Home internet?

[treehugger]

For those that have cut the cord with cable what are you doing for home internet? We don’t have “cable” but are still paying cox for the internet. are there any other choices? My husband works from home, so he needs good service.

[carlsbadworker]

It depends on where you live. But generally, there isn’t many choices. For most American, they only have one choice of the cable provider (Cox here) for cable Internet and one choice of teleco provider (AT&T U-verse or Verizon FIOS). FIOS is the best if you can get it, but they have stopped expanding. Google fiber stopped too. Some municipals want to build their own infrastructure but the telco/cable guys are pulling all kinds of tricks to stop them.

Some people are now putting their hopes on Elon Musk’s starlink, with another 60 satellites to be launched on Monday’s window. But I wouldn’t count on it. We need a government that will break up monopoly like in the days of Ma Bell, sadly currently neither republican or democrats are interested in breaking up those monopolies and American pay way too much for average quality Internet.

[Coronita]

TMobile started offering 5G isp service for $50/month
https://www.t-mobile.com/isp/index

[spdrun]

Verizon FiOS and Spectrum can both provide Internet only for under $50 per month … and fiber/coax is still better than airy-fairy wireless junque. The trial rates eventually expire, but you can churn the account between different household members or roommates, or switch providers once every 1-2 years if you have two available.

[svelte]

We got rid of cable TV five years back, and really don’t miss it at all. Roku you’re the greatest!

As you point out, we still need internet service so my wife upgraded us to Cox Premiere 150 mbps. In retrospect this was a very wise move because we have all sorts of data going over the internet now and I’m sure we’d be feeling it had she not upgraded our service.

As much as I hated Cox Cable, I am very happy with Cox Internet. The service to our house has been rock solid and that’s important to us since we rely on it for so much now.

I’m almost afraid to find out what all would be affected if we lost internet service!

One note: you should check your internet speed and ensure you’re receiving what you’re paying for. Shortly after my wife upgraded us, my son and I didn’t feel we were getting 150 mbps so we checked and sure enough we were only getting about 40 mbps. I isolated the internet connection (removed routers, etc) to prove that, and called Cox. After a couple of calls and technicians, they were able to determine they had an incorrect setting on their end. Once they flipped it to the correct position, we were getting the speed we signed up for.

Cheers

[spdrun]

You can also get Cocks Essential for $40/mo.

[Coronita]

Generally speaking, your house only gives you one cable option for ISP or one landline option for ISP.

For ISP through cable, your choices are really only Spectrum or Cox, not both. Only one provider services your area.

For ISP through landline, it’s ATT because ATT owns most of the landlines in San Diego. Verizon does not service San Diego.

https://www.cabletv.com/ca/san-diego

There isn’t much price competition so your only choice to save money is to switch back and forth between the promotional offers and switch when the promotion ends. Both cable and landline CO’s know this, that’s why they only started to offer the discounted internet service if you bundle with TV service. And if you don’t bundle, sometimes they will data cap you each month to discourage you from using another streaming media/tv service (that was the point of net neutrality where an ISP couldn’t force you buy content from them by making the cost to obtain content more expensive elsewhere).

Anyway, that’s why I mentioned Tmobile’s 5G service as a 3rd option because it’s really the first time in a long time we have a viable alternative that is priced competively. TMobile 5G isn’t really the 5G we are looking for, but it’s a step in the right direction. And the service should get even better once it completely the acquisition of Sprint. Unless you are a power user, TMobile might be a viable option for you. And if you already are a TMobile customer, you might be able to convince them to give you a bundled price.

There’s actually a 4th option but it’s neither cost effective nor is bandwidth great. It’s ISP via ViaSat, but the sattelite link is only good if you live in some rural area, trailer park, or boat, which neither cable, phone, or Tmobile 5G provides service… Or if you insist on having internet access anywhere because you are preparing for the end of the world, as some piggs appear to be.

https://www.viasatspecials.com/lp/internet?zip=92130

I just switched from ATT uverse to Spectrum and negotiated a lowered promotional rate. When it expires, I’ll revisit this again.

[spdrun]

Doesn’t conventional satellite have bad latency issues?

[Myriad]

Yes, the latency is high (550ms Roundtrip), so it’s bad for things that require real-time interaction (games, video chat). I’ve done real-time video chat over satcom – it’s doable, just have to allow a slight delay for the response (whatsapp over a 1Mbps x 512k).
Probably even worse for things like webex which have their own delay in addition to the network latency.

But for things like video streaming, minor web browsing, it doesn’t really make much of a difference.

[FlyerInHi]

I’m going to give t-mobile a try when available in my area.
I hate cox because they have 1TB data cap. Spectrum does not. ATT Uverse is slow.

[svelte]

[quote=FlyerInHi]I’m going to give t-mobile a try when available in my area.
I hate cox because they have 1TB data cap. [/quote]

That’s about 10 4K movies or a couple hundred high def movies.

We’ve never hit that limit…better things to do with our time.

If you’re that much of a megauser, you can buy 500GB more from Cox for $30 more or unlimited for $50 more.

[ltsddd]

Cox gigablast has cap of 2TB.

[FlyerInHi]

Security cameras that upload to the cloud use a lot of data.

[spdrun]

[quote=FlyerInHi]Security cameras that upload to the cloud use a lot of data.[/quote]

Suckurity cameras that upload to the cloud destroy privacy. If you use them in your home, you’re a fucking fool. If you aim them towards public property or a neighbor’s property, you’re a scoundrel that enables Amazon’s or Google’s surveillance networks.

[svelte]

[quote=spdrun][quote=FlyerInHi]Security cameras that upload to the cloud use a lot of data.[/quote]

Suckurity cameras that upload to the cloud destroy privacy. If you use them in your home, you’re a fucking fool. If you aim them towards public property or a neighbor’s property, you’re a scoundrel that enables Amazon’s or Google’s surveillance networks.[/quote]

That’s your opinion.

Back to FIH’s point, it is valid – cloud-based security storage does eat up bandwidth. I’m looking to upgrade my surveillance system, so I’m glad he mentioned that aspect.

Right now, I store all my footage locally…which has both pros and cons.

[Author]

Posts