Best choice for broadband in San Francisco?

[ravenvii]

Anyone who lives, or lived, in San Francisco, can you give me a suggestion of which ISP to go with? As I see it, AT&T and Comcast is pretty much the only two choices (DSL and cable, respectively). Which one should I go with?

(I won't be getting cable television or phone line, so the combos mean nothing to me)

 

[WildCowboy]

I had Comcast for a couple of years and the service was fast and reliable, but I dumped them as the promotional bundles for cable and internet ran out and it got too pricey.

I switched to RCN (which is now Astound) for my cable internet...they had a one-year promo deal for 1.5 Mbit for $18/month. Now that's hard to beat. It's been pretty solid. We had a few hiccups with slow speeds a few weeks ago (same time as RCN was changing to Astound, but that may have been coincidental), but all is fine now.

I don't think they're running that good of a deal now though, so I don't know if it's worth it. But have a look at Astound to see what they've got.

Edit: Ooh...on second thought, I'm not sure RCN/Astound services SF directly. I live in Daly City and I know they serve a bunch of suburbs, but they may not be in the city proper.

 

[nbs2]

(I won't be getting cable television or phone line, so the combos mean nothing to me)

I'd consider them anyway. We have Comcast, albeit on the East Coast, and it is cheaper for us to get super-ultra-basic cable (I think it's officially called "local cable" or something like that) and internet than it is to just get internet service.

 

[Silencio]

RCN does serve some San Francisco neighborhoods. One friend of mine in the Mission has them and doesn't have any complaints. I totally loathe Comcast and will never give them another penny if I can possibly help it.

For DSL, try Sonic.net. They resell ATT's DSL service, but offer much better service and features (affordable static IPs and the like) for lower prices.

 

[iHerzeleid]

DSL is pretty cheap around here. Comcast is more expensive but it depends on the speed you want...

 

[ravenvii]

Any of you using AT&T's DSL, is the service reliable? I can get 1.5 mbps for 19.99/month. That's an really nice deal, and 1.5mbps is just fine for my needs.

However, I am wondering about the reliability of the connection? And is the latency good? I will use it for video conferencing pretty frequently, so the latency and reliability needs to be good.

Any feedback on AT&T?

 

[Potus]

At&t

I've got At&T Uverse wireless. Discontinued Comcast two months ago. I dumped Earthlink and ReplayTV as well. I'm now paying less for tv and broadband than before, with more channels. Very happy.

 

[ravenvii]

Dammit, turns out the prices AT&T advertises on their site is only for those who already have a phone line. For those who don't, the plans start at $45.

Dammit, guess it's back to Comcast.