Kicking Cable to the Curb

Status
Not open for further replies.

retired1

Administrator
Admin
Supporting Member
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Apr 5, 2013
51,395
46,205
Texas

kiba

Vaping Master
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Sep 21, 2012
4,283
7,451
40
Alexandria, Va, USA
www.facebook.com
Tbh it doesn't really matter, Verizon does the gigabit for the same price as Google, & soon it'll be in a lot of places. They haven't changed anything though, they probably have the capacity to offer even more bandwidth, but for some reason I was limited to 150mbps max last year.
 

retired1

Administrator
Admin
Supporting Member
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Apr 5, 2013
51,395
46,205
Texas
Tbh it doesn't really matter, Verizon does the gigabit for the same price as Google, & soon it'll be in a lot of places. They haven't changed anything though, they probably have the capacity to offer even more bandwidth, but for some reason I was limited to 150mbps max last year.

It's called "profit" and "screwing the customer". In uncompetitive markets, the major providers can do pretty much anything they want.
 

kiba

Vaping Master
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Sep 21, 2012
4,283
7,451
40
Alexandria, Va, USA
www.facebook.com
It's called "profit" and "screwing the customer". In uncompetitive markets, the major providers can do pretty much anything they want.

Yeah you'd think that but the price actually went way down on mine, while my bandwidth was increased 150m-1g.

They had this capacity the whole time though, I always wondered why they capped it at 150m when fiber optic can do so much more.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: mikepetro

DaveP

PV Master & Musician
ECF Veteran
May 22, 2010
16,733
42,646
Central GA
I'm happy with my 16mb cable service even if it's more expensive going through a third party cable network. I can stream HD without burps and download content relatively fast and I have a 350GB limit before throttling. The cable guy is a son of the owners and says that they don't generally throttle unless they detect excessive usage like torrent downloading. With online movies being so popular lots of people are using higher amounts of data.
 

2legsshrt

Resting In Peace
ECF Veteran
Oct 19, 2009
7,162
107,789
75
Spokane,WA
All of mine are back. Don't know what that was about. RD included. Very Strange
I'm happy with my 16mb cable service even if it's more expensive going through a third party cable network. I can stream HD without burps and download content relatively fast and I have a 350GB limit before throttling. The cable guy is a son of the owners and says that they don't generally throttle unless they detect excessive usage like torrent downloading. With online movies being so popular lots of people are using higher amounts of data.
Same for me with my 2 line input DSL. I can have 5-6 devices hooked and can still get 35+Mbps on my boxes. It has been very good and with the help that SS has given us SS owners thru this bleak time of streaming it works great. Watched CHiP's a 2017 movie in 1080p 5.1DD last night not a hiccup. Not sure what Repos they changed but it sure made a difference. Had some downtime yesterday but got a tech from SS to log into my box but by the time he did the hiccup had fixed itself an all my RD streams were back even for several 2017 movies. I may be on Kodi 16 still but this FTMC build they did and the update with the better Repos and getting rid of Fusion made all the difference. Don't know why it did that but by the time Manny logged in it was already back. To me the service I get with this box has paid for itself several times over. Very happy. Vue meh other then Nascar and Golf its just too many commercials. I never seem to be able to get a good stream for those 2 but all the other programs are much better on Kodi no commercials. I even tried a couple of 35 year old movies and while there were no 1080 streams there were several HD ones with RD. Just can't do that if your not pretty sharp with techy stuff on a Moolubang box. I still really love mine. Plus they came out with a lighted air mouse which is set up for my particular box which I will get.
 

DaveP

PV Master & Musician
ECF Veteran
May 22, 2010
16,733
42,646
Central GA
I can have 5-6 devices hooked and can still get 35+Mbps on my boxes. It has been very good and with the help that SS has given us SS owners thru this bleak time of streaming it works great.

I wish AT&T DSL had those speeds in my area. I had 6mb AT&T DSL for quite a while before cable brought me 16mb internet. I'm across town from the central office and I couldn't even stream a CNN video without letting it buffer for 10 or 15 minutes.
 

Fozzy71

Vaping Master
ECF Veteran
Jul 7, 2016
3,370
11,737
54
8 Mile + 2.5
I'm happy with my 16mb cable service even if it's more expensive going through a third party cable network. I can stream HD without burps and download content relatively fast and I have a 350GB limit before throttling. The cable guy is a son of the owners and says that they don't generally throttle unless they detect excessive usage like torrent downloading. With online movies being so popular lots of people are using higher amounts of data.
350gb wouldn't last my house a week when I was on the uverse 16mb plan (1TB cap) for $60/mo so I had to pay $30 more for no cap. I have since switched to WOW 100mb for $50 (no data cap) and wish I would have switched sooner. I also wish I would have sprung for a faster router so I could have bumped my wow service to 500mb for $70 or 1gb for $100 but the 100mb service is working well enough for now with multiple pcs being online and multiple devices streaming ps vue, netflix and prime.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DaveP

DaveP

PV Master & Musician
ECF Veteran
May 22, 2010
16,733
42,646
Central GA
350gb wouldn't last my house a week when I was on the uverse 16mb plan (1TB cap) for $60/mo so I had to pay $30 more for no cap. I have since switched to WOW 100mb for $50 (no data cap) and wish I would have switched sooner. I also wish I would have sprung for a faster router so I could have bumped my wow service to 500mb for $70 or 1gb for $100 but the 100mb service is working well enough for now with multiple pcs being online and multiple devices streaming ps vue, netflix and prime.

I'm in the newest upscale part of the suburban area and still the services are sparse. There's a Cox store, a Verizon store, and an AT&T store about a mile down the road and the internet backbone passes 2 miles away on I-75! Still, the choices are slim. I could move a mile toward town and get 100mb Cox, but we built our 3rd home 20 years ago and it's a keeper in a good neighborhood. I'll stick with 16mb until something else arises.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DavidOck

2legsshrt

Resting In Peace
ECF Veteran
Oct 19, 2009
7,162
107,789
75
Spokane,WA
I wish AT&T DSL had those speeds in my area. I had 6mb AT&T DSL for quite a while before cable brought me 16mb internet. I'm across town from the central office and I couldn't even stream a CNN video without letting it buffer for 10 or 15 minutes.
Yeah I only have 40Mbps but the bandwidth is amazing. That's the highest speed you can get without going to cable, which I might have considered if they allowed you to have a business account with unlimited data but no go on that from a residential address, like they don't make enough money they want to charge the crap out of you for over 1TB per month which I probably use 1 1/2 at the least probly more.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DaveP

2legsshrt

Resting In Peace
ECF Veteran
Oct 19, 2009
7,162
107,789
75
Spokane,WA
At least fios here doesn't put caps on data, that'd never work here we use too much.
Me too thats why I went with a business acct at Century Link. $160 a month for phone and internet plus a whole lot of extras I don't use. Thats why I have my own domain name, got that far but I can also get Office 365, cloud storage, your own domain and a bunch of other stuff that is worthless to me.
 

DaveP

PV Master & Musician
ECF Veteran
May 22, 2010
16,733
42,646
Central GA
Yeah I only have 40Mbps but the bandwidth is amazing. That's the highest speed you can get without going to cable, which I might have considered if they allowed you to have a business account with unlimited data but no go on that from a residential address, like they don't make enough money they want to charge the crap out of you for over 1TB per month which I probably use 1 1/2 at the least probly more.

As you mentioned it's as much about responsiveness and bandwidth as it is about raw speed. Our 16mb cable can run an HD movie from Netflix on one TV and two wireless laptops surfing while the great nephews are playing Minecraft online with the Xbox and one or two people are surfing on their phones. We get no buffering or stuttering.
 

kiba

Vaping Master
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Sep 21, 2012
4,283
7,451
40
Alexandria, Va, USA
www.facebook.com
As you mentioned it's as much about responsiveness and bandwidth as it is about raw speed. Our 16mb cable can run an HD movie from Netflix on one TV and two wireless laptops surfing while the great nephews are playing Minecraft online with the Xbox and one or two people are surfing on their phones. We get no buffering or stuttering.
That actually just has to do with how well your router can manage all the connections, bandwidth is just a arbitrary cap from your isp, (in most cases they actually capable of much more), it has nothing to do with responsiveness, or ping times... but none of those people should be eating up 16gb of bandwidth with what they're doing, a good router makes a bigger difference sometimes than adding more bandwidth, even just switching from 2 to 5g is huge. (2g has become cluttered with all kinds of other crap so it's really not a viable option for wifi anymore)

I have both Nighthawk and Asus gigabit routers, wbich replaced the stock fios one (which had no 5g, so was basically useless in crowded suburbs) when we moved in, the netgear actually did a decent job with the 50 mbps connection we had for the first month or so. Only thing is I have killer doubleshot on both my htpc and desktop rig I work from, which completely hijacks slower connections when it wants speed.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: DaveP

DaveP

PV Master & Musician
ECF Veteran
May 22, 2010
16,733
42,646
Central GA
That actually just has to do with how well your router can manage all the connections, bandwidth is just a arbitrary cap from your isp, (in most cases they actually capable of much more), it has nothing to do with responsiveness, or ping times... but none of those people should be eating up 16gb of bandwidth with what they're doing, a good router makes a bigger difference sometimes than adding more bandwidth, even just switching from 2 to 5g is huge. (2g has become cluttered with all kinds of other crap so it's really not a viable option for wifi anymore)

I have both Nighthawk and Asus gigabit routers, wbich replaced the stock fios one (which had no 5g, so was basically useless in crowded suburbs) when we moved in, the netgear actually did a decent job with the 50 mbps connection we had for the first month or so. Only thing is I have killer doubleshot on both my htpc and desktop rig I work from, which completely hijacks slower connections when it wants speed.

I live in a suburban subdivision where there's only 3 to 5 routers showing up on my wireless network search. I just pick a channel that's widely separated from the ones they are on and all is good.

When I retired early I thought about the future and wondered if I'd have to go back to work, so I enrolled at the local technical college and completed the Cisco Network Engineer course. Although I have little network configuration experience outside home networks it's fall back training after a long career of maintaining high speed network 90 to 180 page per minute printers as a hardware guy.

I used a Linksys wrt54G router for wireless around the house for a long time and hardly ever had to reboot it. It still works fine. I just wanted a more modern router.

My 6 month old TP-Link Archer C7 is plagued with the same issues that a lot of 2.4ghz and 5ghz routers of today also have. It loses its connection every other day and won't let me access the home page to reboot. I have to go upstairs and cycle power if I forget to access it wirelessly and reboot it through the phone or laptop every other day.

It looks like I need to buy an outlet timer switch to power cycle the router once a day around midnight. I've already extended the lease time setting to max and it still requires rebooting every other day. Google search results are full of people with the same issues with a myriad of router brands. Go figure.
 
Last edited:

kiba

Vaping Master
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Sep 21, 2012
4,283
7,451
40
Alexandria, Va, USA
www.facebook.com
What are you using it with, some kind of modem? The routers I have work fine but I have to use the fios modem/router bc it's the only thing that can send/recieve to the ONT. I was having some issues until I completely disabled all router & wifi functions, now it functions only as a modem and all is well.

You're lucky btw, the 2ghz spectrum in my neighborhood is so cluttered I'm amazed anything works, it's almost as bad as when I lived in an apt. building... there's like 2 or 3 networks on every channel with no spaces in between, and that's not to mention the other things like cordless phones, remotes, peripherals & other crap that uses the same 2ghz spectrum.
 

kiba

Vaping Master
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Sep 21, 2012
4,283
7,451
40
Alexandria, Va, USA
www.facebook.com
In the place I used to live, they had fios @150mbps w/ the stock router, and it was so bad bc we were right next to a library, and a couple of other government buildings, ofc also nobody ever bothered to tweak the settings & every time someone used the cordless phone it would slow down to a crawl, and there was one of my roommates who's the type that thinks it's awesome not to have a cell phone so was using it all the time.

Ofc I got myself my own wireless router and that was the end of that, but none of them had access to it & they were always complaining about it. I told them a million times that thing was crap & they needed a separate 5ghz router & I'd be glad to set it up for them but I think they actually preferred arguing about it. They kept increasing the speed like that was going to help but ofc with 2g on an already crappy router you get 40-50mbps sitting right next to it.
 
Last edited:

kiba

Vaping Master
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Sep 21, 2012
4,283
7,451
40
Alexandria, Va, USA
www.facebook.com
No, but yeah that's the best kind of setup to have, most of the time they try to force their combo things down your throat... cable is easy bc you can buy a modem anywhere, mine even though it kind if looks like a cable modem, I have to use the combo box bc it's the only thing that can communicate w/ the fibre ONT.

In which case you're forced to disable all router functionality and just use it as a modem, so that you can have a decent router. I've lived in 3 places where I, or we had them, 2 of them were the actiontek, one was the new motorola one, but they were all terrible.
 

DaveP

PV Master & Musician
ECF Veteran
May 22, 2010
16,733
42,646
Central GA
I finally put a 24hr timer on my 6 month old TP-Link Archer C7 router and fixed the problem of "no internet" every two days. Even after extending the lease time to the max of 120 it still reset every couple of days with no internet and no login to the administrator IP address through wireless. You'd think that I could log in as administrator and reboot or just renew leases. I could do that until lease time expired. Then it reset my administrator log in privileges and turned off wireless access until I rebooted it manually through the administrator interface with my wired PC connection or did a POPO.

If you search the internet this is a widespread problem with various brands of recent brand name routers, even after updating the firmware (which I tried). I never had that problem with my old Linksys WRT45G router. The recommended fix is a 24hr electrical timer. Mine turns off at 3:30am and back on at 4am and all is well so far.

Before you buy a new router check Google for issues that people are having. Lots of these routers are made in China.

retired1, have you heard of a fix for these kinds of recent router problems? Ever encountered one that required reboot or reset every two days to get wireless back?
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: DavidOck
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users who are viewing this thread