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05/30/2003 Archived Entry: "WOW! HIGH SPEED IS REALLY FAST AND WONDERFUL"

WOW! HIGH SPEED IS REALLY FAST AND WONDERFUL

I'm connected to the wonderful world of high speed internet through Classic Cable. Of course, I posed a difficult problem, as expected. The minute Mark tried to connect me to their service, the whole system...that would be nation-wide...crashed for the first time that anyone who works for the company remembers. It had nothing to do with my connection, but I wish it had occurred yesterday rather than today. It was a momentous occasion and a tad worrisome.

So far everything is working like greased lightning. My mail downloads instantaneously which is a huge improvement over what I am accustomed to. I sent out change of address notices this evening in a matter of minutes. At other times, it has taken literally an entire day to send dozens of letters with just a handful of names in each To box. I haven’t done much with websites, but I can pull up mine and my granddaughter’s much faster. I’m presuming downloads will be speedy as well.

So as far as cost is concerned, it’s about a break-even thing for me. I can get rid of my dedicated phone line and my ISP which combined run somewhere close to $40 a month. Then, since I have cable TV, they give me a $10 deduction every month on the price of that. Classic internet runs $49.95 a month…and the first month is free. So is installation. So it’s about a wash.

If I blow a modem, they replace it. It’s a really cool looking modem, compact and sleek. I have it on my monitor. It matches!

You get 5 megs of webspace free with the service. My website is way over 15 megs now, and growing daily, so I have it hosted at MetaPros in Wichita.

You get 5 email addresses and they all connect to @classicnet.net. That's not the best, but there are no choices in the matter. I took all 5 but peg was already taken. Too bad. I got some other favorites. I know that Wes, who signed me up, wondered what in the world I'd want with 5 email addresses. I guess because they wanted to give them to me. Certainly I won't need but one since I have others with my domain name.

They have support but there shouldn’t be much need for it. Not much can go wrong. When the system went down today, they had 1,200 calls within minutes. It was such a rarity users were astounded.

Mark has connected 44 people to Classic Cable Internet in Ellsworth and has another 40 on the list to get to eventually. Their systems all seem to be working fine and if there is a problem, he can detect it. He checks on everyone every morning to see that they are up and running. That is a nice, comforting thought. And he makes house calls.

Speed makes a difference to me and I can justify the price based on what I was paying. It's just going to be very nice not having to dial up a number a bazillion times a day for a connection. I'll love the speed and convenience and such other things that go with high speed broadband.

That's about all I know about it!