When DSL first became available here, I signed up myself at home, at work, and our church.
The basic DSL speed offered then was 256k.
For an extra $10, we could go to 1.5 megs (1,500k) which I did here at home.
I decided to see about getting faster speed at the church so I called the phone company to do that. I asked her what is now available and what it would cost to increase the speed. She said we could go to 3 megs (3,000k) for an extra $10.00/month. (Its far enough away from the main office 3 megs is the fastest DSL we could get there.)
I asked her what the 1.5 megs would cost and she said "well, uh, nothing". I was confused, why would it not cost more? She said that the basic residential speed is now the 1.5 megs for the same price.
So, this is great, we get faster speed at church for the same price. We don't have to deal with budget changes, etc.
BUT! This makes me wonder, why don't they either let us know, OR automatically upgrade us? Come to find out that this change was made over a year ago. So, for the last year, we could have had 5x the speed for the same price as we're paying now.
SO, that got me thinking about my home service. I'm paying extra for 1.5 megs now, I expect I can have the 3 megs for the same price, right? She looked up my account. "Actually, for only $4.00 more/month, you can go from 1.5 megs to 7 megs." Well, duh, no brainer there, increase me. Again, why not tell us or automatically increase our speed if its the same price?
Sometime on Tuesday, I'm going to have 7 megs DSL speed.
SO, next, I call back to the business side for the shop to see if I can bump it from 256k to 1.5m for the same price?
Turns out on the business accounts, the basic is still 256k and it would cost me $25.00/month more to go to the 1.5 megs!
Why, oh why does the phone company put the screws to business like they do?
Is it only because they know most businesses need a land line phone?
Why is there such a difference in price of internet service between residential and business? Don't most people use more internet at home than at work? I mean at home, we're doing music, video, (entertainment) etc that uses much more bandwidth than a business looking up part numbers, email, etc.
I swear, saying the word "business" to a phone company is like saying the word "wedding" to a convention center, it triples the cost. I guess they assume businesses will pay for it.
Really, the 1.5 megs is good for just about anything I want to do.
At the office, 256k will not keep up with youtube videos. To watch a video there, I start it, then pause it until it downloads. Then I watch it so it won't skip. 1.5 megs will stream youtube without skipping.
I'm still quite satisfied with the 1.5, but for only $4.00, why not have 7 ??
