Comcast setup & cable modem fees

[Nicholas Bodley]

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 13:47:59 -0500, Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> wrote:

> BTW: My Comcast connection has been rock solid for a long time. I have  
> not had to reset my cable modem in a long time.

I used to work at the little computer store at Newton and Main in Waltham  
(for the previous owner). We had cable for broadband (RCN), and it was  
extremely reliable. We had to reset only once in at least a year.

DSL is astonishing to an old techie like yrs trly. Twisted pairs can be  
remarkably good (iirc, the wired interconnects, and there were oodles,  
inside Cray computers were twisted pairs). Nevertheless, a lifetime of  
awareness of voice phone cables had me believing that they were good only  
for voice and maybe a bit more bandwidth -- Not so! (There are, or were,  
DSL categories for subscribers who are quite close to the C.O. that offer  
data rates like 50 Mbits/s.) (I used to live very close to the Waltham  
C.O.)

Although I'm a happy DSL user, I also say that a dedicated hardware  
network such as domestic/small-business cable was designed for broadband,  
while phone voice cable pairs were not. In the long run, perhaps DSL won't  
be around in a few decades; I won't last that long to find out.

Regards,

-- 
Nicholas Bodley /\ @ /\  Waltham, Mass.
As pointed out by Richard Cohen, Wash. Post, March 9th:
If one is to teach both creationism and evolution, it would be consistent  
to teach astrology with astronomy, as well as alchemy with chemistry.