Fast and Always On
Tim Bray: Fast and Always On
I'm a Comcast broadband subscriber. Their service has been far less bumpy than the Time Warner RoadRunner service I used when we lived in Austin. I agree with Tim -- just give me a fat pipe that's always on. I don't need any frills. In fact, Comcast offers several features with their broadband service:
- My Web Page
- My File Locker
- 7 e-mail addresses
Now of these services, I use none. I don't use 1 byte of the 25 megabytes they offer for the web page/file locker services. There's not one e-mail in my Comcast Mail inbox (unless some spam has found it's way in there).
To Comcast's credit, they are upping the upstream rate from a measly 128 Kb/sec to 256 Kb/sec. Still pretty low compared to other services. Oh and they're increasing their rates (by 4 or 5 bucks) which will kick in 12 months from now.
What I'd love is the option to give up these enhanced services in exchange for an even better upstream or downstream transfer. Even a few dollars off my bill would be of more benefit to me.
And the only reason they bumped the upstream to 256 was to match what AT&T was offering when the two companies merged.
Unfortunately it seems like bandwidth is what you are really paying for, and the frills cost basically nothing to the company.. So they pile on the frilly crap to make it look attractive, but even if they removed them, it wouldn't change their cost much, if any.
Its sort of like going to McDonalds and trying to get a discount if you don't use any napkins. The napkins are so cheap its not even funny, so there is no incentive for them NOT to shove them down your throat.
Oh for a frill-less, fat, juicy pipe though.. Very nice..
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