[luau] Broadband in Hawaii Notes

[Warren Togami]

Disclaimer: I have no financial interests in Time Warner or any of the
companies that I mention.  These are purely my observations from what I
have seen, and public information available on websites.   I may be
slightly biased because I had RoadRunner cable modem for many years. 
Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of the following facts:

http://oceanic.com/
(Click Internet)

RoadRunner
==========
~$45/month normally
~$50/month if you don't subscribe to cable television
$22.95/month for 3 months current promotion
$50 setup
2,000kbit/sec download
384kbit/sec upload
Works great with Linux with simple DHCP.

Earthlink Broadband
===================
$41.95/month normally
$29.95/month for 6 months current promotion
$100 setup
2,000kbit/sec download
384kbit/sec upload
Includes unlimited Earthlink dialup service
I am told that that it works great with Linux.  We have opened access to
Earthlink Broadband Hawaii to Videl too.

Verizon DSL
===========
$34.95/month normally
$29.95/month for 3 months current promotion
$29.95/month if you have Verizon local and long distance phone service
Their website seems to hide the data rates, I'm guessing because they
can't be competitive if they tell the customer the truth about their
relative speeds compared to the advertised data rates of cable.  This is
just my opinion though.
I have no idea if this ISP is Linux friendly.  They seem to be proud
about the included access to MSN8.  I have no idea if they have the
hassle of PPPoE, client-id or other hoops you have to jump through to
get Linux working.

Flex DSL
========
http://www.flex.com/adsl/
$63.49/month for 768k/128k
$69.99/month for 768k/384k
$93.99/month for 768k/768k
I would list several other DSL providers here, but it appears that
Verizon successfully leveraged their monopoly control over the lines,
causing the line charge alone to be above their own DSL service price. 
Perhaps the only real benefit of this Flex DSL is the static IP and
cheaper than RR prices for greater than 384k upload.

RoadRunner Enterprise
=====================
http://oceanic.com/ (Click on Internet, RoadRunner, Business)
$79.95/month "Small Business" rate, same thing as residential
$129.95/month "Business" 3Mbps/384Kbps with static IP
$179.95/month "Corporate" 3Mbps/768kbps with 5 static IPs
$199.95/month "Enterprise" 3Mbps/1Mbps with 5 static IPs
$249.95/month "Enterprise Plus" 3Mbps/1.5Mbps with 13 static IPs

Pretty good deal compared to T1 prices, although I suspect CIR is well
below 100%.  Probably good if you need higher upload rate and/or static
IPs.

Summary:
Mainly due to the technology, it is my opinion that DSL has a difficult
time being competitive in price/speed ratio with cable modem.  I suspect
that Verizon is using a low price on their DSL plan along with hiding
their true data rates in an attempt to appear competitive with cable,
while at the same time make it difficult for competing DSL providers to
survive.

I personally have been happy with my RoadRunner cable service for many
years... maybe 5 years now.  Based upon some e-mails from other people
it seems that Earthlink is roughly equivalent and friendly to Linux
users too, only simple DHCP to connect.

Any Verizon DSL users can comment if simple DHCP from Linux works, or
must you use PPPoE or client-id to make it work?

Other Options
=============
As for other competition in town, there appears to be a wireless
Internet provider http://wow.hi.net.  I haven't seen their service so I
can't comment on quality, speed or security.  Has anyone used this or
other wireless ISPs?

I also heard something about Hawaiian Electric currently in residential
testing of powerline Internet.  I am unable to find any information
about this on their website, so I don't know anything about the
technology, prices or speed.  Does anyone have any information about
this?

Warren Togami
warren at togami.com