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Posts Tagged ‘Lousy Service’

Ok, I’m backing up. I had made the attempt to leave the great 1and1 hosting – only to fail. It turns out they’re not that slow.

I tried to go with a company called FatCow. Yeah, laugh all you like. But it’s true. Turns out – when you pay $44 a year for hosting you’re paying for what you get. Lousy service and excessively slow servers. So, I turned tail and ran back to a host that is fairly fast – though not the fastest.

The lessons you learn I suppose.

BUT – now I can get back to blogging. Maybe regain some of the traffic I sadly lost in the whole “attempt to get a new web host” phase.

On the flip side – I’m building a few sites. Still trying to build Alcove Alley. I have a package plan that I’ll be implementing very soon.

Studio646 – if all goes well – will start being built into HOPEFULLY an empire of mini-blogs. From stories to RSS feeds to just a flat out profile website. I’m aiming for something that will be self sufficient and get a ton of traffic.

I have a few paid clients I’m slowly working on. I’m also working on a few projects with some friends that will hopefully put me up on the food chain above pond scum.

All-in-all … I’m back. And I’m hoping to get the party started .. again.

So today (while I was at home, helping Carolyn since she got sick last night) I decided I had enough of ComCast and their lousy service and ordered myself a ‘Dry Loop’ (thanks for the jargon Erik) DSL from AT&T. Basically this is a DSL line WITHOUT a phone line. Pretty slick, eh?

I’m getting rid of ComCast. Why? Well, they have lousy service (as stated), poor tech support and they use Sandvine.

What is Sandvine?

It’s a service that bottlenecks information packets to your computer based on what you’re doing. They call it a good service, I call it borderline invasion of privacy and down-right crap.

Sandvine’s award-winning solutions identify the types and behaviours of traffic on networks enabling service providers to improve customer satisfaction, reduce operational costs and increase profitability.

Service providers can better understand subscriber behavior, recognize and address network threats like worms and spam Trojans, classify applications running on your network (for example, voice over IP, gaming, video streams), guarantee service levels and create profitable tiers for multiple broadband services.

Basically they see what you’re doing, where you’re browsing and filter your connection according to whatever they plan. For instance, I use Torrents to download things. Such as Linux distributions, game updates and so on. Before they put my account under Sandvine I was downloading lightning speeds. I have a 4Mb line, so it should go nice and smooth. The DAY they put me under their Sandvine junk my connection dropped horrifically. I was downloading as slow as I would on Dialup.

Any complaints go unheard. Blaming everything from internet traffic to my computer. It is all lies and deceat.

So, as of March 12th I will have a nice 6mb DSL line. Fast, free and good. Thanks to Paula and to Erik for getting me on this boat!

So, goodbye Comcrap, hello AT&T Yahoo! DSL. Who ever thought I would be pleased with a Yahoo! service?