Fifty Plus (50+) - OT: How do you get here?

It's time to upgrade my ISP. I wondered how do others get on line and how satisfied they are with their service.

My options are AT&T and Comcast, and I've been looking at Comcast's Performance package, and AT&T's Elite package.

How's your service?

We've been very happy with Verizon, but I guess that doesn't help you much . . . sorry!

Rick / OCRR

My ATT is passable. Both companies, though, are part of the axis of evil.

I have been using RCN for several years now, and I'm very satisfied with the service. And.. They let you use your own cable modem. But, this does you no good, as they are
only a regional New England provider.

I'd suggest reading some of the stuff at Broadband Reports (http://www.dslreports.com/). Some good information to be had there. As far as the reviews go, they're typical of internet reviews of anything.

Do be leery of comcast though. I have it from several now ex-customers that they cap bandwidth, a big concern if you watch lots of movies on-line. Their customer service is the stuff of legend, bad legend.

I have Verizon at my office and Comcast at home. I like the Comcast better. Using same computer in both places, and the Comcast has been more reliable and seems just a bit faster. I say "seems" because it's just a perception. Never had any problems with bandwith on either.

Comcast user, for both internet and TV. Not bad service, I have had to use the help phone line for both TV and internet a few times, it was from moderate to good. We haven't had an outage in a long time. Speed can be slow. However, the computer that I use most is old, and the router is due for an upgrade also. I have a blue-ray play that I can connect to the internet and wach movies and stuff(why I need this, I'll never figure out), I tried it once with a movie(Quicksilver to keep it bike related), and it worked fine. The best part of our Coomcast experience, is there is an office a short distance away, so if I have a problem, or want to upgrade a box, I just walk in and get a new box, or remote. When one of our dogs was a puppy, she had a taste for my wife's shoes, and TV remotes. I took the chewed Comcast remote to the office, expecting to be charged for it. No problem, just got a new one, no charge. The person behind the desk said it happenes all the time, then showed me one that was really chewed, it had holes and parts missing.

We have used AT&T since 1996 and have no complaints here.

Bill

Broadstripe cable is the only broadband choice in my neighborhood. Well, that or satellite. They've been more-or-less OK.

Comcast is working well for us of late. Performance improved quite a bit when I replaced the decade-old router with a current-spec one.

It doesn't help you, but I use RoadRunner. I was one of the original beta-testers here back in the late 90s, and I've never seen a need to change.

Comcast without a doubt. ATT is DSL, which is the ultimate suckage.

Comcast without a doubt. ATT is DSL, which is the ultimate suckage.
I was with Comcast at $58 per month; changed to a $35/mo. medium speed DSL from AT&T and have not noticed any difference in technical performance. Customer service from both has been cheerfully promised and miserably executed; coordinating and executing the changeover (hoping to minimize downtime) was miserable.

Suddenlink here, but that helps you none. It's the only game in town outside of satellite or DSL. It's OK now (although I've been warned to avoid their IP phone service), but it wasn't always that way. Four years ago, it just plain stunk. I just checked and I'm getting something like 10 meg down and 1 meg up, according to Speakeasy.

Maybe a bit more relevant - When my mom lived in Sugar Land, TX (Houston area), she was on Comcast and I never heard complaints from her, nor did I really notice any issues when we visited. FWIW.

I have a Verizon palm pre plus and it comes with a wi fi hot spot. It works great and I don't have to pay Cox anymore. I just have to have the phone near the computer and wal la.

Time-Warner cable and high-speed internet.

Verizon FIOS

Had Comcast and got Verizon FIOS when it became available in my neighborhood. It was a very big improvement in up and download speeds. HDTV quality was better too.

Just be glad you have choices. I am at the very end of the service area for Windstream and a 1/4 mile past the end of service for Charter cable.
My DSL service ranges from OK to terrible. People closer to town say theirs works much better.

My options are AT&T and Comcast, and I've been looking at Comcast's Performance package, and AT&T's Elite package.

How's your service?
I was with AT&T for 2 years. Was very happy for that 2 years. Near the end of our relationship their customer service was in the toilet. Took several days to NOT fix a problem.
Dropped them and went with Comcast. It's been 1.5 years and I'm still happy.

BTW: My max connection speed with AT&T was ~3 Mb. My max speed with Comcast is ~21 Mb and the cost is about the same as AT&T.

Had Comcast and got Verizon FIOS when it became available in my neighborhood. It was a very big improvement in up and download speeds. HDTV quality was better too.

+1 on this, I just did this a week ago

AT&T Uverse. It's worked well for me.

AT&T Uverse. It's worked well for me.

I thought Uverse was just for their TV.

Each area is different, so I am taking note that my former employer switched from AT&T to Comcast. The Comcast starts out okay at $29.95, then moves to $44 after six months and to $59 after a year and AT&T tops out at $40.

I'm an animator so I really do need what speed I can get, but I'm unemployed as well, so I need to conserve funds. But I've already dropped that internet dating site, so that's freed up a little cash already. ;)

DSL is very sensitive to both your distance from the local switching center, and the 'quality' of the wires coming into (and within) your house. Cable is a bit more consistent. AT&T should be able to tell you, in advance, how well DSL would work for you.

ATT DSL Tested...2400 kb/s download and 384 kb/s upload latency 76ms. I have had ATT for 4+ years and no outages and it is fast enough that I do not lose any productivity. The cost is $33/month. I have Comcast cable for TV but I am sticking with ATT. In Los Angeles, we had Adelphia cable TV and internet and the reliability was bad. We had numerous outages.

In fairness to Comcast, the TV digital cable has been pretty reliable and the picture quality excellent. Their cost for internet would be higher and theoretically faster. The key to the user experience with respect to speed is the throughput of the wireless router and the host web site's ability to deliver content.

One of the variables that slows opening web pages is the number of pings it takes to establish connection which can be due to the number of ads they are trying to serve up. My connection to the WSJ is terrible which is the case with many newspapers. While my connection to Microsoft and Apple web sites is fast. My point is I do not think I would load the WSJ any faster even if I had infinite speed.

Originally Posted by twobadfish
Comcast without a doubt. ATT is DSL, which is the ultimate suckage.

I was with Comcast at $58 per month; changed to a $35/mo. medium speed DSL from AT&T and have not noticed any difference in technical performance. Customer service from both has been cheerfully promised and miserably executed; coordinating and executing the changeover (hoping to minimize downtime) was miserable.
I did a similar switch from Road Runner to medium speed ATT Uverse and it seems fine.

FWIW, I did it when ATT offered a good promotional rate after they ran fiber optic cable to my neighborhood. Perhaps DSL over fiber optic is superior to POTS DSL?

Well for the majority of consumers I think DSL would be perfect. I work from home, am a programmer, and spend 10+ hours a day on the computer so my opinion is way biased. For average use I would go with price.

There is a lot going on between your fingertips and the server you are accessing, and, as Hermes has pointed, some of those factors often have greater impact than the amount of bandwidth you have coming into your house. You will never exceed the capacity of whatever the choke point is in your path to the data. If you live on a desert island, as I once did, and the path to the rest of the world is by satellite, you are going to experience a lot of latency, no matter how fast your connection to the provider is. Different providers also have varying degrees of capacity to the other providers, with varying degrees of saturation, and that weighs heavily on performance. In saying cable is more consistent, I mean from one house in the neighborhood to the next. But the cable distribution technology is shared further out into the smaller branches of the network than is DSL. So, if your DSL is good, it pushes the choke point up higher into the network, where the bandwidth pipes are larger, which makes them more able to handle peak loads.

And just as more and more people are going with only cell phones for voice, the ability to piggyback your data onto that network will be leading more and more people to create their own hotspots, and forego landlines altogether, like Phil85207 is doing.

verizon fios

+1 :thumb:

Both providers offer excellent service in some areas and extremely poor service in others. Both obscure the results you can expect. Neither offers anything approaching good customer service. I recommend checking with neighbors, especially those who are gamers and movie down loaders.