Please wait...
Of course you do. You have cable. :)
I don't know how the cable company gets away with running TV ads that say "so-and-so rating says that we are faster than FiOS" when even the most casual observer can see that there's absolutely no comparison. Maybe if they ran the test in the middle of the night and on a node that has no other subscribers attached to it.
I don't know how the cable company gets away with running TV ads that say "so-and-so rating says that we are faster than FiOS" when even the most casual observer can see that there's absolutely no comparison. Maybe if they ran the test in the middle of the night and on a node that has no other subscribers attached to it.
FiOS suffers from congested switches and arbitrarily imposed traffic shaping,
giving exactly the same end-result as congested shared media. If you have
good FiOS bandwidth, consider yourself lucky. Here in the Bay Area, FiOS(-like)
service(s) aren't any better than cable due to over-subscription.
That doesn't sound like the typical experience here in the northeast.
Ragnar -- you've had both cable and FiOS in recent years, can you chime in on this topic?
Ragnar -- you've had both cable and FiOS in recent years, can you chime in on this topic?
Not only have I had both, I had a bit of overlap.
FiOS connectivity has been rock solid, and I've not once run a speed test that has shown a degredation of performance.
Cable on the other hand seemed to be out once every couple of months for an extended period, and out for a few minutes between 4:30am and 4:45am WEEKLY.
As for cable's speed, it was erratic. When it worked well, it was fine.
But there were nights where the speed was sub-20mbit consistently.
I'm quite glad I switched.
My only issue now is that the FiOS pricing isn't as good as it used to be, and I'm starting to see the bills creep up.
FiOS connectivity has been rock solid, and I've not once run a speed test that has shown a degredation of performance.
Cable on the other hand seemed to be out once every couple of months for an extended period, and out for a few minutes between 4:30am and 4:45am WEEKLY.
As for cable's speed, it was erratic. When it worked well, it was fine.
But there were nights where the speed was sub-20mbit consistently.
I'm quite glad I switched.
My only issue now is that the FiOS pricing isn't as good as it used to be, and I'm starting to see the bills creep up.
Where do you live (roughly)? Which cable provider? Comcast has been mostly
good bandwidth-wise (but then again, I'm a business-class customer). AT&T
is def. something to avoid if possible in east bay region of Bay Area. Friend
who lives in Sunnyvale recently switched from U-verse to cable. Heard of
similar reports from Verizon customers too. BUT, as you say, depends entirely
on where you live too.
When you want broadband, you get broadband.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/12/us/ohio-jail-computers-trnd/index.html
Here in Uncensoredland, the legacy cable company (formerly Cablevision, now Altice) promised us in 2016 that they would start rolling out 10 Gbps fiber-to-the-premises for all subscribers in their service footprint, that the rollout would begin in 2017, and be completed within five years.
Well, here we are almost two years later, and there's no sign of fiber construction anywhere. Certainly not here.
But they crammed the set top box, cable modem, and wifi/router into one box ... so that's just as good, right? Who needs fiber to the premises when you've got everything locked into a single proprietary device?
Time to re-up with Verizon.
I tried to cancel the television service, thinking we'd just go streaming-only this year. By the time I was off the phone with them, my monthly bill went down by $23/month and my bandwidth went up to 940/880 Mbps.
Don Verizone made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
I tried to cancel the television service, thinking we'd just go streaming-only this year. By the time I was off the phone with them, my monthly bill went down by $23/month and my bandwidth went up to 940/880 Mbps.
Don Verizone made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
Just upgraded to 100Mbit and now I find out we supposedly have gigabit available. But I'd be willing to bet my geographical location is just far enough outside of their high speed zone.
Fun, isn't it? And you probably signed a contract, so an upgrade is off the
table for a couple of years.
Things are getting pretty cheap here (or at least, they're more willing to give the same promotional rates to existing customers as they are to potential new customers) because we have robust competition between the "cable" and "phone" companies, plus they seem to have picked up on the fact that they're competing with the streaming services.
I expected to become a "cord cutter" this year but it didn't happen. I may still become a "cord shaver" by ditching the STB+DVR and buying an HDHomeRun Prime. That would eliminate the cost of equipment rental (except for a CableCard) and also allow us to watch ultra-shitty mainstream TV from any screen in the house. This would also justify the cost of new switches and routers.
Things are getting pretty cheap here (or at least, they're more willing to give the same promotional rates to existing customers as they are to potential new customers) because we have robust competition between the "cable" and "phone" companies, plus they seem to have picked up on the fact that they're competing with the streaming services.
I expected to become a "cord cutter" this year but it didn't happen. I may still become a "cord shaver" by ditching the STB+DVR and buying an HDHomeRun Prime. That would eliminate the cost of equipment rental (except for a CableCard) and also allow us to watch ultra-shitty mainstream TV from any screen in the house. This would also justify the cost of new switches and routers.
I just finished upgrading the network in my home office to 1 Gbps. So far
I'm not really noticing the difference, and I do have a 1 Gbps Internet connection.
Speed tests are averaging 650-700 Mbps in both directions, and I don't know whether the bottleneck is my Internet connection, my router, or my computer.
And at this speed I'm not sure I care.
I remember dreaming of someday being able to afford the $300/month for a 56 Kbps Internet connection. But then I also remember that was half a lifetime ago.
How much Internet speed is "enough" -- in other words, at what point will most users have more than we can possibly use? I remember hitting the wall when we had DSL and we were running YouTube and VoIP at the same time. But once we got into the multi-megabit range, I can't remember a single time when I wished I had a faster connection at home.
We may have hit that point where the providers are finding they can just keep turning it up without charging exhorbitant prices because we just can't consume that much.
The only exception would be the torrent people.
Speed tests are averaging 650-700 Mbps in both directions, and I don't know whether the bottleneck is my Internet connection, my router, or my computer.
And at this speed I'm not sure I care.
I remember dreaming of someday being able to afford the $300/month for a 56 Kbps Internet connection. But then I also remember that was half a lifetime ago.
How much Internet speed is "enough" -- in other words, at what point will most users have more than we can possibly use? I remember hitting the wall when we had DSL and we were running YouTube and VoIP at the same time. But once we got into the multi-megabit range, I can't remember a single time when I wished I had a faster connection at home.
We may have hit that point where the providers are finding they can just keep turning it up without charging exhorbitant prices because we just can't consume that much.
The only exception would be the torrent people.
Took a step back in time, this weekend. I was "working from home" from my ski house, uploading a ~400MiB docker image to the amazon cloud.
Couldn't figure out why it was taking so long, the house has Comcast cable, why does their service suck so hard I thought. But then I loaded http://192.168.0.254 and all became clear; it's an ADSL router. I guess we're using cable for TV only, and ADSL for interwebs to save $.
Yeah, it's a share house. We got 3 kegerators and throw a big happy hour every Saturday evening--which quickly disperses by 8-9pm so that everyone can get up early the next day and ski.
If you read the trade rags, it seems that anyone not currently served by fiber
will be getting their gigabit-speed Internet through fixed wireless. 5G is
the new shiny object that will bring peace and harmony to the universe. I
guess that means 5G antennas will now begin appearing on rooftops just like
satellite dishes in run-down neighborhoods.
I'm glad I have fiber. Remind me never to move :)
I'm glad I have fiber. Remind me never to move :)
Seems like we keep riding a pendulum back and forth between wired and wireless.
For the sewer-main-into-the-living-room (commercial television) we went from antenna to cable to satellite to fiber. Phone companies are loving the idea of fixed wireless because they can deploy it for a lower capital cost than stringing fiber, which is probably why Verizon hasn't made significant expansions to their FiOS territory.
Cable companies, on the other hand, have to offer ever-increasing capacity on their wireline plant, so I think they'll eventually end up being the dominant wireline providers.
I'm glad I live somewhere that has fiber. Again, remind me never to move.
I can't wait to see what happens when the telcos start offering 5G fixed wireless as an alternative to cable, and everyone starts streaming Netflix at the same time. It'll be just like a congested DOCSIS node when everyone gets home in the afternoon.
For the sewer-main-into-the-living-room (commercial television) we went from antenna to cable to satellite to fiber. Phone companies are loving the idea of fixed wireless because they can deploy it for a lower capital cost than stringing fiber, which is probably why Verizon hasn't made significant expansions to their FiOS territory.
Cable companies, on the other hand, have to offer ever-increasing capacity on their wireline plant, so I think they'll eventually end up being the dominant wireline providers.
I'm glad I live somewhere that has fiber. Again, remind me never to move.
I can't wait to see what happens when the telcos start offering 5G fixed wireless as an alternative to cable, and everyone starts streaming Netflix at the same time. It'll be just like a congested DOCSIS node when everyone gets home in the afternoon.