Fun with my Broadband connection

My employer appears to be changing their policy about paying for my broadband connection, or at least have now set a general policy about it. The policy will work for about 98% of the employees, most of which only work at home occasionally and are not required to use it outside of how a typical residential user might use it. I am in that 2% who need more.

I work at home about 85% of the time. My job involves accessing resources on our corporate network. This means VPN conection. I also have to set up customer scenarios involving the Internet. I also have to move large files around from time to time. All of this requires a fast, stable Internet connection.

Up until very recently, the only choice for me was my local cable company. It started with @home, then Charter, and now Wave Broadband. Unfortunately, their residential offerings didn’t cut it. One dynamic IP. Sorry, can’t do that. I also need more speed on the upstream. Only way to get that was business level service, and that meant bucks. At least under Charter, that meant I got to speak to Tier-2 folks when I called into Support. Not so with Wave, they’re a bit smaller and don’t have that.

A few weeks ago, I get a flier from Qwest saying DSL was available in my area. About time. So I called Qwest and they said “we have to see if your line can be condititioned for DSL.” They supposedly started that process yesterday and are supposed to get back to me in the next couple of business days. The rate plans for DSL, even at business rates, are much cheaper than the $200 or so I pay for 2mb/512k with a couple of static IPs, and I can get a /29 (effectively 6 IPs) to boot.

Meanwhile, I am pressuring Wave to come down on prices. It also looks like their speeds will increase somewhat since they are currently giving their residential customers 3mb downstream.

Oh well, I guess I’m going to have to wait until after Thanksgiving to find out how this is going to turn out.