Although it took more a lot longer to actually get around to making the change than I had planned on … I have finally switched Internet providers.

Previously I was using Covad for the midrange.com Internet service and AT&T for personal Internet service.

The Covad service was 1mb SDSL (1mb down / 1mb up with 5 static IP addresses) and the AT&T service was 6mb down & 768k up (ADSL).

The new service, provided by Comcast, is 22mb down / 5mb up and includes 13 static IP addresses.  It’s replacing both the Covad and AT&T service.

In addition to the improved speed, I’ll be saving about $50 / month in cost.

The ordering process was quite easy & fast … install was just about as fast.

I placed the order Wednesday and the install was scheduled for Saturday.

The installer came out Saturday morning and had the service up and running within 90 minutes.  It didn’t hurt that I already had a coax cable running to the area I have the computers setup.

Figuring out the Comcast cable router was fairly easy … although I did struggle with how I was going to configure the IP addresses.

I finally got that figured out and started migrating the systems over to their new IP addresses.  I was hoping to be able to put two IP’s on each system so I could move the systems over gradually … but couldn’t figure out how to do that.  I just did a hard cut-over and setup a lightweight proxy server on another machine to re-route traffic from the old IP to the new IP in the interim.

I’m almost 100% migrated over … I need to get a friend who’s mail I host to reconfigure his MX records and DNS to use the new IP’s.

I also need to get Comcast to get my PTR records setup … I requested it on Thursday, but it hasn’t happened yet.  I’ll wait until Monday before calling back.  This is the only gripe I’ve had so far … this process is taking far longer than it should.

In case you’re curious … here’s the results of a speed test on the new service …

The tech who did the install said the speed would settle down to a bit closer to what I’m paying for over time… although I’m seeing somewhat better speeds even now.

The AT&T service has already been canceled … I have to wait until the PTR & other DNS changes are complete before I can cancel the Covad service.