Internet Service Providers:

Hi All! I just moved to San Francisco and need some help selecting an ISP and plan - don't know exactly what I need/want... options include ATT/Comcast. I want to be able to download movies, email, etc. Advice??? thanks in advance, KD

—

asked on Sep 2, 2008

Sign up or Sign in

comments and reviews

Hi Karen - welcome to the Bay Area! You'll soon discover that everything costs more here... but it's worth it :-)

I'm definitely NOT the most tech savvy mobspinner... but I'll share what little I know.

If you're interested in "triple play" (ISP, phone, cable) then Comcast and Astound (formerly rcn) are the big (maybe only) players. They both offer very alluring introductory offers. We're in our first year with Comcast and are very pleased with all three services. We pay about $130 per month, which includes:
- all local and long distance phone charges (good sound quality, caller id and lots of features we never use like call forwarding)
- digital cable (including rental of a DVR and HBO/Starz package), and
- high speed internet

There have been only one or two no outages and Comcast's customer support has been very good when we've experienced minor problems.

Let me know if you have any specific questions. Would be happy to provide more info.

Take care and good luck getting settled,
Lauren

#1 - posted on Sep 2, 2008 (6:53 pm)

Hey Karen.. not sure about the city, but in Cupertino we've tried both Comcast & ATT in the last year. Here's my limited experience:

Comcast: very fast (e.g., downloads big movies fast), but more expensive, and the connection wasn't reliable for "long-lasting" connections like Skype (video chat).

AT&T: A bit slower than Comcast, but more reliable, and less expensive. That's what we currently have.

We haven't tried any of the "combo" plans.

#2 - posted on Sep 3, 2008 (7:54 am)

I'm not sure if you live in a condo high rise or not. If so, then you should check out whether your condo has web-pass.com's Internet service. web-pass.com is SUPER fast (it's 100 megabits/sec) and REALLY cheap ($300 for the whole year). I think that web-pass.com is probably at least 5-6 times faster than the fastest cable modems. The service is already pretty stable. In the last 6 months, it's only gone down once.

#3 - posted on Sep 5, 2008 (5:31 pm)