pinman$
join:2001-12-29
Seattle, WA
|  The End Of My Long Search For A Rockin' ISP? YES!
Blarg Rocks!!!
I am an @Home refugee- damn, I miss that old 4MB/s bandwidth! Since it's been capped at 1.5 MB/s and seems to be down as often as up, I thought I'd switch back to DSL even though it's rippin' expensive for comparable speeds.
I did my research over a long period of time and settle on Blarg as an indie ISP using my Qwest telco. Each time I called Blarg with questions I got straight through to a nice and knowledgeable human with NO HOLD TIME! Mark, who I think owns the business, spent as much time as needed with me- each time patiently answering all of my questions and not pressuring me into a sale at all.
After finally drawing the line with being screwed around with by national conglomerate nightmares I decided the extra dough would be worth it to get great service from a local company that EARNED my business and loyalty. Mark helped me assess my speed needs, encouraging me to start slower and then bump up if I need to because Qwest charges you to change down but not up- great tip Mark!
My account was created while I was on the phone, and as soon as I configured my email program my new Blarg email address was working flawlessly! This was literally only a matter of minutes! Mark also provided me with a local dial-up number that I can use anytime as back-up if needed at no charge- not that I'll ever need it based upon their amazing record of perpetual uptime...
The time from order to activation is tagged at 2 weeks- but Mark said that as soon as I receive the modem from Qwest I should be able to fire it up and let 'er rip! It was nice to let Mark set up the Qwest end of things for me- and not have to be on hold with Qwest forever getting it set up. THANK YOU MARK!
I decided to go with the 640/256 level of service ($51.95), and see how it feels- I know I've been spoiled by the old 4MB/s cable but those days are gone... It will be really nice to have higher upstream as I do run a private music ftp server for a few friends to leech off of me now & then and the @Home was capped at 128. I'm really eyeballing the 1MB/1MB but not sure if I can afford to shell out the $143 a month (rates are supposed to change next month I hear).
One really nice thing about Blarg is they don't meter the throughput- so I can download crispy SHN files of old Dead shows as fast as I can burn 'em- plus, they don't mind if I run my ftp server for non-commercial purposes either- I made sure I specifically asked that question. Sounds pretty good eh?
I will post again in a couple weeks and let you know the reality of things. in the meantime- if you are in Washington state you owe it to yourself to check Blarg out! |
