Not able to stay up late to catch Convention coverage and still want to hear all the posturing and pontificating? Tune in to the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) for free downloads of convention speeches from both party’s conventions. No matter what side of the aisle/Saudi Royal Family/Cambodian Border you’re on, from Howard to “Ah”nold, there’s certain to be some fascinating listening there. All free for the downloading. Be sure to bring along your broadband connection.

Speaking of broadband, I recently switched from cable modem service (Suscom) to DSL (Great Works Internet, or GWI). Before I get into the details, in terms of service and reliability I have been extremely happy with Suscom during the three years I have been with them. Here’s the two reasons I switched.

First, I can. Let me explain. Living within the greater metropolitan Bath area, I am close enough to the phone junction boxes to be assured of a solid, fast connection. If I lived further out of town, I would be out of luck. Also, the phone lines into, and the lines around, my house, are modern and “clean” enough to handle the bandwidth.

Second, the speed-to-price ratio. I was paying $53.95 per month for 756 Kbps (kilobits per second) of download speed. With the new DSL line, I get 3 Mbps (megabits per second) of download speed for $29.95 per month. Although the real-world difference doesn’t necessarily feel like it, that’s a theoretical 3+ times performance increase for a little over half the cost. Before I switched over, I used one of those web sites that measures actual download speed to clock both systems. Sure enough, the tests showed the speeds I’ve described above. In an unscientific test, I noted that the full-screen QuickTime Spider-Man 2 trailer played without interruption through the DSL line. The cable modem connection stalled frequently.

The GWI installation had but one hiccup. If the phone lines cooperate, and you don’t use Windoze, you really don’t need “professional” help. Actually, if you do use Windoze, you should seek professional help, but that’s another story. (Wink, wink) Anyway, the first modem GWI sent me wouldn’t sync correctly. They immediately sent me a different modem, which worked perfectly. The only time I needed to call them for support was to give them certain network addresses needed to lock in the connection. So far the reliability and speed have been superb.

© 2004 Peter F. Zimowski