[conspire] (forw) Legacy DSL ending at Raw Bandwidth on 12/19/19 - please read carefully!

Fri Nov 15 11:52:35 PST 2019

On 11/15/19 9:15 AM, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Michael Paoli (Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu):
>
>> You might also check www.wavebroadband.com to see if they can reach
>> you with their cable modem service.  I think static IPs would be
>> available on their business service if service is generally
>> available. It's same technology as Comcast but their own network if
>> they can reach you.
> Wave Broadband called to say that my street address in West Menlo _is_
> within their service area for fibre but not for copper cable, so I
> expressed interest and they're doing a site survey over the next couple
> of days.  So, I gather that if I were to sign up, they'd do a short run
> of fibre optic from somewhere on Altschul Drive to my house.
>
> I gather that with a lot of these services, a lot depends on what
> cabling they have near a target address.
>
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I called Wave Broadband. They cannot service my address.

I received this from Mike Durkin:

Howard,

> On 11/12/19 12:19 AM, Mike Durkin wrote:
>> Howard,
>>
>> You'll be able to keep the hosting as you suggested on your voicemail,
>> it's the basic Internet access that needs to change. I will see
>> what I can find for options for your area and email you in a couple
>> days.  If you have something you're considering, let me know and
>> I'll look at it and advise.
>>
>> thanks, Mike
>>
> Thank you for your help.Â  I hope you find something. I did call AT&T and
> the best they could offer me was speed up to 3Mbs. The price quoted for
> that was $60 a month. I would really want a higher data rate than that.
> I will see whatÂ  you find and keep looking myself.Â  Thank you very much
> for your assistance.

Note your service from us is 1.5Mbps/384Kbps, so 3Mbps would be faster,
but if I put your address in on AT&T's website it says 1.5Mbps for
$50/mo plus $10/mo equipment and applicable taxes (there shouldn't
be any taxes on pure Internet, but could be monthly sales tax
on the equipment rental (which is dumb because that could be avoided
if AT&T just pays sales tax on the device at time they purchase it)).
If they can get you 3Mbps for the same price then it'd be a bit faster.

I checkedhttp://business.comcast.com  for your address and they're showing
service as being available, and faster speeds (generally if cable
modem service is available, all the speeds available in the area
will be available at all addresses).  They also show some equipment
rental fees in addition to the headline monthly price, and they have
some deals with a bundled phone line.  At somewhat higher speeds
they also have a 4G LTE backup option which sounds interesting...
basically I think if your cable modem link goes down, the router
automatically maintains your connection over cellular without
any changes to your computer.  You might want to talk to them on the
phone and see if they can put together a package for you with a lower
end connection, like the 25Mbps they show at the low end, but with
the 4G LTE backup.  And even better, if they can sell you just the
cable modem connection but give you an enforcable promise to let
you add the LTE backup later at some known cost if you decide
it's needed, so that you can evaluate the cable modem reliability
and not incur the cost if it's sufficient.

I'd also suggest double checking with a live person at Comcast
to ensure you can actually get it to your building and how long
it'll take to install.  They don't have ubiquitious service to
business locations, so I wouldn't want to rely on the website
being right, and they may also have listed your address as
available but some construction with a long leadtime might be
needed.	Maybe see if any of the other businesses in your building
(or adjacent buildings that are physically connected) have
Comcast since that'd be a very good sign for you being able to get
it, and you can also check with them on what their experience
is with reliability.

I'd be careful about changes to your voice service, whether moving
it to Comcast or moving it to some other product with AT&T.  You'd
need to make sure that it has whatever features you need.  I think
you just had 4 line telephones or something, so if you have 4
lines in a hunt group but never receive more than 3 incoming calls
at once, you could for example move the 4th line to Comcast outside
of the hunt group and be mindful to place outgoing calls on that
line (maybe with blocked caller ID so people don't call you back on
it).  But in any case, it can get dicey to manage special cases like
that so maybe you want to get just Internet and leave phone service
alone.  On the other hand, if you're paying regular AT&T landline
rates, you're probably paying a lot these days, and maybe switching
it to something more modern could save you money. Over the top voip
separate from whoever you get the Internet connection from could also
work, as long as the Internet connection is reliable (and some
voip providers may be able to setup failover where they forward
calls to a cellphone if the voip link is down, and cheap cell service
for voice if you don't care much about cellular data can be gotten
for < $20/mo these days.

I don't know of other wireline services you might be able to get
at commodity rates (ie. decent speed for under $200/mo) but you
might be able to find a fixed wireless provider that could do it.
www.wiline.com  andwww.ethericnetworks.com  are two in the area
I'm aware of, but I'm not certain about their coverage areas or
typical pricing.

thanks, Mike

I called Comcast and they offered me this;

Recommended Solution

*Monthly Charge: *$81.85/month 	

  *COMCAST BUSINESS *

See how we can give your business more.

SOLUTION(S):
*Business Internet *
Business Internet Starter, Business Wi-Fi Standard, Equipment Fee

*Business Voice *
1 Mobility Voice Line

  * Access to fast, reliable network with speed up to 1G
  * 24/7 dedicated business customer support
  * Access to over 17M XFINITY hotspots

*Term Agreement: * 36 Months
*Installation Charge: * $29.95

Continue 
<https://business.comcast.com/gateway/esign?ID=ff82b684-1521-4326-8813-7c1b7661a0ee&timestamp=1573842370502&securityHash=eyUx7KMb5brRE/5KBEwkaxIx5Jw=&accessType=edit> 

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