DSL :-(

[cellio]

Damn. The last local ISP in Pittsburgh, which has provided us excellent service, is going away. (I hadn't realized it had gotten quite that bad.) Our choices are Verizon (DSL) and Comcast (cable), so I've just submitted the order with Verizon. This should be a simple transfer (our ISP was reselling Verizon), but they have no apparent process for simple transfers, so we'll see. (No, not going to do Comcast, and not interested in switching technologies until the day Verizon deigns to offer FiOS in our neighborhood.)

With Nidhog (current ISP), service has been excellent, I had the owner's cell-phone number, and the very few problems were dealt with quickly and easily (even the ones that weren't really theirs to fix). Verizon claims 24/7 support but they mean online chat, which has obvious limitations. Getting a phone number at all was harder than it should have been, and I don't yet know the hours when it's staffed. (Not at 10PM on a Saturday.)

Edit: This wasn't clear from the mail I got on Friday, but tonight I learned that Nidhog is not going away completely. They are just ceasing to offer DSL. (I'd love to know what happened there...) If FiOS were available to my address I could buy it from Nidhog (so when it is I will, should it ever be).

Comments

Re: How's you Hindi?

[cellio]

Most likely Verizon's "support" will be out of India.

Almost certainly, judging from the wording oddities in "Maddy"'s chat last night.

Thanks for the pointer.

Re: How's you Hindi?

[tc-tick.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is a lot more, I've considered switching, but whenever I look into it, I end up staying with them. I run a server, my own mail services, etc. so the higher upstream rate is important and their policies allow me to do about anything that is legal. My plan also includes nationwide dial-up (30 hours/mo.) which used to be absolutely necessary when I was traveling (more places have high-speed internet now so it isn't as important.) I have no limits on upload/download traffic and they also host my secondary DNS and allow up to 1GB/MO of news feeds as well.

Don't count on a smooth transition even though they actually provide the current DSL, the POTN can be incredibly beaurocratic when it comes to transfering service expecially from/to a 3rd party. Hopefully you won't experience a long outage.