Who’s Hot, Who’s not. A Review of SE Idaho broadband Providers.
Are you looking to upgrade that ancient dial up modem you are currently using, but have no idea where to go next? Well, we’ve been around for quite a while, and lucky for you, we’ve had the fortune (and misfortune) of trying out almost every broadband Internet provider around. I guess that’s good news for you, eh? Yea, you’re welcome.
There have been a lot of broadband providers in South Eastern Idaho in the past 6-7 years, some have withered away from the pressures of providing broadband service and the dedication it takes to be on top. Some have sold out, joined together, come and gone, and smeared themselves all over the bottom of the dot-com’s proverbial bubble.
For the purposes of this review, we will be reviewing the following broadband companies.
CableOne - Cable
http://www.cableone.net
CableOne is really the only cable provider in South Eastern Idaho. Along with cable broadband Internet, they also offer digital cable television services.
Qwest - DSL
http://www.qwest.com
Qwest, like CableOne, has a virtual monopoly on the phone systems in South Eastern Idaho. There are a few much smaller companies trying to compete, but lets face it, Qwest owns nearly all the fiber.
MicroServ - DSL, Wireless
http://www.microserv.com
Microserv is the largest local Internet Service Provider in South Eastern Idaho. Not the largest company that provides service in this area, mind you, just the largest LOCAL company.
Teton Wireless - Wireless
http://www.tetonwireless.com
Teton Wireless provides wireless broadband Internet as well as basic non-digital wireless television services.
I am well aware that there are many more Internet Service Providers in the South Eastern Idaho area, and yes, I have even been a customer of many of them myself. We may conduct a review of a “locals only” service providers at a later date but for the purposes of this review they will be excluded.
On with it then, yes? In order to fully evaluate these providers, we shall rate them in the following categories:
August 26th, 2005 at 8:21 am
I like your website, it has eye appeal and easy to navigate.
I noticed you do not list Fairpoint as local broadband connection.
Gene A Crawford
August 29th, 2005 at 5:49 pm
I like your website, it has eye appeal and easy to navigate.
Thanks, Gene. We have worked quite hard to find a design that is (hopefully) easy for all to use and navigate.
We did not list Fairpoint for a couple of reasons.
1) Their web site(s) had little to no information, especially when it comes to their technical support. This article relied heavily on the information made publicly available, which, fairpoint made either very obscure, or non-existent.
2) There isn’t really any one “fairpoint”. They operate mainly through third party retailers, whom, as luck would have it, are mostly our competition. I just don’t feel comfortable sending our traffic to our competition, for any reason.
Thanks for posting though, hopefully we’ll be able to keep some content here for the local area that people will be interested in. If you have any ideas, please feel free!