Robert,
Robert Baer said:
1) DSL:
The phone company lies in their ads stating 1.5M/sec or 4.7M/sec
available.
Actually -- if you read the fine print -- they never say you're guaranteed
anything at all in terms of speed -- it's always "up to!" Yeah, I know, small
difference, but they know as well you and I do that DSL doesn't work to
inifnite distances, and unfortunately you're at the far end of their loop and
get rotten speeds.
Statistically, though, probably better than 90% of DSL subscribers do get the
advertised speed. I do, and I'm kinda out in the boonies as well: DSL was
advertised as 1.5Mbps and I get about 1.4, cable modems were advertised as
4MBps and I got about 3.6 (using dslreports.com).
It does sound as though:
1) The tech was clueless and probably should have been able to determine you
weren't gong to be able to get any reasonable speed with reliability and just
told you as much and initiated the refund process.
2) Whoever told you they had newsgroups was also clueless, and yeah, they did
lie to you. (Unfortunately the many people today seem to consider lying a
better alternative to admitting ignorance. :-( )
BTW, if this was with Qwest, any old $50 DSL report will work fine with
them -- no need for some fancy $300 job. Qwest also has a 256kbps "tier," I
believe (cheaper than 1.5Mbps, of course), and *if they could get your
connection to be reliable* it might be worth it for you. The Internet is
still quite usable at 256kbps...
2) Cable:
I am Socially Insecure, and cannot afford $100/month for service to begin
with, and will not tolerate any more lies concerning NG support.
It's more like $65 a month you're not getting cable TV as well ($55 with).
You missed one alternative: Sprint (or other) broadband cards. You, a laptop
or desktop (with a cardbus adapter), and a log periodic antenna aimed at your
nearest Sprint tower will get you ~200-300kbps, for about $60/mo. Not that
much better than satellite speed-wide, but portable and somewhat lower upfront
costs.
If you have any neighbors within, e.g., a couple of miles, it's probably worth
asking them if they have reliable high-speed Internet via cable or DSL and
asking if you could link to them via WiFi (again, you'll need a gain antenna
if they're more than 1000' or so feet away) for some small monthly fee.
Access points are quite cheap these days.
---Joel