Broadband Recommendation Question

Gentlemen (and others)...

I am almost certainly going to settlement on a 'new-to-me house' in Downingtown PA on May 17th. (Rooster has already suggested I call this 'The House of Punishment'.)

Consequently, I will lose the RCN 7 MB connection that has served me soooo well. I hate to give up on RCN but they just aren't available in the new 'hood.

Personally, I REALLY HATE Comcast. They jack up the price on you every couple months which pisses me off. They know they've got you over the barrel so they show no mercy. However, cable-wise they are the only game in town (in Downingtown at least).

I have been toying with the idea of getting my broadband access through them in addition to my TV signal and perhaps even VOIP. They have a special going through the end of May for all 3 services for $99/month for 12 months. God only knows what the price will jump up to after that though. On the other hand I am toying with the idea of getting Verizon FiOS since it appears to be an option at the new address but I am not sure what speed is available yet.

Knowing that some of you have experience with FiOS, Comcast and others, I humbly ask for you input on your experiences and recommendations on which broaband path to take.

Since I am able to telecommute, it's important for me to have fast reliable service... and since I am a cheap bastidge, I also want to keep costs down.

Would you kindly share your recommendations with your pal Punishment?

Thanks!

Dean

1st As you well know and Atomm's frontpage points out Verizon is a different company everywhere, essentially so is Comcast. Regionally these companies offer different services on different infrastructure.

I had Verizon, I have Comcast. My Comcast is very fast. I am still shocked at the speeds. I seem to have pretty darn good pings. I don't typically get lag. When on Verizon I had worse pings and more lag. I also had more outages. I don't think I have reall had any extended outage with Comcast.

Both Verizon and Comcast here suck to deal with.

The one big difference here is WIth Verizon here they put your IP behind a firewall so you can't access it from anywhere else. It's a nice security feature, but well, if you wanted to run a TS you can't. If you want to host a web-server, VPN to your machine, you can't. With Comcast I can run a TS, I am running a webserver and soon an email server.

FIOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Enough said!

Well Punishment I live in generally the same comcast market as you. I have many friends who use verizon...and hate it. I personally use comcast and for fast reliable service its the best available in the Philly market.