[Another] commercial for Long Lines Internet services came on TV just as I finished titling this post … which was just after I took Long Lines’ We Dare You speed test, which was just after I took the speedtest.net speed test.
My Mac has a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and despite my almost weekly (at times daily) conversations with Long Lines (who promise connection speeds up to 5 MG in exchange for my monthly [cough] $44.99 + tax ISP fee), I just can’t help but feel the numbers aren’t quite adding up.
Here’s a quick look at what I’m often getting in exchange for those five monthly sawbucks:
Or, when I dared to take the Long Lines speed test:
Now, if this isn’t bad enough, imagine how depressed I feel when I visit Long Lines’ website and see something like this:
Long Lines tells me the 10 MB speeds are (so far) only available in South Sioux City, NE. Okay. So, I guess they get “up to 10MBs” for $41.99 while the rest of us pay $44.99 for “up to 5 MB.” And while both 0.44 Mbps and 627 kbps fall within that up to 5 MB range, they’re not exactly the speeds I feel I’m paying for.
I know exactly what you’re thinking: So don’t just whine and complain — switch to a more reliable ISP!
Here’s where I’d have to tell you we live in western Iowa. Sure, there’s another option: Qwest, which only guarantees speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps. For all I know, their customers might even be connecting at something close to that, but every time I think about switching, I remember some of those oh-so-glorious days where my speed tests actually registered around 4 Mbps and I was flying through page after page, getting things done, rather than constantly resetting the modem/router after waiting endless minutes for pages to load.
Nowadays, I feel a little like a dog waiting for Long Lines to throw me the occasional high speed bone. I’m beginning to think, though, those 1.5 bones might be rather tasty — especially if Qwest threw me one regularly … like every single day.