| Bill Jonas on Thu, 6 Dec 2001 20:51:15 +0100 |
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On Thu, Dec 06, 2001 at 11:29:06AM +0100, christophe barb? wrote: > Yes but to have a correct price for a high speed connection you have to > sign (and prepaid) for one year and I'm not sure that I will stay one year > in my first house. With DSL, ISPs generally require a one-year commitment with a cancellation fee (usually around $200) if you cancel before one year. As Gabriel said, you can prepay a year which takes a bit of money off the total, but it's not required with any DSL ISP I'm aware of. > btw Are these providers using PPPoE or still DHCP ? It depends upon the provider. I've had cable via Comcast@Home for a few months now and they do DHCP, but I've had the same IP address ever since I signed up. I usually get 200-400 KB/s (yes, that's kilo*bytes*) download. Cost is $40/month, plus $5/month cable modem rental (you can buy it if you prefer), plus cable TV. (You don't have to subscribe to the television service, but it's an extra $5 or $10 per month if you don't.) Before that, I had Speakeasy and was very satisfied with them. Their charge was $90/month for 1.5Mb/s download, two static IP addresses and two email addresses. There are some DSL providers that don't require a one-year commitment, like DirecTV DSL (formerly Telocity). They're advertising service for a $50 setup fee and $50/month and no annual contract (http://www.directvdsl.com/products/packages.asp). Regarding local phone service, there are varying price/service combinations. Starting with the extremely basic service, you can get a line for about $10/month, but you pay for each call. There's the metro calling plan, which allows you to place as many calls as you want throughout the Philadelphia metropolitan area without having to worry about calling "zones" for around $40 or $45/month. What I have (and what I think most people have) is what I mentioned earlier, unlimited local calls for ~$20/month. If your call is outside your zone (as defined in the phone book), you'll pay some small per-minute charge. This adds up quickly, though, if you call and stay connected for long periods of time. Not quite a year after I moved here, I was able to afford a computer (withdrawal!) and of course I signed up for an ISP. Not realizing the way local calling around here worked (I'm not from here originally), I racked up charges of about $200-300 for the first half-month to month. By the time I got the bill, it was halfway through the next billing period and I had already accumulated the same amount of charges again for that month. So consider this to be a warning that if you're not sure, call the phone company and ask if the number you intend to call is a "local untimed call" if you're not using the metro calling plan. Well, I forget what my point was, or even if I had one to begin with, so I'll leave it at that. :) -- Bill Jonas * bill@billjonas.com * http://www.billjonas.com/ Developer/SysAdmin for hire! See http://www.billjonas.com/resume.html Attachment:
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