Help me find a cheaper Internet provider.

September 12, 2006 11:52 AM

I live in NYC, and had AOL for Broadband for my internet service provided to me through Time Warner. AOL recently waived their fee's and is now free. I am left paying Tie Warner about $45 bux a month for broadband service.....I wanna find something cheaper, yet just as fast and efficient...

Who can point me in the right direction? IS DSL a safe route to go? I never really learned the difference between the two; (broadband and DSL). Are their cheaper services out there, but just as good?

posted by TwilightKid to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

Look.
posted by lovejones at 12:14 PM on September 12, 2006

any cable provider you go through will use TimeWarner's lines. If you sign up through earthlink, its 19.95 a month, best part is, all you have to do is call up earthlink, and they'll transfer you over, and you won't lose one day of internet service.

also, in my experience DSL is much slower than cable.
posted by xospecialk at 12:54 PM on September 12, 2006

That is roughly the going rate for US full-speed (1.5-3mpbs) cablemodem service. My personal experience is that TW's native Road Runner service is the best bet, at least in my area.
posted by baylink at 1:09 PM on September 12, 2006

When I was still living in Brooklyn, I had Roadrunner and it was great. Super fast and it never went down once. Worth every cent.
posted by blaneyphoto at 1:24 PM on September 12, 2006

just to clarify for everyone..time warner cable = roadrunner = earthlink.
posted by xospecialk at 1:38 PM on September 12, 2006

Response by poster: basically, im concerned with lowering my monty price while sacrificing as little speed as possible...i'll check into earthlink....$45 is a bit excessive.
posted by TwilightKid at 1:44 PM on September 12, 2006

DSL is well worth looking into -- cable traditonally has had a little bit more downstream than DSL, but nowadays it seems as though DSL is catching up in a lot of major markets, and IMHO, it has *always* been a better deal than cable (around here, Comcast is often the only choice in cable internet, and they add a surcharge for not purchasing a television plan from them). Keep in mind with DSL, you usually need to have a phone line* so add $12 or so to whatever price you get quoted (i've got my line down to $6 by using a per-minute local plan -- i think $12 or so is the min for unlimited local calling).

The big gotcha with DSL, however, is your location -- if you are X feet from the CO, you're not going to get more than 1.5 mbps no matter what you pay. If you are pretty close, you may be able to get 6mpbs downloads for a comparable rate.

If you don't regularly download large files, then just going with the lowest level DSL will probably save you some money over your cable plan (average 1.5 mbps DSL plan in my area is $15-20).

*(there are people who have been able to get "naked dsl" from some providers, but I've heard it's often difficult to get someone who knows what the hell you are talking about on the line)
posted by fishfucker at 2:13 PM on September 12, 2006

my friends have had awesome experiences with DSLExtreme in the bay area and they seem to provide service to New York.
posted by fishfucker at 2:16 PM on September 12, 2006

I was under the impression you could continue to pay for AOL's service if you wanted.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 2:44 PM on September 12, 2006

any cable provider you go through will use TimeWarner's lines. If you sign up through earthlink, its 19.95 a month

Is this true? I want to switch if it is. But http://www.earthlink.net/cable/ says "Offers start at $29.95/mo."
posted by Eater at 3:36 PM on September 12, 2006

*(there are people who have been able to get "naked dsl" from some providers, but I've heard it's often difficult to get someone who knows what the hell you are talking about on the line)

Verizon offers that now, it's right on their webpage.

But, after waiting a month and a half and being postponed repeatedly I got disgusted and went with Time Warner.
I'd rather pay a little more to deal with a company that didn't accuse me of not knowing how to spell my own name and got us online literally overnight.
posted by Kellydamnit at 4:03 PM on September 12, 2006

Call Time Warner and let them know that you are unhappy with the price and plan on switching to DSL. They employ a retention department specifically for issues like this and they will most likely put you into a campaign to save you some money. Typically it will be a 12 month deal where you get it at a severely discounted rate.
posted by quin at 4:44 PM on September 12, 2006

The Earthlink 19.95 deal was a promo a while ago. It might still be going, but I'm pretty sure the current promo is 29.95 as Eater says above.
posted by miniape at 6:55 PM on September 12, 2006