Review by slk2k 
UPDATED: 1.4 years ago
member for 7 years, 2416 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Aurora,Dupage,IL
 $52 per month
 about 2 days
 "Fast and friendly on the order and the install."
 "Had to wait FOREVER for the network upgrade before I could get the service."
 "Best thing in town for the cost."
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(ratings above consensus)
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Live in utter Broadband Hell. Too far for DSL (over 26K away from CO), no RT buildout expected, Wireless over $80/month - who wants Sat? and living on ISDN for over 4years. With SBC (Ameritech) expanding slowly and AT&T (now Comcast) starting to build out in Aurora - it was impaitently waiting for something to break the logjam.
Found out that Comcast flipped the switch on Monday and they were out on Wednesday with the full install. They had to run a new cable outside (old one wasn't "broadband capable") and replace the Interface box on the outside of the house. Install took about 30 minutes for those parts alone. Put a splitter on inside the house, attached one to the modem, the other to the TV splitter. Connected the Ethernet line from the computer and was done with the physical install. Tech pulled out a CD to install their SW and I asked if they could do it manually (I detest "branded SW" that I already have on my box (IE6 and OE6) - I also have a friend who had Comcast cable istalled in another town awhile ago and they trashed a perfectly working box.) He said "I'm not supposed to, but since you know what you are doing and the install is going so smoothly, what the hey." I already had set up my PC for DHCP. He grabbed the MAC addr of my own modem (SB4200), hit a few web sites and BAM, i was on-line. I picked out an email account and he ran a speedtest. 2.7M down to the box. I asked it that was a mistake and he said "Nope. You are one of the few folks on in the whole town."
I know it will get slower, but right now I'm getting over 300KB/ download rates.
Given I have no realistic choices, I'm very happy with what I have.
Some nits in the service. I have my own domain and wanted to forward all the comast email to my regular account. They only offer store and forward, not true forwarding. Also had to wait 1 day to activate netnews. Netnews (Giganews) seems pretty good (compared to what I had!!) and don't really need the email.
After he left, I connected my router(MN-100 from MS) and configured my other PC. Total time from his arrival to my being set up was about 2 hours (he was only here for 45 minutes!)
If only I didn't have to live with 3 years of promises ("We start the build out next month!), I'd be totally in heaven.
*11/27/06 UPDATE* - Been very steady with them now. Bumped myself up to
the higher rate and the connection is solid and never goes out. I've had the same IP for almost 2 years. Almost like a static. Now only if they would upgrade the upload speed...
*8/6/2007 UPDATE* - Lately been having sporadic connection issues. Line stats look fine when it works,but when it goes bad, the Upstream Power Level goes to 56dbmV which is beyond normal range. Problem fixes itself in a few minutes and it lasts another 6 or so hours. Since I can't pin it down, I haven't called Comcast yet to report it. Speedboost works great and can routinely pull files down at a ridiculous rate. Yeah, it's pricey, but it is so much faster than DSL that "finally* showed up in my neighborhood about 4 months ago.
*6/19/2008 UPDATE* - Had a small hiccup for a few days a couple of months ago (upstream would not send/route packets larger than 128 bytes). That was fixed after a couple of days. No idea what. Comcast has since bumped up the speeds again. Now at 8M/2M for the higher tier. Can also pay $69/month and get 16M/2M, but I don't see the value in that, so I don't. As far as compitition goes, my house still only qualifies for the max DSL speed of 768K speeds so AT&T can kiss my behind if they think I will drop comcast for that.
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