I suspected I wasn't hitting on all cylinders on my DSL service, and when I clocked it last week at this site, it turns out my upload AND download speeds are sitting in the 300 Kbps range. Pee-yoo!

My own fault, of course. A few years back I decided to have broadband brought into my house, and the ONLY choice I really had at the time was DSL. Since I'm about a mile from the phone facility, this worked out pretty good. It cost a lot--something like 75 bucks a month, but it did the job, and at least I could deduct a portion of the costs.

Time passes. The cable company comes out with their own broadband. The city puts in universal wireless(!). And yet, I plug along on my DSL. My provider switched to "large business only," but quietly grandfathered me in under the old deal. I have the experienced computer operator's immense reluctance to change something that already works (a lot of times this pays off, which is why I can sit here and laugh at Vista users). Also I'd have to change my e-mail addresses and other things.

Inertia.

More time passes. Now I've got my cable company telling me I can get burst download rates of 16 Mbps for twenty bucks less than I'm paying now. I can see it's long past time to reevaluate.

I call up my provider, who is kind of surprised to hear from me (they have given me good customer service when I needed it, but I don't need it much). They've gone back into the home/home office business, and the deals look a lot better. I can get 6000/768 for about half what I'm paying now, and I'm going for it. I get to keep all the e-mail addresses and I get much better speed at much less cost. It isn't 16 Mbps, but for now it's a good compromise.