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Comcast Internet - A Good Alternative to Lesser Internet Services

By Rachel Smith

These days everyone wants a high speed Internet connection in their own home, but many people are confused about how to go about getting it. This is largely because of all of the different types of high speed Internet services that are being marketed to the general public. After all, there's satellite Internet access, DSL, municipal WiFi, and even some dial up services marketing themselves as alternatives to high speed Internet access. When it comes to getting the best kind of high speed Internet connection, broad band cable from a company like Comcast is the best alternative for a variety of reasons.

Broad band cable high speed Internet access provides more bandwidth than any other kind of high speed Internet service that's available to most residential users. Most will provide around 8 mbps and Comcast comes with a special service that's called Power Boost, which can bump that speed up to about 12 mbps for brief periods of time. This is a lot more bandwidth than most other types of services can offer. Municipal WiFi is the only one that comes close, but it has plenty of problems associated with it. For one thing, it's not that widely available. For another, because it's based on radio signals, it's really not that secure- people who know what they're doing can sit at your curb with a laptop and see what you're looking at online.

Another popular alternative is DSL. DSL provides Internet access over phone lines, which makes it widely available. But those phone lines aren't very good at providing bandwidth. After all, phone lines are skinny compared to the coaxial cables that Comcast uses. Because of that difference, DSL only delivers about 2 or 3 mbps, to Comcast's 8 or 12. Often times, DSL service is much slower than that because of the distance that the signal has to travel over phone lines.

Satellite based Internet service is very widely available, but it has enough problems with it that it's really the Internet connection of last resort best left for people who live out in the middle of nowhere! Satellite Internet has about the same top end speed as DSL, but it costs more than broad band digital cable high speed Internet acces from Comcast and DSL put together on a monthly basis and requires hundreds of dollars worth of equipment just to set the service up.

The dial up Internet connections that market themselves as alternatives to high speed Internet aren't worth bothering with. They're capable of downloading web pages faster than normal dial up connections, but only because they filter out the pictures to some extent- the faster the download, the lower the resolution of the pictures. It does nothing to accelerate software, video, audio, or picture downloads.

By contrast, broad band cable high speed Internet access through a cable TV company like Comcast has a lot of advantages. Basically, it's a high speed Internet connection that normal people can use to take advantage of the video, music, and other resources that the Internet has to offer these days.

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Comcast Goes Way Beyond Cable TV

By Dawn Amerson

When most people think of Comcast, they think of cable TV. While it's true that Comcast is the leading provider of cable TV in the United States right now, you can also get a huge variety of other telecommunications needs including high speed Internet and voice communications in addition to the cable TV for which this company is so well known.

The cable TV service provided by Comcast has some truly incredible features and options. For example, you can choose from a variety of different programming packages, all of which come with digital receivers, forty five channels of digital music, all of your local channels, and access to the ON DEMAND Pay Per View service. The introductory level programming package, Enhanced Cable with ON DEMAND, has all of the features mentioned above. The Digital Classic programming package has all of the features presented above, plus over two hundred digital TV channels.

The next programming package in line, the ON DEMAND Silver Plus package has everything from the Digital Classic package but with the addition of thirty more channels including Encore, and your choice of Showtime, Starz, HBO, The Movie Channel, or Cinemax. Comcast's ON DEMAND Gold Plus package has everything from the ON DEMAND Silver Plus package but gives you the option of choosing two movie channels from the options of Starz, HBO, The Movie Channel, Showtime, or Cinemax. The premier package, ON DEMAND Platinum Plus gives you everything from the above programming packages, but allows you to watch all six of the movie channels that you would otherwise have to choose among.

You may have noticed that the channels in these programming packages are all digital. The fact that Comcast uses the digital TV format to transmit its channels provides an important distinction between it and other cable TV companies in terms of convenience and quality for its subscribers. That's because there are a number of advantages to digital TV that the older analog TV format can't offer. The two most noticeable advantages of digital TV are that it provides a much higher quality TV picture than analog and it also allows for interactive features like an on screen program guide that will make it easy to decide what you want to watch without the frustration of channel surfing. Digital TV also makes it easy to to control what kinds of programming your kids have access to with its easy to use Parental Controls.

Of course Comcast's ability to provide other features like high speed Internet and telephone service also make it an attractive proposition. Broadband cable Internet access will truly change the way you use the Internet with. That's because of it's speed. With download speeds up to one hundred times faster than a dial up Internet connection, the Internet is wide open for you. Music, pictures, and streaming video are all at your command. Broadband cable Internet from Comcast also offers the advantage of always being on and ready for your use. That means no more dialing in and it also means that you can walk away from longer downloads without fear of being cut off by the network.

Comcast can also change the way you use you're telephone. That's because Comcast offers digital telephone service that provides you with unlimited local and long distance calls! You'll also get all of the valuable features that you've been paying extra for included in your low monthly bill. These features include Caller ID, call waiting, voice mail (which can be checked over the Internet), and much more!

With all of these features and options, Comcast is clearly the telecommunications provider of choice for anybody's situation.

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