Broadband internet in Seattle

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broadband internet service

Disclaimer. Please bear in mind that these are e-mails and posts from the uw-cs.grads newsgroup relevant to choosing broadband service for home use. These messages do not represent anything beyond the personal opinions of the posters at the time of writing, and your experience might vary.

Dial-in. If you are happy enough with modem bandwidth, you should be aware that UW provides free PPP dial-in lines (at least, as of 2001 September). UW Computing & Communications has dial-in setup info on the web, and if you've set up dial-in before, you shouldn't need to purchase the UWICK software package.

Broadband. Your two major options for broadband in the Seattle area are cable modem and DSL, and if you're lucky, you're at a location that offers a choice between the two. We've tried to include all of the major connection providers in the area. If you get DSL, you need to choose an ISP, and there are far too many of those in the area to list here.

  • cable modem service providers
    • dept. commentary on area services (below)
    • Comcast (formerly AT&T @Home)
    • Milennium Digital Media CableSpeed
  • DSL connection providers
    • Qwest
    • Verizon (formerly GTE)
  • DSL ISPs
    • dept. commentary on area services (below)
    • Qwest's list of Washington area ISPs supporting their service
    • Verizon's list of Washington area ISPs supporting their service

cable modem service providers

  • 2 Sep 2001, Tim James: Re: broadband options info for incoming grads
  • 2 Sep 2001, Dmitriy Portnov: Re: broadband options info for incoming grads
  • 19 Sep 2001, Bart Niswonger: Re: broadband options info for incoming grads

2 Sep 2001, Tim James: Re: broadband options info for incoming grads

You can quote me or not, but I will put in a strong recommendation for AT&T Broadband's cable modem service. It's only $40/month, often with signup deals like "first 3 months for $19.99" or "first six months for $19.99."

I've had cable modem since I moved to Seattle. Although there have been a few times where I've had poor service, mainly during my first year, and a little during the beginning of the second year, the performance of the cable modem just dwarfs that of DSL. When downloading from good servers, I've seen speeds as high as 500 kilobytes per sec. More likely, I'll get closer to 100-200 KB/s on good sites. Any slowness is attributable to the server end. Also, I'm assuming that AT&T has hashed out a lot of their problems regarding outages since there have been so few in the last 10 months or so. So reliability isn't much of an issue.

On the other hand, I think AT&T's customer service sucks. So when there are problems, it is really frustrating.

Tim

2 Sep 2001, Dmitriy Portnov: Re: broadband options info for incoming grads

I've had ATT Cable modem for the past two years.

Their customer service is not that great, but as long as it works (which it has for over half a year now) it is very nice. $40/month gives you up to 500KB/s downstream and 14KB/s upstream. Very low latency to UW too. Yeah, and you also get a static IP (you can get extras for $5/month each)

Another nice thing is no yearly contract, so if you don't like it you can cancel anytime (unlike most if not all DSL options).

They also run promotions once in a while where you get the first six months of service at only 19.95/month.

-Dmitriy

19 Sep 2001, Bart Niswonger: Re: broadband options info for incoming grads

I would like to add yet another voice in favor of AT&T @Home - I have had my cable modem for ~6 months and had very little trouble with it. I have been frustrated with customer service, but I found the people reasonably competent after a long wait time.

They certainly seem to be the cheapest around and to my knowledge beat most DSL connections in terms of speed. Upwards of 500kb/s is common for me, with the occassional 600 to the department. However, it is very true that these links are basically one-way - sending large files is _very_ slow. But for interactive things (X, ssh, etc) it is more than enough.

2007, September, Comcast, Tomas Isdal

I went for Comcast (internet only, no cable or phone), around 700Kbytes/s TCP down and low latency for $30 a month. The annoying thing is that the "offer" expires after 6 months, and they will start charging you $55. When that happens you have to call them and say that you are switching to qwest, and then you will get it for $30/month for 6 more month. Repeat...


DSL ISPs

  • 20 Sep 2000, Neil Spring: Re: Which DSL ?
  • 20 Sep 2000, Jeremy Buhler: Re: Which DSL ?
  • 20 Aug 2001, Steve Capell: DSL ISP recommendations wanted
  • 20 Aug 2001, Alan Borning: Re: DSL ISP recommendations wanted
  • 21 Aug 2001, Stephen Spencer: Re: DSL ISP recommendations wanted
  • 22 Aug 2001, Stefan G. Berg: Re: DSL ISP recommendations wanted
  • Case study: Speakeasy OneLink DSL July 2005

20 Sep 2000, Neil Spring: Re: Which DSL ?

So far, I'm very happy with speakeasy. 2 static ip's make running your own domain convenient. Setup has been painless.

Note that for DSL, speed is dependent on where you live.

-neil

On Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 05:04:57PM +0000, Stefan Saroiu wrote: > > Hi everyone, > > I know that this has been discussed before, unfortunately I haven't saved > the messages exchanged. I'm looking for a good DSL provider. > > My constraints are: > > 1. Reasonable speed (I'm listening to any recommendations) > 2. Reasonable tech support > 3. Monthly contract (rather than yearly) > > I'm open to any suggestions, or comments about your experiences, > > Thanks a million, > Stefan

20 Sep 2000, Jeremy Buhler: Re: Which DSL ?

Quoth Neil Spring : > So far, I'm very happy with speakeasy. 2 static ip's

I have to agree with Neil. I've had Speakeasy for quite some time because they were willing to give me DSL when USWest-is-now-Qwest was dragging its feet. The peak speeds aren't as high as UWest's (384 kbps vs 600-something), but the service is pretty reliable and the administrators mostly have a clue.

--

    1. Jeremy Buhler * peace through superior algorithms * U. Washington ##

20 Aug 2001, Steve Capell: DSL ISP recommendations wanted

Hi All,

Now that Oz.net is The River and they decided to charge monthly for static IPs ($25 for 4, ouch!), I'm shopping around for another ISP. Does anyone have a recommendation for an ISP (compatible with Qwest DSL) that is reasonably priced (with a handful of static IPs) and offers decent performance?

Thanks, Steve

20 Aug 2001, Alan Borning: Re: DSL ISP recommendations wanted

I use speakeasy.net and have had good luck with them - they give you up to 8 static IP addresses as part of the deal. Plus the landline phone service from QWest (aka Qworst) has been so awful in my neighborhood that I really want to avoid giving them any business if I can help it.

21 Aug 2001, Stephen Spencer: Re: DSL ISP recommendations wanted

In article , Eric Lemar wrote:

>I've been looking at drizzle, but haven't heard anything first hand about >them and haven't checked them out in depth yet. They charge per-ip, but >at MUCH more reasonable rates than oz.

Here's some first-hand information regarding Drizzle: it rocks. On the advice of a friend of ours who was happy with the service, we signed up with them when we started our DSL service. They've been friendly, easy to work with, and rock-solid. They were ready to roll within a few hours of the DSL box getting plugged in both in our apartment near campus and at our new place over on Bainbridge Island. We're paying $20 a year for five static IPs.

22 Aug 2001, Stefan G. Berg: Re: DSL ISP recommendations wanted

I use www.olywa.net and am very happy with them. They give me a /27 subnet (bundle of 8 static IPs) and reverse DNS lookup for no additional charge.

Stefan

17 Jul 2005, S. Mattison: Re: DSL ISP recommendations wanted

Don't let SpeakEasy or Drizzle fool you! They BOTH contract through Qwest to provide their DSL lines. So whether or not you really want to support Qwest, you're doing it!

Wireless ISPs

2007, September, Clearwire, Benjamin Ylvisaker

I have been using Clearwire's internet service for about 3 months now. I have the 1.5Mbps down/0.25Mbps up service. I pay $20 per month. The service is usually good. Download bandwidth is sometimes higher than advertised. Latency is not particularly good, but usually not terrible for typical surfing. Sometimes the service gets very spotty with several second periods of absolutely no data transfer; usually this is during peak residential internet hours. Overall, I have been reasonably happy with them. The service could be more reliable, but it's cheap. I have not contacted the tech support at any point.

2007, September, Clearwire, Tomas Isdal

I tried Clearwire in one of those booths they have in Northgate. Plus: Cheap

Minus: Very high latency (around 100ms to school from northgate, faster to walk back and forth?) Poor tcp performance to Sweden, important for some cs-grads :-)