My Internet ISP charges have been slowing creeping up. We have DSL broadband, and I don’t really know for sure if it is me or not… but our connection just seems to drop every once in a while, and stay disconnected for 1-2 minutes. It especially happens when I drop Entrecards. It is REALLY annoying. Since the costs are going up anyway, I’m looking around.

Anyone have Charter High Speed? I hear they are very good. They have an extremely tempting deal going on right now (I am a real sucker for deals): a Charter Laptop-a-Day Giveaway. If you order their service, you are entered to win 1 of 30 Presario laptops valued at over $600!!! And if you order from them online, you get a $100 Shell gas card for free! See the sweepstakes rules for yourself. Charter has tremendous speeds: there’s the 5Mbps plan, the 10Mbps plan, and the 16Mbps. This is mind-blowing because I get, uh, 700Kbps. Charter is offering their High-Speed service for $19.99 for 6 months. I already pay that for my stinky DSL service!!! :S

Anyway, the free gas card and the computer giveaway looks so good. Check it out if you like.

I’ve grumbled before about my ISP intermittently booting me offline when I try to drop Entrecards. It’s SO frustrating! Sometimes my Firefox browser will crash when this happens… and I just can’t bear to use Internet Explorer. Grrrrrr. I’m keeping my eyes open for a new ISP. Here’s a juicy tidbit I discovered: Charter internet. They are having a special right now– $14.99 a month for speeds up to 5Mbps!!! Right now with my current (lame) ISP, I get only about 768 Kbps. :-p I can’t imagine what 5 Mbps feels like, probably like the difference between a Volkswagon bug and a Ferrari?

If you’re looking for an ISP, check out Charter. Their offer of $14.99 is good for 6 months, and they’ll throw in a $25 Shell gasoline card, too. This offer expires July 31, so make up your mind! Charter allows a “test drive” of 30 days, so if you decide you want to go back to your Volkwagon bug, you can. As for me, I’m seriously thinking of driving that Ferrari. If you have Charter, please leave a comment and let me know. I’d love to hear of your experience!