Created January, 2006
This information is dated, but is kept here for archival purposes.
I occasionally am asked for advice on choosing high speed internet. More recently, I have received questions about phone service from Time Warner. Here is a my take on each of the two.
While this page is focused on two local providers in the Winston-Salem area, I believe that most of these points are valid more generally when comparing DSL from a traditional telephone company and internet services from a cable company.
The price for the lowest speed BellSouth DSL is the cheapest way of getting high speed internet service. But, it is also the slowest high speed internet service. Nonetheless, it is probably fast enough for most people.
If you currently have a second line mainly for dial-up internet, switching to the lowest cost DSL is a pretty easy decision. It will cost you very little more and will provide you a faster, always-on connection.
Winner: BellSouth
You will have faster connections with Roadrunner than with the fastest residential DSL, and much, much faster than with the cheapest DSL service.
Winner: Time Warner
There is much suspicion that DSL providers play tricks to make competing services work poorly. Computer magazines report difficult using internet phone choices like Vonage over DSL connections, and there is much suspicion that this is by design. Here in Winston-Salem, BellSouth DSL users have seen strange patterns in active of files being uploaded or downloaded -- a high speed burst followed by a pause. Such patterns would be destructive for telephone conversations. I have not heard of such problems with Time Warner Roadrunner.
Winter: Time Warner.
Time Warner simply gives you a complete working connection to the internet. BellSouth does "port 25 blocking." This means that it takes more work to set up your e-mail with non-Bellsouth accounts. For example, Wake Forest students, faculty, and staff want to use their Wake Forest e-mail accounts. With Time Warner, they just plug in their laptops and the e-mail accounts work. With BellSouth, they must switch their outgoing mail server to mail.bellsouth.net. This extra setup should not be needed, and I worry about what future problems this will cause.
Winner: Time Warner.
BellSouth makes you buy a DSL modem. Time Warner provides a cable modem as part of the service. This means you can drop Time Warner service at any time without penalty.
Winner: Time Warner
Time Warner has much better information on its web site and better quality call-in support. Some key information for setting up e-mail is missing from BellSouth's web pages. BellSouth's online chat only works with one web browser.
I have insufficient data to comment on the quality and promptness of visits to my house.
Winner: Time Warner.
For the cheapest solution, BellSouth DSL.
For the best quality, fastest connection, and easiest to use service, Time Warner Roadrunner internet service.
Time Warner now offers telephone service. All your telephones will continue to work in the same way, but your connection to their central offices is actually over your internet connection (Voice Over IP, or VOIP). Installation is fast, and their is no long term commitment.
So which should you choose?
No one matches the reliability of the standard telephone service (sometimes called POTS, for Plain Old Telephone Service) from BellSouth. They have massive banks of batteries for backup, so often your telephone works even when you have no power.
My experience has been that Time Warner's phone service is almost as reliable as its cable service and is just as reliable as its internet service. If you have power and cable, it is highly likely that you will have phone service. If the cable is working, the internet is nearly always working, and if the internet is working, it seems that phone service is always working.
So if you have cable, you already have a pretty good idea of how reliable Time Warner phone will be. I should add that I believe that internet phone subscribers get first priority for repairs.
Winner: BellSouth
Both provide high quality service. I was surprised to find that Time Warner cable voice quality is at least as high as conventional telephone service, even when I am doing huge uploads and downloads via my internet connection.
Winner: neither. Both have good quality.
Getting your service via Time Warner is significantly cheaper if you use much long distance, especially with a bundle of cable/internet/phone.
Winner: Time Warner
This depends on how much value you place on extremely high reliability in your phone service, and how many long distance calls you place. BellSouth is more reliable but more expensive.
Since I have a cell phone that I could use for emergencies during potential outages, I decided that Time Warner phone reliability was more than adequate, given how much I am saving.
I advise against Time Warner for phone service if you have no other means of emergency communication. The likelihood of a service interruption during a time of emergency is quite low, but the consequences of not having communications during an emergency is quite high.
Time Warner for cable, internet, and telephone service.
Switching from BellSouth to Time Warner for telephone was quick and easy. I was only without telephone service for about five minutes, after which my same telephone number worked perfectly with my new Time Warner service.
The only glitch I experienced would not affect most people. I found that with multiple telephones in use, the outgoing audio would become muffled. This turned out to be associated with the fact that I had ten telephones connected to my system. After I unplugged four of the ten that are hardly ever used, everything worked perfectly.
If you anticipate a need for more than six phones and experience the same problem, I suggest the multiset cordless phones that allow you to run several cordless phones from one telephone connection. (Be sure to get DSS phones for security.) Your phone bill savings will pay for these quickly.