In an attempt to save some money, I dropped AOL’s crappy service (which they kept telling me was going to end soon anyhow) and switched to Verizon DSL.
As it would turn out, DSL is a very complicated and annoying, which I had been unaware of. You have to connect all of these “filters” to EVERY phone-line in your house, to avoid interference. I had 30 days on my trial, to see whether I liked the service or not, and it took about one week for the DSL to actually get used to working correctly. I got booted offline at least ten times a day, but that wasn’t the worst part of it all. The worst part of the whole ordeal were the download speeds. I was told that the download speeds would be (and I quote) “similar to that of cable”. That was a direct lie. The download speeds were VERY slow, and for an impatient Internet user who is used to doing everything at a fast, harried pace like myself, I was very disappointed.
So I opted out before my 30 day trial was over, luckily, so I didn’t have to pay anything. But I did have to send all of the stuff back to Verizon. I had to package everything up, the modem, the “filters”, all the wires, everything had to be re-packaged and sent back to Verizon, but luckily for me I had saved all the boxes and the big cardboard box that it all came in. So that wasn’t too much trouble, just a little annoying. (When I opted out of AOL, I didn’t have to send them back anything).
I didn’t want to switch back to AOL, so I called Time Warner and inquired about Road Runner. They said that what I basically had was Road Runner, just the AOL version because AOL and Time Warner had once been a joined company but now they had since separated. The man I spoke to at Time Warner asked me if I still had my old cable modem, which I did, so he said, “Just plug it in and it should start working.” And it was THAT simple. I called Verizon to make sure that they weren’t still charging me (they weren’t), and I had officially switched to Road Runner.
The service is AWESOME. The download speeds are incredible; I never get kicked offline for no good reason, and the modem itself never just decides not to connect for no apparent reason, like Verizon DSL did. I connected my router to it and it even makes my wireless connection better! The download speeds are truly great; depending on where I am downloading from I’ve had speeds as high as 400 MB/ps, which was over four times as fast as AOL and like ten times faster than Verizon DSL.
Eventually, I even switched to Time Warner digital phone (which I’ll get into in another product comparison) and just note that if you decide to get the “Triple Play” package (Cable TV, Road Runner, and digital phone) you will have to get a bigger, bulkier cable modem to support both the Internet and the phone, but it wasn’t a problem for me. I just moved a few things around.
The downside is that Time Warner Road Runner does cost more per month than Verizon DSL, but I was lucky enough to get six months at a discounted rate, which was nice. My advice? If you’re in the market for a good high speed Internet service, do not use Verizon if you are used to fast speeds. You will be sorely disappointed, and the people at Verizon lie about how fast their speeds are. Try Road Runner, because you can get either a few months free or at a discounted rate (if you’re a first time buyer) and the speeds are definitely worth the price.
Reference:
- www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3570261 (read about the AOL/Time Warner split)
