$15 a month for DSL? Sold!
Written: Nov 11 '05 (Updated Nov 17 '05)
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Pros: Fast, reliable, works as advertised, all necessary equipment included at little to no cost.
Cons: Clunky, buggy, disjointed software.
The Bottom Line: For the price, I feel that this is an excellent service for basic DSL service. If you demand the highest speeds, however, it might not be the best.
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| Ahab1973's Full Review: SBC Yahoo |
Intro - I guess I’m a relative newcomer to the internet. Sure, I’ve been around for a few years now but I’ve only been online since sometime in 2000.
Like many people, when I bought my first computer, the internet connection that seemed to be the most convenient and easy one to use was AOL’s 56k dialup. The software was already on my computer and all I had to do was enter my info in the required fields.
AOL’s software and service served me quite well in the five or so odd years I had it. Everything was very easy and convenient to use.
I’m not someone who’s always downloading huge files but I do occasionally do so. Anyone who’s ever downloaded, say, an 80 MB file over a 56k connection knows the true meaning of the word slllllllloooooooooooooooowwwwww. General web surfing over a dialup connection can be pretty fast (depending on your settings and the way the web pages you typically visit are set up) but there’s always that nagging frustration with downloading anything larger than a 1 MB file. I can clearly remember sitting here waiting for several 30+ MB freeware files to download. I could literally take a shower, fix myself something to eat and watch some TV in the time it would take over dialup to download such a file.
I’m not an overly patient sort of person. When I buy something in a store, I can’t wait to get it home, rip off the packaging and check it out. I usually end up speeding just to get home a little faster. I’m just that impatient. Thus it is that when I go to download something, if it seems like a really cool program, I’m constantly checking on the status of the download. OK…suffice it to say that AOL’s dialup service was glacially slow (which isn‘t to say that any dialup service is fast - it isn‘t).
I recently moved and I figured that would be as good an opportunity to switch to a different ISP as any. As I was transferring my phone service over to the new place, I let the rep talk me into a one year contract for SBC Yahoo DSL service. The plan I agreed to, I believe, is the express, with the 1.5 Mbps download and the 320kbps upload. Needless to say, after five years on dialup, I was more than impatient to get it up and running and see what all the fuss over broadband is about. The plan is $14.95 a month but as stated, you do have to agree to the one year contract. This caused me a bit of anxiety after agreeing to it because if you decide you don’t like it, want it or need it - or if you need to cancel (Or you get cancelled for breach of the TOS) for any reason, there’s an early termination fee of $200. Ouch!
About three days (maybe two…I’m not sure now) after ordering, I received the starter package via UPS. I’d known that I was going to be receiving some equipment for the DSL service but I didn’t expect the package to be so small. It can literally be carried in one hand. Inside this small box, I found a Speedstream 4100 DSL modem, two cables (One gray cable that connects to the phone jack and one yellow Ethernet cable for the back of the computer), five line filters (including one for wall-mounted phones) and the software CD.
I’d requested that the service not be activated for a couple of weeks after moving in….because I knew I wouldn’t get a thing done if I had a new toy to play with so the wait was a little agonizing. About a week into the waiting period, I decided I was going to call them up and see if I could get the activation date moved up a little. The phone number was easily found on their web site. Naturally, I had to jump through all the usual hoops before you get to talk to a live person.
The lady that answered was very friendly and seemed to know what she was doing. She asked me a couple of questions regarding whether I was calling from the same number I was to have the service on and then told me she’d check and see. About a minute later, she said the wiring to my network interface box wasn’t scheduled to be done until the 27th (It was the 21st). She apologized about there being nothing she could do but at least she tried to be helpful and was very friendly throughout the conversation.
So, I just waited until the 27th I thought that perhaps the guy who did the wiring would pay me a visit (we live in a condo so the NIB is outside) but I didn’t see him. I waited until the evening of that day, just to make sure that I’d waited long enough. I got out all the stuff and put the CD in my drive. The instructions for setting everything up were contained on the CD in a sort of interactive presentation. It was very nicely done and easy to follow. I put the filters on all my phones, connected the cables, switched on the power and let the software do it’s thing.
I felt a little twinge of excitement when I saw all the lights on the modem (including the internet light) come to life and a message on screen telling me it was downloading some needed software from SBC’s server. I was immediately impressed by how fast the status bar was moving! I’m sure it’d seem mundane to someone who’s accustomed to broadband but for someone who’s lived with dialup for five years, it’s a significant event.
A few minutes later, it asked me a few questions and I had to fill in some info, just as I had when I signed on with AOL. This was accomplished easily enough. And then, I was done. I removed the CD from my drive, launched Internet Explorer and immediately went in search of a moderately large file to download. I found one that was just over 1 MB. OK…so that’s not really that large but it takes about 6 minutes on AOL’s 56k. I dropped it into my download manager and prepared myself to watch it’s progress but the download only took about 7 seconds so it was pretty much over before it really registered in my (albeit a little slow) mind. Impressive!
I then went in search of a much larger file. I found one that was a little over 30 MB. That should be a good test. Dropped that in my download manager and was quite pleased with the speed. As noted earlier, a 30 MB file over dialup is agonizingly slow. I don’t remember the exact amount of time but it was two to three minutes. I know to some folks, even that may be a little slow but it’s perfectly fine for me. My goal in switching to broadband was to simply avoid sitting here for half an hour or more to download a file that I wanted or needed. So far, I haven’t downloaded anything that took more than ten minutes (And that was for a relatively large file that would’ve taken ages on dialup).
I was also a bit anxious about the performance and/or reliability of the included line filters. I have someone living in my household who works on an on call basis and can’t afford to miss a single phone call. This made me exceptionally wary of using my main phone line with nothing for assurance that I wouldn’t miss any calls but a few filters. So far, I’m happy to report that we haven’t missed a single call. I’ve (perhaps a bit obsessively) checked this out by repeatedly dialing my number from my cell and checking to see if every single call goes through. On the silent line, with no dial tone or conversation going on, I don’t hear any objectionable background noise caused by the DSL being connected and running. There’s a bit of a background hiss but I’m pretty sure that’s normal for all phone lines and I just never noticed it before because I wasn‘t listening for it.
So…I’m extremely pleased with the speed and connectivity side of things. The software, however, is a mixed bag. The included Yahoo Browser, I’m not so pleased with. One of AOL’s stronger points is their software. Everything’s integrated into one interface that’s extremely easy to use. The Yahoo Browser, on the other hand, seems pretty disjointed in comparison. Things are scattered about haphazardly and many features of the service are difficult to find. The Yahoo Browser also has an annoying habit of making itself the default browser, even after you’ve chosen Internet Explorer as the default. It works fine for a while and then, suddenly, I’ll be surfing with IE, click a link and the Yahoo Browser will launch and try to go to the link. Irritating!
The most unforgivable aspect of the Yahoo Browser, however, is that (At least on my system) it has a tendency to crash/freeze/hang (whatever you want to call it). If I’m surfing using the Yahoo Browser and click a link, I have to keep my fingers crossed because half the time, this action will cause the browser to hang and I have to go to the Windows task manager to shut it down. That makes using it for surfing practically impossible. It could be some software incompatibility with some other program I have on my PC but whatever the case may be, IE doesn’t do this so I’m thinking about just uninstalling the Yahoo launcher altogether. This, of course, may cause me some problems with accessing some aspects of the SBC Yahoo service because the Yahoo Browser is customized for this service and IE isn’t.
At any rate, this is irritating, but not altogether terrible. I prefer IE anyway.
Newsgroups I didn’t realize it when I first got the service but after a few days, I started to wonder if SBC had their own news server. AOL pulled the plug on their newsgroups access about a year ago (And their newsgroups interface was irritating and pretty user-unfriendly anyway) so I’ve just been using Google Groups. Nevertheless, it’s nice to be able to access a server with your news reader (Who can keep track of all those passwords for web-based services such as Google Groups, anyway?). I set up Outlook Express for my email but I prefer not to use it for newsgroups. I downloaded and installed the freeware XNews program (nice program, by the way) and went in search of the server name (if any) for the SBC server.
Maybe I just don’t know the ins and outs of the SBC help pages yet but I wasn’t able to find what I was looking for. So, I Googled it and finally came up with a server name that sounded right. I plugged it into XNews, entered my user and pass and instructed it to get a groups list. I was half expecting my connection to be denied but it actually works so I guess (although I haven’t seen it advertised anywhere) the $14.95 a month includes access to the news server. The server is pretty fast and has about average retention. The server lists about 30,000 groups, which seems decent for being included with basic internet access. Binary completion isn’t always perfect but then again, it almost never is, even on pay servers. I rarely download binaries anyway. Just cool to know it’s there if I want to.
Mail - To date, I’ve had no issues with the mail. It always sends and receives just fine and rather quickly. It’s nice to know there’s a web-based interface to access my box but I almost always just use Outlook (It’s just quicker). I rarely use email but if you do, it seems to work just fine.
Conclusion - All in all, I’m impressed. I’ve mentioned this before (in my review of AOL) but the most basic duty of an ISP is just to provide you with a secure, reliable Internet connection that works as advertised (whatever speed you’re paying for). I’ve checked my download and upload speeds on multiple sites that are set up to check your speed and it’s been very consistent over a period of about a month (so far). I’m not getting quite the 1.5 Mbps download speed that I was promised but it’s well over 90% there. So far, I haven’t had a single disconnect. That would be a big issue with me. I don’t use my Internet connection constantly or anything but I do tend to use it at odd hours and I do use it on a daily basis. If I was getting regular disconnects, that would be something that would be a major irritation.
So far, I’m pleased and feel that SBC Yahoo has delivered what they promised. The service loses one star in my overall rating for the less than stellar software that’s included. I really hope they refine this software. I was spoiled by the AOL software.
On the price - I've little doubt that the $14.95 per month access fee is for a limited time only and is most likely subject to change without notice (OK...so I didn't really read the full terms and conditions. Does anyone?). Nevertheless, even if it did rise to about $30 a month, I still think it would be worth the price.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): $14.95
Version Number or Year: 2005
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Epinions.com ID:
Ahab1973
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Member: Brian
Location: USA
Reviews written: 132
Trusted by: 65 members
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