lease and my lease is up. So, in addition to upgrading our :computers, I also need to decide what to do about broadband. : :I liked the DSL initially, but that may have been because I previously :had dial up. Lately, it hasn't been so good. I keep hearing that cable :is much faster. Is that true? : :We have Comcast in this area (SF Bay Area). The computers are in a :home office and we have Comcast cable TV. I have found Comcast to be a :big, impersonal, not very freindly company, but the cable TV service :has been pretty good. Are they a reasonable provider and a good :alternative to DSL? : :I just got off the phone with them. They say they can install a :business plan for $90/mo that promises 5MB/512KB bandwidth. I thinjk :that's several times what I have now with DSL. Is that valid? : :Comcast has several non-business plans that are a lot cheaper. I asked :the guy what the differences are. He said bandwidth and 24/7 tech :support. Would I be better off just getting a home service? I don't :mind the $75-90/mo if the sergvice is really significantly better.

I think you'll find that using Comcast's home service for running a business is contrary to Comcast's AUP. If your use of the service falls within the realm of normal home use (not running any publicly accessible servers, not sending large amounts of email, not continuously using a large fraction of your bandwidth, etc.) you could probably get away with it, but Comcast's tech support for home users can be absolutely abysmal at times. Can your business stand being without service for 3 or 4 days while Comcast first sends someone to inspect your PC and cable modem before dispatching a line tech. to track down their line problem?

Why wouldn't you consider getting cable and DSL both for much less money ? If one goes down, what are chances the other is also down ? With the additional initial outlay for a dual WAN router ($60 and up), you'd have the best of both worlds.

If you sleep there, it is residental service. Like business phone lines, the price difference is the only difference. But, since you have a direct line to a face to face sales rep, you can complain to them and get pushed to the front of the line if you're having a problem.

No.

Over the years, I've known a couple of people who'd sleep at work. ;-)

No what? No, you don't get prefered treatment? Well, maybe you have a lousy sales rep.

No, business phone service is somehow better than residental? Nope, it is the same POTS you get at home.

No, if you sleep at home, it is not residental? Everything I've heard is that if you get a cablemodem in your house, it is not business service, and no one will care if you use it to work at home once in a while.

FWIW, Comcast business service doesn't allow use of public facing servers, reselling, or anything the residental service doesn't allow. I think you get more e-mail accounts and maybe a DNS/hosting service.

Please be more specific than just posting "No"

I looked yesterday and Comcast apparently has three plans.

Lite, standard, or enhanced.

The first is good for telecommuters.

The second is for branch offices.

The last is for a public-facing, home business.*

*Personally for the money ($160+4), a good web-hosting plan would be better.

Phone and cable is a service. Residential is a term they use to market one level of that service. Just because you sleep in a house doesn't mean the service that you want there will be called "residence service". If you want a static IP here from the cable guys, you get to pay for a business account and they call it that. It just happens to be delivered to a house.