[TriLUG] broadband option in the Triangle area

[Jeff Groves]

Time Warner provides Earthlink, RoadRunner, and AOL over cablemodem here in the Raleigh area. 
  RoadRunner is usually pretty reliable when you can get past the numbskull first line tech 
support people.  Their field technicians seem to be pretty knowledgable and capable.  The 
download/upload speeds hovers around 2800/360 in downtown Raleigh.

I've heard that Earthlink is worse for their first level support, because they use outsourced 
help from various overseas locations.  Seems all they know how to do over there is read from 
a script.

I have no knowledge of their AOL offering, but I'm sure that it's intolerable.

They use DHCP on RoadRunner cable modem here in Raleigh.  When they were still in beta test 
mode, they tried making it so that your IP address would change a couple of times a day, but 
that seems to have caused customers lots of problems and therefore lots of calls to tech 
support.  As a result, they stopped making the IP addresses change all of the time, so I've 
had the same IP address for about 9 months now as a result.

In general, prices for service in-town are pretty reasonable due to a good amount of 
competition.  I hear that in the out-lying areas that Sprint really jacks-up the prices for 
DSL service.  A friend of mine in Fuquay-Varina has to have Sprint DSL and winds-up paying 
$100 a month for her basic phone service with the DSL.  The Sprint DSL service uses PPPoE and 
is not terribly reliable at her place, but they have a pretty long run down a gravel road to 
their house which might be part of the problem.

That's all I know...

Thanks,

Jeff G.