After checking out some of the various broadband access offers, including both DSL and cable, I decided to go with cable. I am also a current Comcast cable TV customer. Most of the DSL promotions provided free installation packages for self-install, whereas the Comcast offer at that time included free professional installation.
I called Comcast on a Wednesday and signed up. On the following Monday as promised, the technician arrived. The total installation took a little over an hour. The lengthiest part of the process was extending the existing cable connection to the room in which my computer is located. The whole process was quick and easy. The technician briefed me on the use of the connection and left.
There was no problem in accessing the Internet, although I still have America Online loaded. I called AOL to cancel my account and ended up talking with a chatty representative who had lived in Sacramento for several years. He advised me that he used AOL with cable and it worked very well.
To further convince me he gave me two months of free service to try out AOL Plus, which utilizes streaming technology to make effective use of the speed of the cable access. While there are some nice features, I do intend to cancel at the conclusion of the two free months.
The cost of the cable service is $39.95 per month, plus a few cents of taxes, with service on a month-to-month basis and no long-term contract required.
Cancellation involves a phone call and the return of the cable modem to Comcast. I had maintained a second phone line for my computer, which has now been cancelled. When I finally drop AOL, the net cost will be about what I had been paying.
I have been online for over a month now with no problems. I have checked my connection speed, and it registered over 2400k bps. Downloads are incredibly fast.
Zone Alarm is installed as a firewall and I checked its effectiveness on the GRC website. Their tests reported that my protection is such that probes cannot even find that my computer exists at this address, much less be able to access it.
However, I have been surprised that Zone Alarm reports about three to five probes a day from the same site, Whoisthis, a domain-searching site. In any event, Zone Alarm continues to intercept packets which they still send out routinely.
The other problem on which I am currently working is that between the cable connection and Zone Alarm, plus a few assorted programs running at startup, my computer resources are generally around 70 percent. At this point, I am not entirely sure how many of these need to be running but certainly Zone Alarm does seem to use a lot of resources. However, this has not seemed to affect my online activities to date.
