I need some urgent advise please. I am going to begin working from home and my new company has requested I have the best and fastest internet service available (they are paying for it). I currently have regular Road Runner for my personal computers and have no experience with DSL. I've been told that DSL now has the same 10mg capability as the Turbo Road Runner and is fiber optic, which is supposedly better. Please let me know which service between the two would be best. Thanks!
I currently have DSL from ATT and did have RoadRunner (both highest speed). For flat out working, I can't tell the difference between the two, they are both fast enough for me to watch YouTube videos, if I so choose. (a coule of days ago I watched the latyest episode of Terminator: The Sara Connor Chronicles" and had no issue with buffering or any other problem. ATT is a bit cheaper, but if your company is paying for it, it's not enough of a difference to make an arrgument one way or the other. I have one issue with ATT, their tech support sucks. It's all automated and trying to talk to a real live human being is neigh (but not completely) impossible.
Thanks for the quick reply. The DSL I'm considering is with Embarq (the only option where I live). Of course, Time Warner just trashed them but they are out for the sale. Key obstacles are that without a contract (which is not going to happen) the price with TWC is at least $50.00 more a month and they can't install for at least 3 wks without a $185.00 extra fee!
I would first make sure you can get the 10mb from Embarq if you have not already. Some people on here will say they hate embarq and hate Roadrunner. I have both, and I have monitor setup on each service to see how much downtime I have. Roadrunner goes out a few times a week for me mostly at night, but if I need to logon to work, at night mostly when I need to log on, as I support clients around the world. Embarq has not been out since Nov. But like you I work from home a fair amount so I have dual wan router and have both. Things to consider should be how fast can they get someone out if you have a problem. I know with Roadrunner I have called in the past on Friday night and they had someone out by Sunday. With Embarq I had to wait until the middle of the next week, unless your phone out as well. If you go over to dslreports, the embarq forums have one of there techs that monitors that group and has helped me several times. I always get the speed from embarq I am supposed to. With Roadrunner it around 6mbps rather than the 7. I doubt the powerboost will help you much as it only lasts a few sec for downloads.
Always the extra fees from TWC. ugh. I would not do a contract either with them. I could have saved a fair amount if I did, but with them testing usage CAPs in other markets, I don't want to be stuck with them if they decide to start CAPS here. Do you have cable TV from TWC? I have cable tv with 2 HD DVR, and standard Roadrunner. My bill is 130 a month. No movie channels or anything like that.
The speed is in Mb (Megabits) per second, not to be confused with MB (megabytes) per second. That is download only. Upload is far, far slower, whether it be DSL or cable. Far slower than your router, adapter card, and computer can push data through. I had no idea that Embarq offered 10 Mb until now. That was the exclusive territory of Roadrunner, and only with the 'Turbo' plan. Remember, with cable Internet you share bandwidth with others on the same line. The more people are online the same time you are, and the more of you that are downloading, the slower all of your download speeds will be. I just clocked 6.98 Mb/s on our RR 'High Speed' plan. The max. is 7 Mb/s. With DSL, you have a dedicated line.
I have RR Turbo and it is fast but I have noticed when I try to watch You Tube or any other videos in full screen mode it is extremely slow in keeping up with the feed. It may be this POS Desktop I have but I do not know. I also have the added burden of my hard drive seems to be full but I cannot delete or clean it up No matter what I try to do I cant free up any disk space.
Yes, the WAN side (from your cable/DSL provider to your modem) is only half of the equation. The LAN side (inside your home) is the other half. Your LAN can throw a monkey in the wrench if it's not performing at peak.
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