I couldn’t find any really recent posts out there about shopping around for San Antonio high speed internet. Soon, we will be moving into a house and internet is just one of those things that needs to get done FAST!
We don’t need anything fancy, just internet that is decent speed and no phone or cable television (I think we might try AppleTV or GoogleTV with Netflix).
Here’s the quick and dirty of what I found for my new area:
What I looked at
I researched three potential providers, AT&T DSL, TimeWarner RoadRunner, and Grande Communications.
Thoughts going in
I use AT&T for mobile phone already so thought it would be nice to bundle everything. I quickly found out they don’t offer DSL in my neighborhood (at least without phone service).
I have been with TimeWarner forever in Cincinnati and their customer service is some of the worst I have ever dealt with. That in itself really makes me want to try a different provider.
Grande Communications was a new name to me but had read some positive reviews online.
Website use
You would think that a company that sells internet access would want their website to be very user friendly. Eh… so much for that
AT&T website was terrible. At first I thought I was on the right track after entering my address and saw I had the options between traditional DSL with up to 6 Mbps or UVerse with something in the 20’s if I remember correctly. But while continuing through the process it ended up trying to make me purchase a mobile phone … WHAT? I closed the page and started over only for it to tell me on entering my address once more that no DSL was available in my area. Thanks…
Time Warner wasn’t much better. It seems like these website have 10 pages that look the same but take you in different directions. On my first go I kept running into the website wanting me to log in. I tried to, but apparently I don’t have a login? Maybe they deleted my account when I dropped their service in Cincinnati some 4 months ago? They had a nice option to shop without logging in. But once you try that it asks for name, phone and zip. I provided and it said it couldn’t locate my account. Wait, I thought I didn’t have to log in? Grrr…. Eventually I created a new account only to find that I didn’t have to sign in in the first place.
Grande Communications was a breeze. Easy website to go through and easily understood prices and packages. Yay!
Prices
AT&T - not offered in my area
Time Warner $30: up to 10 Mbps $40: up to 15 Mbps $50: up to 20 Mbps And the modem is included in all these prices
Grande $28: up to 3 Mbps $36: up to 8 Mbps $46: up to 12 Mbps $56: up to 16 Mbps And the modem is NOT included in all these prices I don’t know anything about ESPN3.com but it is apparently included with these prices
Final thoughts
Well that’s unfortunate. Nothing compares to the big bad TimeWarner customer service nightmare company. At least TimeWarner has customer service to call unlike some other big bad companies (Urban Active!!!!). I would love to give Grande a try, but not at those prices.
Hopefully the prices I found aren’t promotional to new customers even though I might be a new customer if they deleted me from the system. If this helped you in a move to San Antonio, glad I could help. But if anyone knows of another internet provider in the area that I didn’t consider, let me know!