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In all the time I have been on the internet, we have used free service providers; first netzero and then nocharge, whom we are still with. Then, last month, it happened. My husband foind an online game that he has become addicted to ( Ikariam, if anyone is interested). Since our free dial up is so slow, he often stays at work late to play it on their superior computers, and goes back in on the weekends. (twice yesterday). It's time for us to get high speed internet. Our first inclination is with our phone company since they will bundle and we won't add a bill. However, I hold out hope I can find high enough speed internet to fully load online games ( and hopefully you tube and netflix streaming) for under $30/month. Anything out there like that?
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Around where I am, the slowest DSL offered by ATT is $25 a month (or was when I checked over the summer). It's honestly still pretty slow (512 Kb/s as I recall), but it should be passable for gaming. I use the $35/month service that is 1.5x as fast, and it works fine for gaming and video streaming (I don't use netflix, but hulu and youtube both work fine, I would assume the bandwidth requirement for netflix is not terribly different than hulu). I don't have any sort of bundle, so that price may be lower. It is worth noting I think that with my 1.5 Mb/s connection, hulu is not terribly functional if I use the higher resolution option, which (according to my napkin math) should take about 1.3x the bandwidth. The fact that I am cutting it that close would imply that anything much slower probably would not perform well at even the lower resolution. Again, I don't know what netflix uses.
Cable internet, while faster, was notably more expensive once you get out of the introductory period (the advertised price for the first six months was like $25, but it jumped into $40+ after that).
EDIT: also worth noting that my ATT service has no fees or extra charges associated with it (though there was some setup cost). The bill is exactly $35.00 every month, which is exactly what they advertised. I have no idea how prevalent any additional charges, etc. are, but my general feel from advertising (which is a terrible source) is that they are not uncommon.
Posts: 187 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Romany, if you're willing to get involved in just a touch of hassle and already have cell phones, let me give you a magic phrase: dry loop DSL. I get 7Mbsp down and 2.5 up for $25 a month, with none of those irritating taxes and charges you normally have to pay when you maintain a local phone.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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No lie Orinoco. Really. Tom, we have a land line, and I have a cel but it's not my plan- I am on my best friend's "family" plan. Would that effect it?
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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With dry loop DSL you wouldn't have a land line. So you'd need to have either cell phones or use VoIP to make any calls.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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I also have AT&T and pay $30 a month for the "DSL Pro" package, which is up to 512KB upstream and up to 3.0 MB downstream. No extra fees that I've seen, the taxes and "governmental surcharges" are all shown as being part of the landline portion of my bill. Very few drops in service, and the few I've had have been shortlived.
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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