Which ISP would you recommend -- or not?

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Jim Miller

Jim Miller

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I've been an AT&T internet subscriber for years, and have never had reason enough to change...although I've come close a few times.

Now I have a good reason. A client I will be working with for at least a few months can't get an email to me. We have tried several times -- she's sending it to the right address and they're not coming back. I can send to her, but she can't reply. AT&T's technical help isn't helping.

Through my phone company, Choice One, I have a LAN at the shop with half of a T-1 line (768 kbps) and that's fast enough. In other places I use my Verizon Air Card with good results. I never use dial-up anymore.

If you were in my shoes & looking for a new Internet Service Provider, who would it be?
 
If you cant get cable service it is very good. Comcast is our cable provider and I have used them for 3 years now with no major problems. I wanted to use SBC(now AT&T) when I moved but they couldn't figure out how to make DSL work at my home. I drove down to my local cable office, they gave me a box to plug into my cable and I was up and running in 30 minutes.
 
I don't know you you should use but I can tell you a company to avoid like the plague.

Clearwire. If anyone is in their market area and considering using them...DON'T DO IT!!!!!!!
 
ISP

I have had ATT for about the past 6 years, SBC started it and I wish that they still maintained it, but when I do deside to switch it will be to Comcast.
 
Cable and FIOS are good choices. DSL is good too, but slower and being slowly replaced by FIOS. At home here, we're paying $52 for a 20 megabit feed; at the shop, we pay $45 for a 5 megabit feed. Both are on Cox cable. To compare speeds, your current fractional T1 speed is less than 1 megabit.

For email, I suggest using your own domain for this instead of an ISP assigned one. This way, you control the spam filter yourself, and it becomes "portable" to go with any ISP. example : jmiller@artframe.xx (I intentionally spelled that wrong so it doesnt get harvested) The domain will always be with you, but not necessarily the ISP.

Mike
 
I have cable (it's called Optimum here at home in NY state, used to be Cablevision). They're extremely reliable and their tech supp guys speak real English and are based on US soil.

Before that, I had Verizon DSL, whose tech supp guys called themselves Tom, Dick or Harry and spoke something that sounded like drunken IT geeks with funny accents. But my cat knew better about DSL and routers than they did.

At work in CT, I have AT&T cable and they are quite good and speak the same language as other WASPy people here. I am happy with them too.
 
Love my cable company!!!Great service,and REAL tech support.They just doubled speed/storage not so long ago as well........ L.:cool:
 
Mike Labbe @ GTP said:
Cable and FIOS are good choices. DSL is good too, but slower and being slowly replaced by FIOS.
Click to expand...

As far as I've looked, it seems a cable or fiber optic connection is not available at my shop, which is in a strip shopping center. Having that capability at home wouldn't help me here, would it? Again, I'm not concerned about speed. If I need more than the 768 kbps I have, up to 1.5 kbps is conveniently available from my phone company by the T-1 line already in the shop.

Mike Labbe @ GTP said:
...For email, I suggest using your own domain for this instead of an ISP assigned one...
Click to expand...

Yes, I have that capability through my web site, artframe.us. Emails to that address are channeled into my AT&T email, as are emails to my choiceone.com account. That is, when I click on "Send and Receive" emails, I get them from AT&T, arfframe.us, and choiceone.com. Trouble is, all of them are dependent on AT&T, which is the obvious problem here.
 
I use Verizon and have the same problem! I have to give my personal email out for certain things I know I wont get through my verizon account. I will be interested to hear you decision and results.
 
Good news. My business phone company, Choice One Communications, provides my internet connection by a T-1 line, as I mentioned. Well, I called to see if they could replace AT&T as my ISP. Silly me. I already have three email accounts with ChoiceOne, and can receive them directly. I don't need AT&T at all.

Hopefully, that will be the end of my issues. If my client still can't send me emails, I guess the problem may be on her end. She is emailing through her web site.

I've used this AT&T account for years, so I will keep it active for at least three months, while giving notice of my new email addresses on all correspondence.
 
Choice One went into BR in 2004, then struggled until 2006 when CTC, them, and Conversant got together with a new name of "One Communications"

Keep an eye on the rates, because they tend to be pricy. They were in just last week to give us a quote.

Mike
 
Mike Labbe @ GTP said:
Choice One went into BR in 2004, then struggled until 2006 when CTC, them, and Conversant got together with a new name of "One Communications"

Keep an eye on the rates, because they tend to be pricy. They were in just last week to give us a quote.

Mike
Click to expand...

I knew about the BR, and it caused absolutely no problems for me as acuatomer. I'm still under contract for a while longer, but I'll watch out for the rate change when it expires. Thanks for the heads-up.

Just my luck, I'll get all this email #### sorted out, and then their rates will double.:icon11:
 
You can use your website domain for email. Email is included free with your website :)

Mike
 
I switched from a very unreliable Earthlink DSL to Comcast cable at home and it very reliable. At work we have ATT DSL. Awful. I don't know if Comcast can get cable into the concrete building we are in at work, but I need to cal them. My ATT DSL changed when they took over from SBC. Now Eudora will bring in my Comcast mail, but not send it back out. The only way I can get email out on that blasted system is to go to a web site and set from there. Thanks for reminding me that I want to change. Cable is a bit more expensive but will save me major frustration.

(The problem is that my mail goes to the Mac server, and then is forwarded to Comcast. I never have to change my email addresses. But ATT has some sort of firewall which does not permit me to send mail out on any address but ATT. Can you imagine the confusion? I can send from mail clients like Eudora in every location that has public access except not in my own store. Grrrr.)
 
Mike Labbe @ GTP said:
You can use your website domain for email. Email is included free with your website :)

Mike
Click to expand...

Yes, make sure to differentiate between ISP and email. Two VERY different things. I would never use an email address from an ISP. The portability, as well as convenience are never the same as using something like Gmail or what you have through your website. I use Gmail for all my personal email. Plus you can download it off the web, you don't have to use their web site. Not many of the free guys do that. Plus what's better than 6 GB of storage? Ok, before someone smart says "7 GB, dave!"

I would be making sure I set up a permanent and I mean permanent email address through my domain, or some other reliable source that does not depend on whether Ma and Pa Kettle are my service provider, or whoever.

dave.
 
Kirstie said:
ATT has some sort of firewall which does not permit me to send mail out on any address but ATT. Can you imagine the confusion? I can send from mail clients like Eudora in every location that has public access except not in my own store. Grrrr.)
Click to expand...

That is common, and practiced by just about all ISPs. They block the outgoing mail port and force you to use their SMTP server, in the interest of preventing spam.

However, they will let you send mail from your own (website) domain, and probably mac.com It just requires a bit of extra configuration in your mail client, so they're sure it's really you. In most cases, they may have you set up your outgoing mac.com account to use authentication (to sign in with your ATT login id and password), before it lets you send from a non ATT address. Some ISP's simply need you to check your ISP (ATT) mail once every 10 minutes, and this alone tells them that you are legit - and permits you to send emails that have alternate domains in the FROM field. (That's how cox.net and verizon.net work)

I suggest calling AT&T to ask. Tell them that you wish to use their SMTP server to send email from your own business domain, and need the settings to do this. This is a very common question, and they should have the solution memorized.

Best regards,
Mike
 
I think I've got all of my computers reconfigured for the new email account setups, and strange things are happening. All of the configurations are identical, but in one computer, I seem to be receiving some -- but not all -- emails twice, and there is no consistency of their origins.

Side Note:
My next door neighbor (a Verizon phone store franchisee) said he just signed up with Warner Cable. I asked what's the speed, and he replied, "I don't know but it's lightning fast".

This is the first cable company to venture into our shopping center, and I will call them today.
 
Jim Miller said:
Side Note:
My next door neighbor (a Verizon phone store franchisee) said he just signed up with Warner Cable. I asked what's the speed, and he replied, "I don't know but it's lightning fast".

This is the first cable company to venture into our shopping center, and I will call them today.
Click to expand...

Do it. :) You'll save a bunch of money and itll probably be 8-30x faster.

If you are happy with the current (768k aka 0.7) speed, ask about that speed. Most companies still offer 768k, but don't advertise it. (ATT residential charges $12/month i think, and Cox business cable charges about $25 for this speed) Once you taste the faster speed, you won't want to be stuck in the slow lane :)

Mike
 
Paul N said:
Oh c'mon Jim, you're not old at all! You should be in the fast lane!!
Click to expand...

Thanks for that encouragement, Paul. You're right.

OK everyone, lead, follow, or get the He11 out of my way! Oh, hang on for a minute. I forgot to take my meds.

Is that better?:o
 
Are you sure you want your email in a tag line like that?

That's likely to become a major spam magnet, since the grumble is so well ranked on the search engines.

Mike
 
Too late, I subscribed Jim to a dozen porn sites.....:p

Jim:

List your email address as you would a link in a post here.

For example type: MyEmailAddress, highlight it and then click on the Insert Email Link button on the menu (the one to the left of the button with the 2 mountains) and then enter your email address.

For example: my email
 
actually thats just a mailto: link and will get collected just as quickly. Those should never be used on websites, because of spammers :(

Mike
 
Mike Labbe @ GTP said:
I suggest calling AT&T to ask. Tell them that you wish to use their SMTP server to send email from your own business domain, and need the settings to do this. This is a very common question, and they should have the solution memorized.

Best regards,
Mike
Click to expand...

I'll try ONE more time. They think I'm speaking Greek. They have no idea what I'm talking about and immediately say that the don't support mail clients except for Outlook. so I say, OK, tell me how to set it up in Outlook, knowing that I can transfer the info to any mail client. They always get it wrong. They should have the answer, but they don't. I'll try getting a supervisor, but this has been going on so long I'm ready to just call Comcast/ If I have Comcast at home and office it will eliminate all the problems.
 
Kirstie said:
immediately say that the don't support mail clients except for Outlook. so I say, OK, tell me how to set it up in Outlook, knowing that I can transfer the info to any mail client.
Click to expand...

What needs to be changed is not a client side setup (though that may need to be changed as well), but on their server. They need to tell their server to allow you to send mail "from" a different domain.
 
>I'll try ONE more time. They think I'm speaking Greek.
>They have no idea what I'm talking about and immediately say that
>the don't support mail clients except for Outlook

They have an extremely frustrating and confusing web site(s), and it doesn't look like they support Apples/Macs. It would only take someone a few minutes to set up instructions for Macs, so I don't understand this decision! :(

What I gathered from reading, is that they do indeed require outgoing mail authentication. This means there will be a place in your mac email program for outgoing mail, where you can tell it to identify (authenticate) yourself with the AT&T assigned email address and password. (Prior to sending out an email from mac.com or from your own domain). This is an extra spam prevention/security step to make sure you are the rightful owner of the account.

On PC's, there's a little box that says "Requires Authentication" and it asks for the (extra) isp login and password info to be used for authentication.

If I recall for the Mac:
-Make sure you pick POP3 as the mail server type.
-For the incoming mail server, you can put the one assigned by mac.com or by your own domain's isp.
-For outgoing/SMTP server, youll want to use the one assigned by AT&T (It might be imailhost.worldnet.att.net, but make sure)
-Ensure that the option My server requires authentication is checked
-There should be places for your mac.com email and password, as well as your authentication email and password.
-Ensure that the option Always connect to this account using is selected, and Local Area Network is chosen from the drop-down menu on the Connections tab.
-Ensure that secure connection (SSL) is enabled and set to port number 465 for SMTP.
-Ensure that secure connection (SSL) is enabled and set to port number 995 for POP3.

These may not be dead on instructions, but they'll get you much closer. I only support a couple macs, so my memory could be fuzzy. (and they dont require authentication)

Best regards,
Mike
 
David N Waldmann said:
What needs to be changed is not a client side setup (though that may need to be changed as well), but on their server. They need to tell their server to allow you to send mail "from" a different domain.
Click to expand...

Oops we posted at the same time :)

That's possible too, although I don't see it as often these days.

Even if this is true, they will still require authentication; per the website. I think that's the main hurdle.
 
One quick note on blocked email. Sometime you find you can not get messages to or from one person. What happens is for whatever reason, the system admin at another domain or your own domain sees a lot of spam coming from the other ISP. He then blocks the whole offending domain.

In another case, where I used to work, we had our own domain name, but used the ISPs mail server to handle messaging. Another client was not able to receive our mail. After investigation it was their ISP, and I worked with their ISP to get us unblocked. This is easy when your dealing with small city sized ISPs, but forget it when dealing with national sized ISPs.

Okay, the point is, no matter who you switch to, the domain is probably on someone's block list somewhere and you will may run into another case of messaging woes.
 
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