Fiber, cable, or wimax?
The internet options in Seattle have really gotten a lot more varied from when I moved here 8 years ago. I remember when cable just started appearing but DSL was basically the only realistic option for a fast connection (except for ISDN, I guess, which one friend in Bellevue was stuck with - ha!). DSL was always awful. You were guaranteed a moderately fast connection but could get stuck in a miserable support hate-triangle where the ISP would blame the line provider would blame [whoever the third party was] and it was impossible to get anything fixed (I remember it being a herculean feat to talk with and get Covad, Flashcom or Qwest to identify and fix the sources of problems).
Fast forward a couple years and you’ve got Comcast as an ISP who basically have a monopoly on cable service but the prices aren’t incredibly terrible and the service *is* really fast, so it seems mostly OK. But all of a sudden things are competitive again. I started thinking when I saw a couple cool new options:
- Verizon fiber to the home - John-Anthony mentioned this at a party this weekend and I almost had to leave then to ask about availability. I’m glad I didn’t because the party was fun and I’m pretty sure Saturday night wouldn’t have been prime time to reach someone for new service, but mostly because they don’t have availability in Seattle. Boo-hoo. But the price is as good or better than Comcast so if they could hook this up, I’d be on it in a second. My college was all fiber back in the day when disks were expensive enough that you couldn’t really take advantage of it and if I could hook this up at home, I’d do it in a second.
- Clearwire wimax - I’ve checked this out a few times and it looks pretty good. The speeds are noticeably slower than I should be able to get with cable (1.5/256) but it’s super mobile with great Seattle coverage and at slightly lower prices. But they don’t have any PC Card wimax adapters available (yet) which means I really don’t get all the mobility I’d want (for that I can stick with what I get tethering my laptop to my phone and getting on T-Mobile’s network).
- Cable… - and there’s still cable. When I called Comcast to ask about pricing and “what if I switch to clearwire and keep your TV service…” they tried convincing me to stick with their service and mentioned that if price was an issue, they could keep my service exactly the same but get me back on a 6 month no-obligation plan at $20 a month. Well, I have a hard time turning that down, so at least for now I’ll stick with what I’ve got.
The other kind of interesting thing available now is that T-Mobile is offering UMA/GAN connectivity. Basically you buy a router that you can hook into your existing home network and it gives you a (claimed) 300′ range home telephone network that bridges VOIP/GSM. You can make calls from home that don’t count against your minutes and roam out to the internet with a (claimed) clean handoff. This sounds incredibly awesome - especially if T-Mobile gets these UMA devices installed in their hotspots around the country (or the world!). The service costs $20 a month with a contract, but it seems if you *can* get on these smaller nets around the country then it could let you switch to a cheaper rate plan and actually save money. The major downside I’m noticing is that there are only a handful of phones equipped with a UMA antenna and none have the other features I want, so I can’t quite jump on that bandwagon yet, either. Fortuna, what a cruel wheel you spin!