What's your Internet Speed and how much speed matters? (1 Viewer)

[ManW_TheUncool]

I just began the process of switching my mother from lowest tier Verizon Fios over to Spectrum (and downgrading from triple-play to just internet service) since I couldn't get Verizon to drop their pricing nearly enough to be worth keeping while she was also experiencing digital noise problems w/ their voice service...

It's time she cut the TV as well as landline phone cord anyway -- she really only watches NBC w/ it, not much else, which can likely be handled by streaming w/ Peacock and maybe the Roku Channel (the latter for easier TV news access), and her sporadic uses of the voice service could easily be better handled w/ other alternatives (besides cellphone)...

She was only getting 50/50 from Verizon Fios (though they offered to bump that up to their current lowest tier whatever that is), but will now have something like 480/23 instead -- officially, it's 400/20, but in practice, speed tests usually clock in at circa 480/23 even via Wifi using a good router... and I chose the TP-Link AX55 for her, which is waaay more powerful than she'll ever need in her tiny 500ft coop apt, LOL...

That should easily save me ~$100/month (even if we stuck w/ what Verizon counteroffered for their triple-play and got locked into 2-year contract) -- yeah, I've been footing that bill amongst other things...

_Man_

 

[John Dirk]

she really only watches NBC w/ it, not much else, which can likely be handled by streaming w/ Peacock and maybe the Roku Channel

Is she within maybe 25 miles of a major metro? If so a simple OTA antenna is likely all she needs.

 

[John Dirk]

This company is only laying the fiber, they are not an ISP. They said you will have 4 or 5 ISPs to choose from and they are hoping more come on board. You are only under contract for the 1st year, after that you can jump to a new ISP anytime you like.

Welcome!

I would definitely need to see the fine print on that deal as it isn't readily apparent to me how this company either shares their infrastructure between (presumably) competing ISP's or recoups their substantial initial investment. Where I live this would be more analogous to our natural gas setup. You buy the actual gas from competing wholesale marketers but it is all delivered through the same decades old infrastructure owned by Atlanta Gas Light Company, which you pay a flat monthly fee for its use in addition to any charges levied by your preferred marketer.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I just went through the annual "dance" again with Comcast at our Michigan home, and actually reduced our Internet speed from 1Gbps to 600Mbps as part of the new package, saving $20 per month. Even that bandwidth is overkill for our use -- it's just my wife and me, and we are never streaming more than one thing at a time -- but anything lower did not save us any more money. We now have unlimited data usage, too. where before we had 1TB per month (which I only went over once after switching to a new cloud data backup service).

We only have 200Mbps at our South Carolina condo, and that is more than enough to handle a single 4K video stream. We could get more bandwidth, but I don't see the need to pay for anything higher -- it's only $43 / month, including the modem and router.

 

[opus123]

I just began the process of switching my mother from lowest tier Verizon Fios over to Spectrum (and downgrading from triple-play to just internet service) since I couldn't get Verizon to drop their pricing nearly enough to be worth keeping while she was also experiencing digital noise problems w/ their voice service...

It's time she cut the TV as well as landline phone cord anyway -- she really only watches NBC w/ it, not much else, which can likely be handled by streaming w/ Peacock and maybe the Roku Channel (the latter for easier TV news access), and her sporadic uses of the voice service could easily be better handled w/ other alternatives (besides cellphone)...

She was only getting 50/50 from Verizon Fios (though they offered to bump that up to their current lowest tier whatever that is), but will now have something like 480/23 instead -- officially, it's 400/20, but in practice, speed tests usually clock in at circa 480/23 even via Wifi using a good router... and I chose the TP-Link AX55 for her, which is waaay more powerful than she'll ever need in her tiny 500ft coop apt, LOL...

That should easily save me ~$100/month (even if we stuck w/ what Verizon counteroffered for their triple-play and got locked into 2-year contract) -- yeah, I've been footing that bill amongst other things...

_Man_

My mom had directv for tv. I can't get her off it. She has to have it for baseball. She tried the baseball package but they blocked the team she wanted to watch which is 300 miles away from her. Apparently 300 miles away is still considered a home team and all their games were blacked out.

 

[opus123]

Welcome!

I would definitely need to see the fine print on that deal as it isn't readily apparent to me how this company either shares their infrastructure between (presumably) competing ISP's or recoups their substantial initial investment. Where I live this would be more analogous to our natural gas setup. You buy the actual gas from competing wholesale marketers but it is all delivered through the same decades old infrastructure owned by Atlanta Gas Light Company, which you pay a flat monthly fee for its use in addition to any charges levied by your preferred marketer.

That is how our electricity works but of course I guess you saw what happens in the free market during our big snow/ice snow storms last year. People got $6000 electric bills for the month because they were with companies that charge the going rate for electricity. A lot of us are now paying higher bills so these companies can re-coop their costs from last year.

Anyway, here is a link to the fiber companies site. Like I said they are in Sweden and Germany and I guess that is how they are doing it here?

Making Fiber Happen

us.openinfra.com

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Is she within maybe 25 miles of a major metro? If so a simple OTA antenna is likely all she needs.

Antenna probably (still) won't work well enough for her despite being otherwise plenty close enough to the main signal source in Manhattan over here. Her coop doesn't allow anything outside her apt, including her balcony and the rooftop, and her windows all face the wrong direction w/ essentially nothing nearby for signals to possibly bounce back toward her (as she lives right off the coast facing Staten Island). We did actually try an antenna long ago, and it just didn't work well enough, especially since she's very picky about its placement...

Anyway, since paying $5/month for Peacock plus free Roku Channel (for easier TV news access) may work well enough for her, that's fine enough w/ us -- there are also plenty of other streamable content we already get/share nowadays unlike 5-10 years ago afterall, including some Chinese stuff she streams w/ this other device she has...

_Man_

 

[John Dirk]

there are also plenty of other streamable content we already get/share nowadays unlike 5-10 years ago afterall,

Couldn't agree more. That pretty much sums up the whole dilemma for me. There's just so much free content out there, usually better than the pre-packaged crap we've come to know as traditional TV channels anyway. All you have to do is look for it. I have way more content to get to than time to watch it these days.

 

[John Dirk]

Anyway, here is a link to the fiber companies site. Like I said they are in Sweden and Germany and I guess that is how they are doing it here?

Making Fiber Happen

us.openinfra.com

Interesting. It looks like they are surveying neighborhoods and running fiber only when they have enough customers to absorb the upfront costs. Once they have paid for the main pipe back to the POP [Point of Presence] adding additional customers within that neighborhood will be comparably cheap. It's really no different than what Google has been doing since 2012 except they are leasing their infrastructure to ISP's (presumably all housed within the same POP) instead of actually becoming one themselves.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Interesting. It looks like they are surveying neighborhoods and running fiber only when they have enough customers to absorb the upfront costs. Once they have paid for the main pipe back to the POP [Point of Presence] adding additional customers within that neighborhood will be comparably cheap. It's really no different than what Google has been doing since 2012 except they are leasing their infrastructure to ISP's (presumably all housed within the same POP) instead of actually becoming one themselves.

Haven't most of the fiber companies, including the big guys, been basically doing that for some time now?

I just checked Verizon again for my current (turn-of-20th-century townhouse) building, and they (still) just want me to submit a request presumably (to be pooled w/ all other neighboring requests) for the same kind of needed infrastructure installation/work over here... even though I live in a fairly well-to-do part of Brooklyn just a 20min walk from the downtown Barclays Center and Atlantic Terminal and shopping center (and just ~1/2-hour door-to-door subway commute to Wall St and WTC area and most of downtown Manhattan)... Some parts of this (partially historic landmarked) neighborhood did apparently already get that work done over the last few years, but I guess very substantial parts still haven't yet (perhaps partly, both directly and indirectly, due to its historic landmark status and such)...

_Man_

 

[opus123]

Haven't most of the fiber companies, including the big guys, been basically doing that for some time now?

I just checked Verizon again for my current (turn-of-20th-century townhouse) building, and they (still) just want me to submit a request presumably (to be pooled w/ all other neighboring requests) for the same kind of needed infrastructure installation/work over here... even though I live in a fairly well-to-do part of Brooklyn just a 20min walk from the downtown Barclays Center and Atlantic Terminal and shopping center (and just ~1/2-hour door-to-door subway commute to Wall St and WTC area and most of downtown Manhattan)... Some parts of this (partially historic landmarked) neighborhood did apparently already get that work done over the last few years, but I guess very substantial parts still haven't yet (perhaps partly, both directly and indirectly, due to its historic landmark status and such)...

_Man_

I'm not sure they are surveying in all areas. ATT just started putting fiber down in my moms neighborhood and no one surveyed them to see if enough were interested. Of course in her case they have to do that in order to compete with Comcast. As for the fiber in my area, the difference will be it is open for any ISP to use. I'm interested to see what the 10gig package will cost and if they will offer any packages other than 1gig or 10gig. I believe comcast has a 2.5gig package in some areas. I have a 2.5gig modem and 2.5gig port on my PC but 1gig is currently all my cable company offers. They have been fairly quick at offering upgrades so I keep hoping they will offer a 2.5gig package soon.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I'm not sure they are surveying in all areas. ATT just started putting fiber down in my moms neighborhood and no one surveyed them to see if enough were interested. Of course in her case they have to do that in order to compete with Comcast. As for the fiber in my area, the difference will be it is open for any ISP to use. I'm interested to see what the 10gig package will cost and if they will offer any packages other than 1gig or 10gig. I believe comcast has a 2.5gig package in some areas. I have a 2.5gig modem and 2.5gig port on my PC but 1gig is currently all my cable company offers. They have been fairly quick at offering upgrades so I keep hoping they will offer a 2.5gig package soon.

They probably don't need to survey much, if at all, for more densely populated areas (other than inner cities), especially for larger, well-populated apt complexes (particularly for buildings/complexes built in recent decade or three vs many decades ago), and/or areas that have fairly easy access (possibly in part due to relaxed or non-existent zoning laws) for infrastructure work...

_Man_

 

[John Dirk]

They probably don't need to survey much, if at all, for more densely populated areas (other than inner cities), especially for larger, well-populated apt complexes (particularly for buildings/complexes built in recent decade or three vs many decades ago), and/or areas that have fairly easy access (possibly in part due to relaxed or non-existent zoning laws) for infrastructure work...

_Man_

Likely true for AT&T, Comcast, etc. but probably not for Open Infra as their business model appears to require up front subsidizing of infrastructure costs instead of recouping on the backend as is traditional, at least for US companies.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Upgraded my Frontier 150/mb/s up and down to 500mb/s up and down with a current max available of 2GB/s if I choose to upgrade. My motherboard can handle 2.5gb/s but for now since I do not have multiple users on the network I feel 500mb/s is good enough.

Speed test

 

[Todd Erwin]

Spectrum is currently upgrading my little rural town from their minimum 100Mbps service to 200 Mbps. Not sure what that means for me, as I subscribe to their 400Mbps service.

 

[JohnRice]

I’d mentioned that we passed municipal internet a few years ago, which is now available throughout town. Comcast is really trying to keep customers. They just bumped my service to 800mb/s, but I’m actually getting nearly 1gb, for $50/month. It’s not synchronous like the municipal option, though. It just shows what a racket the business is that prior to municipal internet being passed, I was paying $80/month for 75mb, now it’s $50/month for 950mb.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Out here where I am, Optimum/Cablevision is trying really hard to keep internet customers with what is frankly a baffling offer.

Verizon Fios, which I have, offers 500mb/s (that often clocks in much higher) for $40 a month. It’s not a promotional rate, it’s not a limited time offer, it’s just the price.

And yet, every week, Optimum is spending money to send me a new full color glossy flier with attached fridge magnets asking me to switch to their service with 300mb/s for $50 a month for the first six months.

Why in the world would I switch over to pay more for less? And how much are they wasting on these mailings?

 

[John Dirk]

Out here where I am, Optimum/Cablevision is trying really hard to keep internet customers with what is frankly a baffling offer.

Verizon Fios, which I have, offers 500mb/s (that often clocks in much higher) for $40 a month. It’s not a promotional rate, it’s not a limited time offer, it’s just the price.

And yet, every week, Optimum is spending money to send me a new full color glossy flier with attached fridge magnets asking me to switch to their service with 300mb/s for $50 a month for the first six months.

Why in the world would I switch over to pay more for less? And how much are they wasting on these mailings?

You wouldn't. I suspect Optimum/Cablevision is just saturating too large of an area with their marketing feces. There are probably some areas fairly close to you that fall outside of Verizon's territory.

 

[Todd Erwin]

Out here where I am, Optimum/Cablevision is trying really hard to keep internet customers with what is frankly a baffling offer.

Verizon Fios, which I have, offers 500mb/s (that often clocks in much higher) for $40 a month. It’s not a promotional rate, it’s not a limited time offer, it’s just the price.

And yet, every week, Optimum is spending money to send me a new full color glossy flier with attached fridge magnets asking me to switch to their service with 300mb/s for $50 a month for the first six months.

Why in the world would I switch over to pay more for less? And how much are they wasting on these mailings?

Yeah, I get rather expensive mailers from Choice Broadband trying to entice me to switch to their service, which many in town swear by. Choice is probably the most expensive provider in town when you calculate their rate on Mbps versus Spectrum. Choice only offers a max speed of 12Mbps down and less than 2Mbps up (slower than even AT&T) at $65/mo once the 6 month intro rate of $50 ends. Not sure how they can use the term Broadband in their name if they don’t even offer true broadband speeds. After doing further research, I found out why everyone praises this company.

1. No credit check
2. Local company (not really true anymore now that they closed all of their stores in a 100 mile radius)
3. Minimal installation. Many property owners will not allow Spectrum drill any holes into their rental property to run a cable line. Choice has been offering internet for much longer than Spectrum, so most properties have had Choice’s antennas/dishes installed several renters ago.

If anything, I think T-Mobile’s 5G service is Choice’s main competitor for those who are not allowed by their landlord to have Spectrum installed. Many in town who have T-Mobile’s internet service are getting up to 400 Mbps down fairly reliably for about the same rate that Choice offers for their 12 Mbps service.

 

[JohnRice]

Out here where I am, Optimum/Cablevision is trying really hard to keep internet customers with what is frankly a baffling offer.

Verizon Fios, which I have, offers 500mb/s (that often clocks in much higher) for $40 a month. It’s not a promotional rate, it’s not a limited time offer, it’s just the price.

And yet, every week, Optimum is spending money to send me a new full color glossy flier with attached fridge magnets asking me to switch to their service with 300mb/s for $50 a month for the first six months.

Why in the world would I switch over to pay more for less? And how much are they wasting on these mailings?

Most people are completely ignorant about internet, so I suspect they’re hoping to get them to believe it’s a better deal than they currently have.