Specifications
ter’s tech support couldn’t diagnose the
problem remotely. Charter scheduled a
second technician to visit, but we had to
wait a week for him to arrive. The com-
pany did knock a week’s worth of fees off
the second month’s bill. When the tech
arrived, he made a quick diagnosis—a
faulty modem. Modem replaced, we had
everything working in minutes, at down-
load speeds ranging from 831 to 886 Kbps.
Our technical-support experiences
were, on the whole, pain-free. Even during
that initial hour and a half we spent on the
phone, the technician was calm, diligent,
and polite. The company also performed
reasonably well on our planned tech-
support testing.—CM
Comcast
With Comcast Cable TV, $42.95 per month;
otherwise $57.95. Modem extra. Comcast Corp.,
www.comcast.com.
Speed alone doesn’t satisfy our
readers. Despite above-average
throughput, respectable connectivity, and
relatively low rates, Comcast’s report card
grade cannot overcome worse-than-aver-
age scores for overall satisfaction, service
(both customer and technical-support),
and other key measures. In fact, Comcast
customers’ satisfaction with pricing is
worse than average, although this is the
third-lowest in price among services re-
viewed. (Compare this with Cox’s better-
than-average price satisfaction, for a ser-
vice costing $7 more each month.) Value
seems to be more important than cost.
Comcast offers two levels of residential
service. We tested with the standard
High-Speed Internet, which offers speeds
of up to 1.5 Mbps down and 256 Kbps up,
seven e-mail addresses (10MB storage
apiece), and 25MB of Web storage. The
service also includes spam blocking and
McAfee Personal Firewall but no parental
control or pop-up blocking.
We opted for $49 professional installa-
tion instead of the self-installation kit. Alas,
no one asked whether we had a cable con-
nection available. When the installer
showed up, he said he wasn’t supposed to
fish wires through walls, and we’d have to
make a separate appointment for that—at
$40 an hour. Then, thankfully, he fished
the wires anyway. While this tech saved
our installation from disaster, the original
failure to check that we were cable-ready
may be the sort of problem that prompts
our readers to give the ISP worse-than-av-
erage scores for service.
With hardware connected, setup’s a
no-brainer. The installer entered the user
name, an initial password, and a few other
details into the Comcast setup routine.
The routine took care of everything else,
without making too many annoying
changes to the system: It added a Com-
cast icon to the desktop, created an e-mail
account in Microsoft Outlook Express
6.0, added several entries to the Favorites
in Internet Explorer, and changed the
standard icon at the right side of the IE
menu bar to a Comcast icon.
Our tests showed appropriate through-
puts—roughly 90 percent of claimed
PC MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 16, 2003 www.pcmag.com
106
y YES o NO
AOL for
Broadband
Charter Comcast Cox EarthLink
Optimum
Online
Road Runner SBC Yahoo! Verizon
Service type
DSL Cable Cable Cable Cable Cable Cable DSL DSL
Setup cost
None $49.95 $24.95 Up to $9.95 None None Up to $25 $12.95
(shipping)
$12.95
(shipping)
Monthly fee $54.95 $29.99–$49.99 $57.95 ($42.95
with cable
service)
$49.95 ($39.95
with cable
service)
$41.95 $49.95 ($44.95
with cable
service)
$44.95 $39.95 (or
$29.95 a month
for 1 year)
$34.95 ($29.95
with long
distance)
Broadband modem
Free* For purchase For purchase
or rent
For purchase
or rent
Free* Free* Free* Free* Free*
FEATURES
Free spam blocking
y (on server) y (on server) y (on server)
o
y (utility) y (on server) y (on server) y (on server) y (utility)
Free antivirus
o o o o o
y (on server) y (on server) y (on server) y (on server)**
Free parental control
y (on server)
o o o
y (utility)
o o
y (on server) y (on server)**
Broadband ISPs
SUMMARY OF FEATURES
Download this table at
www.pcmag.com.
Free popup blocking
y (on server)
o o o
y (utility) y (utility)
o o o
Free personal firewall
y (utility)
o
y (utility)
o
y (utility)
o o o
y (utility)**
User can opt not to use branded
interface
o y y y y y y y y
USER ACCOUNTS AND E-MAIL
E-mail accounts included
7 5 7 7 8 5 5 11 9
Web-based e-mail
interface available
y y y y y y y y y
POP3 access available
o y y y y y y y y
Storage per mailbox
2,100 messages 10MB 10MB 10MB 10MB 20MB 5MB–10MB Main, 25MB;
others, 10MB
30MB
Home page included
y y y y y o y y y
WEB SITE AND STORAGE
ISP-supplied page-building tools
y o o o y o o y y
Storage amount for home page
20MB 10MB 25MB 10MB per
mailbox
10MB N/A 10MB 15MB 10MB
Static IP address available
o o y o y o o y y
PERFORMANCE
Claimed download speed
No official
claim
256 Kbps–
1.5 Mbps
1.5 Mbps 1.5–3 Mbps No official
claim
Up to 10 Mbps 2 Mbps 384 Kbps–
6 Mbps
Up to 1.5 Mbps
Claimed upload speed
No official
claim
128 Kbps 256 Kbps 256 Kbps No official
claim
Up to 1 Mbps 384 Kbps 128–384 Kbps Up to 128 Kbps
GREEN denotes Readers’ Choice. * There is typically a restriction on free modems, such as a requirement to return them if service is canceled. ** Via the included MSN 8 software.
N/A—Not applicable: The product does not have this feature.
D