wrote:

Cable is not a available option for me, but if the cable companies
offer any customer service at all, it's no surprise that they are
kicking the phone company's collective asses.

Here, they don't. I'm paying $40 a month *less* for my DSL line than the local
cable company wants for computer access cable. The Comcast customer service
lines were a real PITA when we had cable. Verizon's service lines were great,
except for the long holding time. The hold actually wouldn't be so bad, except
that they would play the "self-help" tips over and over again while you were
waiting. With Comcast, if there was a problem in the area, they just wouldn't
answer the phone.

One of the advantages of DSL is that I have a direct line to the switch -- I
have to share the bandwidth on cable. Granted, if there's a lot of traffic on
the server, I'll still see a slow connection, but I don't see the service
degradation caused by congestion on the cable. IIRC, cable was frequently a
little faster than my DSL line usually is, but there were also times when it
crawled, and I don't see that on DSL.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.