[UFO Chicago] OT--ISP Recommendations?

[Neil R. Ormos]

Christopher D. Heer wrote:
> Neil R. Ormos wrote:

>> Although there appear to be some good fixed wireless ISPs
>> in the Fox Valley and the North Suburbs, I haven't found
>> any that serve residential customers in my area.

> I used a fixed wireless ISP up here for a couple of years
> and have checked into others.  All the ones I looked at do
> employ some kind of throttling, depending on your overall
> usage and/or tower usage.

Where is "up here"?

> Also, after about a year and a half, I started having some
> kind of interference that would kill my bandwidth.
> Multiple service calls were unable to determine the
> source, and eventually I had to just bail and go to AT&T.
> (In fairness, the customer service from the provider --
> dls.net -- was utterly outstanding; far better than
> anything I've ever seen with the big ISPs.  They just
> couldn't fix my problem.)

DLS used to have coverage along I-90/I-290/SR-53 around
Schaumburg, Arlington Heights, etc.  Unfortunately, they
have apparently abandoned that part of the market in favor
of greener pastures out west.

I have only found one fixed wireless vendor that serves my
area, and they are targeting the T-1 replacement market at
nearly $300/month.  I was hoping someone here would know of
some others.

> Now with the bandwidth caps I've been searching for an
> alternative, but I'm coming up empty, so I'll be very
> interested to hear if others have alternative suggestions.

In former-SBC territory, there appear to be several vendors
that sell DSL service and claim to have no cap.  For
shared-line ADSL service, which requires that you keep your
AT&T plain old telephone service (POTS), prices start around
parity with AT&T ($36-40 for nominal 6 mbps service) and go
up.  In most cases, the carrier does not disclose whose
DSLAMs are being used.  I found one vendor which offered
service via AT&T's DSLAMs for $40/mo and COVAD's DSLAMs for
$50/mo.  Dry-loop ADSL, which does not require working POTS,
appears to start around $90/mo for nominal 6 mbps service.

As you might expect, the bushel of additional services
(e.g., e-mail, Usenet, etc.), and the quality of tech
support, vary among vendors.

I'll post a capsule of what I've found in a day or two.
Perhaps after I consult the LUNI list and clean up after the
inevitable flames and floods.

--Neil