It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, moving and setting up an apartment is hell. I’ve been battling over which ISP to use. I initially signed up for Comcast HSI, $33/month for 6 months, then $43/month for a 6 megabit connection (say you don’t want the self-install kit then call them up to get your modem manually registered on the network, saves you $10+). The connection has been incredibly flakey, probably the worst internet experience I’ve had. I may have had a grounding issue, but I really didn’t feel like wasting any more hours of my life on it.
I switched to the 3 megabit AT&T DSL for $25/month with no contract (free modem, $75 gift card). So far it’s been great. One thing that can give you a headache if you don’t realize it is the newer modems, like the Siemens SpeedStream 4100, have a built in router. No longer do you need to connect via PPP with a seperate router or XP/OS X. By the same token, the modem will have a local IP address on the network like 192.168.0.1. If you’re hooking it up to a wireless router, be careful and change the router to a different IP, like 192.168.1.1 or you will have networking hell.
