Friday, March 16, 2007

Now this is BIG NEWS

At least to those of us who live in Montague ...

I received a phone call, just moments ago, from the friendly tele-marketing gang representing Bell. I just about hung up on her when ....she got this out just in the nick of time ....The phone giant has finally taken pity on some of us rural folk, and is now prepared to offer me DSL at home. Wow.

After years of refusing to pay for Ripnet's excessive $65/month and ridiculously low bandwidth caps/high overage charges, I'm finally getting high-speed at home. 25 bucks a month. $15 installation. No contract. They claim next Thursday my modem should arrive... I'll let you know how the installation goes.

Man, I really feel sorry for my neighbour who just a few short months ago paid $250 installation and signed a three-year contract with Ripnet. Ouch.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please keep us posted Mike, if it works for you, I'll be signing up immediately. I am so sick of slow dialup and no speed.

A great move for Montague.

Clive said...

Hmmm I wonder how far out in the backwoods it will reach. Not that it matters, since we just paid $250 installation and signed that 3 year contract with RipNet too.

Mike said...

That hurts, Clive. On the flip side, this will force Ripnet to be more competitive... maybe a Ripnet revolt is in order ! If they don't come 2 years from now, I don't think they'll have much of a business left, even if they offer service at the same price.

Mike said...

Cat Lover ...

It depends on where you live if you can get it ... if you're curious, try calling Sympatico 310-7873, follow the maze, talk to tech support, tell them you know an expansion has happened in the area. They should be able to tell if you can get service.

Mike said...

In another post, Cat Lover asked:

"Mike, the high speed from sympatico, is it $25 a month for unlimited?

To tell you the truth, I didn't even ask ... I think so though. I was so flippin' happy at the news, I lost my brain. I had another question, am I obligated to keep my land-line, because I think the time might have come to give up on the wires. I'll talk to Sympatico and get answers. Bell did experiment with caps, but I think they gave up on that.

Unless you are a heavy user, the caps won't make much difference, anyhow. Clive hasn't gone over. My beef w/ Ripnet was they charge $7/gb, and Storm charges $1/gb. At $1, I wouldn't even think about it. Rack up 10 extra gb w/ Ripnet, and you're gonna take note. I wonder how many houses with 2 teens using go over and rack up really big bills ??

Mike said...

Forgot to mention that Storm allows 20 gb, Ripnet-- 5 gb per month.

So lets say you use 15 gb-

Storm=normal bill $53. Ripnet $15 more/month plus $70 in overage costs.

Ripnet is light years ahead with customer service though.

Anonymous said...

Mike, I phoned Sympatico today and I still can't get high speed and they can't/won't tell me when I can get it. I was soooooooooo looking forward to high speed but thanks for your input, I will keep phoning every month to find out when I can expect to get it.