Liz from Brownsboro, TX writes:
How do I find a HONEST Internet & phone service provider that is reasonably priced? The one I have right now stinks!
Answer:
If we lived in a perfect world you could just call the local company and ask them if the service was good and they would give you an honest answer. Unfortunately, we do not live in such a world, so where can you go for information about local internet service providers?
DSLReports.com provides user-submitted reviews of local Internet and phone providers. You can search by zip code and see detailed comments along with an overview of happy, mixed or unhappy reviews. Simply click here then type in your zip code and press Go.
You can also click on the Forums tab to access the user forums. Inside of these forums you can post questions and search for previous threads specific to the companies you’ve looked at, and ask other users of the service questions. This is especially helpful if you’re stuck between two providers and are not such which to go with.
Once you’ve decided on which provider you’d like. it’s a good idea to search for coupons or special offers and mention them to the sales representative. My local cable Internet provider is selling 30 megabits/second internet service for $84.99 a month, but because I called in to the sales rep and mentioned a promotion I saw online for AT&T service, they offered me a $44.99 a month discount for 12 months.
-Tim
P.S. Don’t forget to check if there is a cap on the data you can use per month at full speed. Many providers now limit the total amount of data you can download/upload per month and may either limit your speeds or charge you for overage. If you’re a light internet user who just browses web/e-mails, a 5GB plan will be enough; but if you want to watch videos, stream content or download a lot of files look for a higher cap. Broadband (dsl and cable) will generally offer higher caps with higher speeds and satellite/wireless providers will offer 5 or 10 GB caps no matter the speed you choose.
You advice about checking on the caps is spot on. A friend that lives where there is no cable or DSL just switched from Hughes Net to DirectTV internet and at first was ecstatic but later very disapointed. The speed was great I think 13Mbit but about 10 days in it quit working. Turns out he misunderstood and thought the cap was 10 or 13GByte a day but it was apparently 10 or 13GByte a month so now they are dead until Feb 8th.