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OT: High speed internet comparisons

K

ksbeecane

Active member
I am still w/o ATT internet today, and it has become a monthly, if not bi-monthly occurrence. Usually not out this long, but a royal pain .
Would appreciate feedback on Spectrum (left them years ago for satellite) and T Mobile. It seems that Google fiber isn't available in my neighborhood yet. Or are there options I am missing?
I am in SW Durham.
Thanks!
( and I will be muchly pissed if it's not on in time for the game.....)
 
I have Spectrum's highest speed service from home and it is very reliable and fast and works well with the mesh wireless network I have set up. Considering that I have become a nearly 100% remote worker since the pandemic and deliver numerous online presentations to clients from home, I have pretty high requirements, but I am very satisfied with Spectrum.
 
Spectrum...I would say that your success is impacted by your location. Out here where I live in Holly Springs, Spectrum is almost always up and Ookla Speedtest is claiming today that I'm getting 242 Mbps down via a 5G wireless connection (I'm using my own NetGear modem/router that I have had for 7? years now?)

You know the drill about upload speeds and Spectrum already. I don't typically have to upload large files so a rarely do this, but if I do have a large file to upload somewhere, I will actualy turn on my TMobile hotspot on my phone and connect my computer to it. That gets me about 65 Mbps up (instead of Spectrum's 11ish Mbps up).

One more wrinkle, and this definitely has to do with location. My TMobile hotspot on my phone from my house? 475 Mbps down right now.

The reason I'm not jumping at TMobile's internet offerings are:

1) Spectrum has delivered the uptime and speeds I need to work from home, surf the net, play Xbox, etc. very consistently and with little disruption for over 10 years. I trust their product because of that.

2) I have heard rumblings about people who have switched to TMobile home internet and had issues with inconsistent connections and speed. Obviously where I am I have a really solid 5G connection with TMobile, so my speeds are pretty darn good here. Clearly location would be a huge factor here.

Spectrum has worked for me for a very long time, so I stick with them even if TMobile or 'ATT fiber' might have better speeds. I would rather have 200 Mbps down max but it almost is always up versus 450 Mbps down but I don't know if it's always going to be up.

That is my take.
 
I have had AT&T Gigapower since October of 2016 and the only down times I've had since then are from when Google's contractors (burying their fiber optic in my neighborhood) severed my AT&T line. Yes, "times," plural. They did that shit twice and on the second time, they also sliced through the neighborhood natural gas line. The next day, my street was completely lined with work trucks from AT&T, the Town of Cary, Dominion Energy, and probably a state agency, all watching the contractors work.
 
NoMich said:
I have had AT&T Gigapower since October of 2016 and the only down times I've had since then are from when Google's contractors (burying their fiber optic in my neighborhood) severed my AT&T line. Yes, "times," plural. They did that shit twice and on the second time, they also sliced through the neighborhood natural gas line. The next day, my street was completely lined with work trucks from AT&T, the Town of Cary, Dominion Energy, and probably a state agency, all watching the contractors work.
Click to expand...
Ouch!
I keep wondering if there is some construction outside of my neighborhood which is causing this, but am not aware of any. Also, we had an ATT repair person at one point admit that they laid the fiber incorrectly when first installed in all of the area and didn't use conduit, so it gets cut often.
 
HeyKurtz said:
I have Spectrum's highest speed service from home and it is very reliable and fast and works well with the mesh wireless network I have set up. Considering that I have become a nearly 100% remote worker since the pandemic and deliver numerous online presentations to clients from home, I have pretty high requirements, but I am very satisfied with Spectrum.
Click to expand...
Thanks
 
cmaleski2 said:
Spectrum...I would say that your success is impacted by your location. Out here where I live in Holly Springs, Spectrum is almost always up and Ookla Speedtest is claiming today that I'm getting 242 Mbps down via a 5G wireless connection (I'm using my own NetGear modem/router that I have had for 7? years now?)

You know the drill about upload speeds and Spectrum already. I don't typically have to upload large files so a rarely do this, but if I do have a large file to upload somewhere, I will actualy turn on my TMobile hotspot on my phone and connect my computer to it. That gets me about 65 Mbps up (instead of Spectrum's 11ish Mbps up).

One more wrinkle, and this definitely has to do with location. My TMobile hotspot on my phone from my house? 475 Mbps down right now.

The reason I'm not jumping at TMobile's internet offerings are:

1) Spectrum has delivered the uptime and speeds I need to work from home, surf the net, play Xbox, etc. very consistently and with little disruption for over 10 years. I trust their product because of that.

2) I have heard rumblings about people who have switched to TMobile home internet and had issues with inconsistent connections and speed. Obviously where I am I have a really solid 5G connection with TMobile, so my speeds are pretty darn good here. Clearly location would be a huge factor here.

Spectrum has worked for me for a very long time, so I stick with them even if TMobile or 'ATT fiber' might have better speeds. I would rather have 200 Mbps down max but it almost is always up versus 450 Mbps down but I don't know if it's always going to be up.

That is my take.
Click to expand...
Appreciate the T-Mobile feedback.
 
Personally I’m had good luck with experience in the area of chapel hill. The customer service is much better since spectrum bought Time Warner.
 
NoMich said:
I have had AT&T Gigapower since October of 2016 and the only down times I've had since then are from when Google's contractors (burying their fiber optic in my neighborhood) severed my AT&T line. Yes, "times," plural. They did that shit twice and on the second time, they also sliced through the neighborhood natural gas line. The next day, my street was completely lined with work trucks from AT&T, the Town of Cary, Dominion Energy, and probably a state agency, all watching the contractors work.
Click to expand...
Basically I've had the same experience ... although Google only cut my connection once. Other than that my only service interruption in 5 years has been one other time when some dingbat crashed their car into the physical switchgear station during a thunderstorm.

So I can heartily endorse AT&T giga fiber if it's available.
 
I have Spectrum here in WF and before that TW. No issues here and I have been remote for 7 years. Only time I had an issue was when I started dropping connectivity every day around the same time. Spectrum came out and replaced the outside box and corroded connections— no issues since.
 
Well, another massive outage w ATT today in must of southern Durham and no projected fix time. It's been out all day. I have at least been able to get Hulu w TNT working on my phone for the game.
 
I bailed on Spectrum because they were consistently inconsistent. They only offered us a good rate when they discovered we were bailing out on their sorry asses...almost begged us to stay. I live near the end of the line, so we are always out of service the longest. We've heard the "It must be a problem within the house." line. Once a service tech finally arrives, they discover it is their connection on the pole. [Polar's word] those mother [Polar's word]ers. We switched to T Mobile wireless, which is slightly better. It freezes occasionally, though our signal is usually more than double what Spectrum provided. Hassle quotient reduced by a factor of 4 compared to Spectrum. Not great, but better.

Jim
 
Pucking Lamplighter said:
I bailed on Spectrum because they were consistently inconsistent. They only offered us a good rate when they discovered we were bailing out on their sorry asses...almost begged us to stay. I live near the end of the line, so we are always out of service the longest. We've heard the "It must be a problem within the house." line. Once a service tech finally arrives, they discover it is their connection on the pole. [Polar's word] those mother [Polar's word]ers. We switched to T Mobile wireless, which is slightly better. It freezes occasionally, though our signal is usually more than double what Spectrum provided. Hassle quotient reduced by a factor of 4 compared to Spectrum. Not great, but better.

Jim
Click to expand...
I ditched Spectrum at the house 4-5 years ago because something was always breaking. Their equipment sucked. Oddly enough, we have them at the office and have not had issues. Go figure.
 
So WRAL ran a story about the outage Sunday afternoon after several affected folks contacts their news desk. ATT finally told them that there was a massive equipment failure and that it would take 3-7 days to fix, although they still wouldn't say what failed. Ironically, I had service early Monday morning.
So now I don't know if I just tough it out with ATT (they are the only fiber available at my address) or switch. I hate to go back to a coax system, as I had the same issues with spectrum as Pucking and LJG.
 
ksbeecane said:
Ouch!
I keep wondering if there is some construction outside of my neighborhood which is causing this, but am not aware of any. Also, we had an ATT repair person at one point admit that they laid the fiber incorrectly when first installed in all of the area and didn't use conduit, so it gets cut often.
Click to expand...
BTW, that's literally impossible. Fibre cable comes in a huge roll that's already in a protective conduit when it's installed. That guy is used to wire run in electrical conduit, which is a completely different thing. Also, electrical conduit ain't made out of armor or anything. Your average backhoe bucket will go through PVC or ABS conduit like butter. I think the problem you've got is that the AT&T field office for your area is populated with morons. It happens. Also, it's tough to trench in most parts of Durham County and AT&T used some real cowboys for subcontractors when they laid the fibre cable. It's possible that you're in a section of their service grid that simply got installed in such a way that it's touchy and unreliable. If it's been going on this long, then it's not likely to get fixed anytime soon. I'd bail for the next best option that won't leave you in the lurch. It's not an AT&T thing in general, because they provide wonderful service elsewhere.
 
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ksbeecane said:
So WRAL ran a story about the outage Sunday afternoon after several affected folks contacts their news desk. ATT finally told them that there was a massive equipment failure and that it would take 3-7 days to fix, although they still wouldn't say what failed. Ironically, I had service early Monday morning.
So now I don't know if I just tough it out with ATT (they are the only fiber available at my address) or switch. I hate to go back to a coax system, as I had the same issues with spectrum as Pucking and LJG.
Click to expand...
I have AT&T U-verse and my service wasn’t affected.
 
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