I’ve been online, in one form or another, since the mid-80’s, beginning with services like CompuServe, Prodigy and others. Back then, all of these were closed networks that were not linked to the internet—access was through dedicated dial-up connections for each system. Even the internet itself was not what we know today—HTTP and the resultant world wide web didn’t exist prior to 1991—and was largely the domain of academics, defense contractors and government agencies (harking back to the DARPAnet days)
In the early 90’s, a small number of pioneering companies became the first Internet Service Providers (ISP) for the general public. One of these, founded in 1993, was The Pipeline, which offered a proprietary pre-web navigation system that was essentially menu-driven but incorporated some graphical interface features. I signed up around late ’94 or early ’95—this is the source of my email address that ends with pipeline.com.
As the web gained in popularity, ISPs also saw rapid industry consolidation. In short order, The Pipeline was gobbled up by PSInet, which in turn was taken over by MindSpring, which in turn merged with Earthlink. Meanwhile, my home access graduated through faster forms of dial-up to a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) connection with a home wireless network, still with Earthlink (neé The Pipeline).
I think where things started to go downhill was after MindSpring merged with Earthlink. The resulting company lost MindSpring’s dedication to quality service and support; in recent years, both tech support and customer service are too obviously outsourced overseas, with reps who have thick, almost unintelligible accents and who follow rote scripts with no actual understanding of the issues. At least once a month and frequently more often, I would lose service for no apparent reason; when contacted, tech support would deny any network outages—service would then mysteriously resume a few hours later.
So, finally, I decided it was time to abandon Earthlink. I researched the various providers offering service in my area and the one that stood out as the most highly thought of was Verizon’s FiOS. Unfortunately, FiOS is not available in my building, although I’m told it may be coming next year sometime. I didn’t want to stay with a DSL system, so my choice then boiled down to either RCN or Time Warner cable; since Andrew and I wanted to stay with Time Warner TV (no love for TWC, but NY1’s “In the Papers” feature just can’t be lived without), I ended up getting a TV/Internet package with them.
So far, I’m favorably impressed. Granted, it’s only been two days, but the increased speed is quite noticeable when performing tasks like downloading email attachments and the like. Set-up was relatively easy—the modem and connection hardware were shipped to me, and I did a self-install with my pre-existing wifi router (saving me additional fees for an installation and a router). I even got to keep my old pipeline email address for a $6/month fee.
