Kelly suggested that I write to the list giving my impressions of our high
speed data access to the internet.  First of all, I am a real novie when it
comes to visiting web sites.  So I really don't know enough to give you a
really sound review.  But this is what I've learned so far.

Our service is with mediaone, our cable company.  We paid $24.95 each for
installation; we purchased the necessary cards from mediaone, although we
could have purchased them elsewhere and installed them ourselves.  The cards
through mediaone were $49 each.  I understand one can pay less or more.  The
cards are Asante, according to our installers.  The cost is $39.95 per month
each.  We were paying $19.95 each to concentric.

My stepdaughter told us about a sort of fun web site which is
www.funny-sounds.com.  There are several links to choose from once there.
When with concentric, Marion downloaded a funny song or two and the download
time was approximately 15 minutes.  Other wav files would take three minutes
or more to download.  With hsd, the same songs took well under a minute; and
some of other wav files were almost instantaneous.

I have visited Phil Scovell's web page at www.redwhiteandblue.org and
everything there is just about instantaneous.

Since neither Marion nor I is a very patient soul, we feel it is indeed
worth the added cost.

Finally, I was very impressed with the installers.  They made sure
everything was working properly before leaving.  In trying to switch between
concentric and mediaone road runner, I managed to get everything messed up.
I called tech support and since the installers had just connected our
service, they said they would have the installer come back as soon as he
finished his next job.  He did, and showed me what I had done wrong.
Actually, I fought with it all afternoon and about two minutes before he
came back, I got it to where there were no error messages.  I had changed my
user i.d. Since I would have had to go into properties and do something with
auto-dial to access concentric, I chose not to do that and canceled our
concentric accounts first thing the next day, giving for our reason the fact
that they had arbitraily dumped their shell accounts without any advanced
notice.

One very minor negative.  When we ordered the service, we were told the
e-mail would be our user name at mediaonerr.net.  The installers told us
that the rr was for their web page.  However, when the follow-up people
showed up, they, too, said, it should have the r r.  However, when we called
tech support, they confirmed what the installers said.  The worse thing
about this conflicting info, Marion had sent Phil Scovell several messages,
with different e-mail addresses.

We will be billed on our cable bill.  Yes, we think it is worth the extra
money.
Doris Fisher
Bellflower Clifornia
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