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ISP costs, just curious...
Well- my old plan is discontinuing as of Nov. 30th. It was DSL 1MB up/down and $35/month. The plan was going to </= 6MB and $84/month with a (never before required) yearly contract. So- my distance from source is already too far to improve on that 1MB up/down according to the tech that was here a few months back when I had a minor issue. For more information, Verizon/FIOS is not offered in my area, as this is AT&T country. Cable internet in my area is via MediaCom or Comcast, and neither are examples of good service or steady continuous connections. Satellite et al is way to spotty or expensive. Up until now, I have had to have DSL/landline or go cable, neither of which are the fastest. I want a home phone, so getting rid of it is also not an option.
So- that leaves the local power company and their side-business of ISP/VOIP/streaming-TV. I don't want the last part, as I get enough via the local air, and with this new service might actually be able to stream something if I want to without buffering. They offer unlimited 25MB up/down at the price of about $50/month. I'm going to also get VOIP through them, because I can stick it to AT&T and pay less a month for the 2 new services than my old landline alone. AND- it's a FIBER connection. Not DSL, not cable, not dialup.
Since I've been going through this rigamaroll, I was curious what others pay for it elsewhere.
What say you?
PS- I will likely have no internet from Nov 30 through Dec 10. Those of you with my number will just have to call me if you need to reach me.
Comments
Yeesh, internet in much of the US is a sad joke. I'd look closely at Starlink, at least that will offer some competition to the otherwise monopolized internet supply.
It's not that much better in Canada, but at least unless you live in a rural area there's at least 2 options at any given location. I am fortunate to have fibre to the home at 940MB up and down for CAD$100/mo. I don't bother with TV or phone services, internet services for all needs.
Last year a provider called Metronet came to town and put cable everywhere and I was able to get 200MB up and down for $60 which is less than the 5MB down 1MB up we were spending for DSL. We use Vonage for our phone service which was $25 initially and is now approaching $40. We've never had cable and probably never will. We do use Neflix.
Ron
I’ve been waiting for the local electric company to lay the cable to my street (just moved into our new home we built in Clark, CO). In the meantime I’m working off of my phone’s personal hot spot (it’s rather cold) via AT&T…. a solid 4 of 4 bars @ 3G, ugly.
I will say, at our place in Chicago we opted for phone over internet with Xfinity and was happy to dump the land line.
I work for a subsidiary of Mediacom and if I didn't get a pretty steep discount, I would be looking at other options. Lots of folks here switch every year or so just to get the best deals.
I got the T mobile 5G home internet gizmo a few months ago, it seems to work well, about 100mb, and an even $50 a month.
I cut my land line about 5 years ago, and went with OOMA VOIP connected to my local ethernet LAN. Worked fine for a long time, but it's pretty unusable now, due to extremely crappy Comcast upload speeds. I'd call them, but I just don't want to deal with the pain and aggravation. Google Gig fiber is all around me, but not on my block. Grrrr....
Ben, $50 /mo in the boonies for fiber and decent speed sounds like a deal. The problem with any satellite tech is that streaming is ok, but any 2 way traffic is terrible, with the 1.5 second round trip to low earth orbit. And yeah, I have basically never heard anyone happy with residential internet from AT&T.
My internet was an independant ISP, routed through AT&T, and shouldn't have been eligible for it at all due to distance. Once i cut that option, it's gone and no longer able to resign up. I'm only a mile or 2 from town, but apparently still too far. Boonies it is not, but for options i might as well be.
I did look at Verizon, since cells are on that, but they were more costly, and only a hot spot of sorts.
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No ISP or land line. Cell phone or bust. Runs at 4G lite speeds with monthly data caps. Cost ranges from 25 to 50/mt depending on the cap. EDIT: Poorly worded. I do have access to cable or DSL, but refuse to pay the high prices. Since I have to have a cell phone when traveling, I have learned to live within the data cap system.
You might look into a cell phone provider and possibly new phone that can hotspot 4g or (hopefully) 5g. If you lock a contract with a new cell provider the promo rate might well be worth the hop. Then in one or two years you look at new options and hopefully Google will have fiber at your doorstep.
Prices are absurd, but I am lucky enough to have AT&T fiber in my area. So my price is 100$ a month for 1000 mbps up and down, unlimited. Outside of that, for almost the same price I can get a quarter of that speed from Spectrum (was Time Warner cable).
Same as dcibel here - fiber optic to the house - last speed test was 970mb up and down. Our monthly bill is $118 with tax. And we live on the coast separated from the mainland by 2 ferries.
We have 300mbps from Optimum cable for $75 a month. There's no competition among ISPs locally even tho we live in the middle of Brooklyn. Some sections are served by Verizon, others by Optimum cable. There's no way to switch to a better price. I've had an ongoing battle with Optimum because they decided to raise the rate for the same exact service from $65 a month to $105 a month. Now we are on "promotional rate" for a year. We even tried to open new account on my wife's name but to no avail it wouldn't make us "new customers" for a better service and lower costs. It simply sux.
The quality of service from Optimum is fairly mediocre. It's 300mbts in theory and there are a lot intermittent drop outs.
I drive way too fast to worry about internet cost...
So you drive fast, but have to surf slow?
Nah, I surf plenty fast. I just don't sweat the almost $200/month bill for phones/internet/cableTV
The fact is not discussed, but the US has some of the highest Internet costs and slowest data rates of 1st world nations because we have allowed ISP monopolies. They can and do raise prices with impunity. Sad.
Alright, I'm back up and running after the switch. So far so good...
I hear also that my N450 dual-band router is likely not the greatest any longer, and there is no update available for it. I really like the Belkin I have and it's never done me wrong.
What do you recommend?
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I'm a big fan of Netgear. Just got a AX1800. If you need good wifi all over your house, I found that the 3 pack of mesh wifi by TP-Link works great.
Mesh is the way to go if you want to cover a large area. But pricey.
Not sure if you need wifi6.
So, what are you looking for?
Tech just keeps marching to the future. A couple of years ago, people didn't know or care about Gig ethernet in the home, now it's standard. Wifi 6 will be the norm soon. I got a 3 pack of the TP-Link wifi mesh access points for $230. Not too bad and it totally fixed all my issues with coverage in my house.
I use Ubiquiti gear. To my knowledge all their APs are POE and meshable.
Found a sale on the Belkin AX3200 for ~$82 shipped. They're running a holiday sale. I'd call that a score for the cost.
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We have Xfinity now - “2GB” that’s in practice slower than our 1GB AT&T Fiber in Atlanta was both down and up on wired connection. (Up was expected, down a surprise. Either way though speed is adequate for our needs, especially since Wi-Fi rarely gets over 500Mbps anyway.) Costs $30/mo more, too: $80/mo. But unlike in ATL where AT&T and Google laid fiber and competed there’s nothing like that in our neck of Chicago. Fortunately the service seems fine so far.