After years of DSL service from the phone company (Frontier), I am sick of the slow internet service. Their maximum reliable speed deliverable to my home is around 4Mb/s. Living in a rural area meaning not having competitions on the phone service, translation sub par and below standard choices and services. I think for the same amount of money ($60) I can get faster and hopefully better service else where.
Since my contract is due this month, I look up other options. There were Clear Wire and Comcast. I've heard that Clear would throttle back speed when reach certain limit. Signals from radio towers might be affected when indoor. So I decided to go with Comcast and their service.
Order their installation online and schedule an installation appointment two weeks away, meanwhile I ordered a Motorola SB6121 cable modem from Amazon ($86) so I don't have to pay for their $7 monthly rental fee. Should arrive just in time before the cable guy show up next weekend.
Stay tune.
7/18/2012 my Motorola surfboard sb6121 arrived in the mail
7/21/2012
The technician showed up 1/2 hr early, after looking inside to see where he need to install a new cable, he started working on the outside first. He first connect the service to the house by connecting the junction box across the house. Since I also have dish service he had to replace my service box to accommodate addition cables. He replaced both ground wirings since it was weather in the sun and cover had become brittle. I also learned that the dish service and the cable service can not share the same grounding wire so two grounding wires must be installed. This guy is sort of a perfectionist, he line up all wiring vertically and make sure the junction box is perfectly square (not bad).
After working in 95 degree heat for about 45 min, we moved inside the house. It was much easier indoor. Routing the wiring along the closet walls and through sheet rock into the junction box on the other side of the wall. He custom drill a second hole on top of the covering plate so both dish and cable service come out of the same cover plate.
After connection the cable and power up the modem, it went through a series of downloading and resetting. I was told the modem is updating the software and firmware. It took over 15 min for the technician to connect to the Comcast call center and call in my modem info. Then setting up a username and password.
Here is my speedtest.net speed result. Wow !! Finally broadband speed. At $30/mo for 1st 6 mo. and $45/mo for 2nd 6 mo. It's well worth it.
And the best part, I just fired my phone company.
7/18/2012 my Motorola surfboard sb6121 arrived in the mail
7/21/2012
The technician showed up 1/2 hr early, after looking inside to see where he need to install a new cable, he started working on the outside first. He first connect the service to the house by connecting the junction box across the house. Since I also have dish service he had to replace my service box to accommodate addition cables. He replaced both ground wirings since it was weather in the sun and cover had become brittle. I also learned that the dish service and the cable service can not share the same grounding wire so two grounding wires must be installed. This guy is sort of a perfectionist, he line up all wiring vertically and make sure the junction box is perfectly square (not bad).
After working in 95 degree heat for about 45 min, we moved inside the house. It was much easier indoor. Routing the wiring along the closet walls and through sheet rock into the junction box on the other side of the wall. He custom drill a second hole on top of the covering plate so both dish and cable service come out of the same cover plate.
After connection the cable and power up the modem, it went through a series of downloading and resetting. I was told the modem is updating the software and firmware. It took over 15 min for the technician to connect to the Comcast call center and call in my modem info. Then setting up a username and password.
Here is my speedtest.net speed result. Wow !! Finally broadband speed. At $30/mo for 1st 6 mo. and $45/mo for 2nd 6 mo. It's well worth it.
And the best part, I just fired my phone company.
