[Chicago] Broadband in Chicago

[Robare, Phil]

On Saturday, May 06, 2006 6:51 PM Brantley Harris wrote:
> So I just moved into a new apartment in Andersonville and I am trying
> to figure out what sort of broadband I want to get.  I like the idea
> of bundling with cable because I want it anyway.  But, on the other
> hand both Comcast and RCN leave a lot to be desired.

I live in Andersonville and have had good luck with RCN.  I went with
RCN because when I got it years ago I had first called the predecessor
of Comcast.  I didn't have TV cable and just wanted internet. When the
pre-Comcast people came out they refused to hook up to my computer
because it was dual-boot.  I then called 21st Century (the pre-RCN
people) and they had no problem so I went with them. For a while after
they became RCN occasional outages were a problem but I don't remember
any in the past year or more.  Their spam filter seems set a bit too
aggressive - I have had people say they sent me stuff that I never
received - but that's better than hearing from the poor general with his
money trapped in Nigeria.

The front line tech support people at RCN are usually quite good.  They
leave their troubleshooting script once you convince them you know what
you are talking about.  Usually I don't call them for stuff like the
power being unplugged but they still have to go through that.

The only trouble I have had with them (I eventually got this story out
of them) was when they installed a cable modem someplace in New York
that had the same MAC as the one they were renting to me.  For a week
Internet connectivity was very sporadic, whoever got on first got to
keep the connection.  There seemed to be no 'official' solution to this
but the tech said to get my own cable modem (he recommended a specific
Motorola one that has worked well) and that would solve it.  I was able
to get it off the shelf from Fry's and they were great in walking me
through the installation.

I had DSL for a short while and hated it.  The connection was slow to
establish, the tech support people were helpless pawns in the maw of a
large corporation, and when it went out it, which it seemed to do
regularly, it took an hour or more to get it back up.  They may have
gotten better but the teaser rates are far from the actual rates and the
cable modem is worth the small extra cost.

> ps: I wish I could start my own cable company...
I read recently that the FCC is starting to consider whether city
government franchise agreements are an illegal restraint of trade,
especially when you can set up a Wi-Fi tower on private property and
provide service to a significant area without using any public
facilities (i.e. routing cables down the alleys, digging in streets).
The theory was that the franchise fee was to reimburse government for
such expenses.  In reality it is just a special tax having no relation
to the expenses incurred. Now setting up your own Wi-Fi tower should be
do-able with only a half million investment in equiptment and another
half million in lawyer, legal, and permit expenses.  Not to mention
advertising, sales ...