[osiris]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Most of the US has no broadband competition at 25Mbps, FCC chair says | Ars Technica


That applies to me perfectly. I could get faster cable internet, however it's capped. (150 MB at 5Mbps, 300MB at 25 Mbps and more). It's cheaper too, but **** caps.

*** caps? Your current bandwidth is so crippled, a cap would actually be a benefit to you at this point.

[The Final Dakar]

Well, all video I watch would start streaming in 1080p instead, and that tends to add up. See: Jawbone

Edit: Again, I'm also opposed on principle.

[osiris]

I understand.

(once I caught ATT doing some funny business with my LTE and called them on it. After I complained, the odd reductions in speed stopped. note that I have a family plan with true unlimited data/talk and no caps, something they hate)

[The Final Dakar]

If my DSL were to get to a point where I can no longer stream HD, I will move, cap or no cap (After trying to get them to correct the problem).

[sek929]

I guess I can consider myself "lucky" to get consistent 16+ download speeds for ~$60 a month and extremely rare outages.



So I remember a while back I checked my usage and it was well over 300GB/mo, winter months probably, and now I see this "Data Threshold Suspended" malarky and wonder who that applied to in the first place. Of course they say no two Comcast accounts are exactly the same, they form organically like fingerprints.

I set up my current service and had everything running for a couple days. Power goes out and the modem won't reconnect, call Comcast. Tell the rep my account info and he says, "oh weird, how did you get this package I'm seeing here??" Uhh I have no idea, I was told about it by a rep through the same number I reached you buddy.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

According to the ISPs in my area, it's 1.5Mb down/256kb up. They can actually say that with a straight face.

My carrier pigeon is faster than your internet.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

My carrier pigeon is faster than your internet.

African or European?

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

My carrier pigeon is faster than your internet.

No, I'm certain he has 1000 Tbps ultra fiber.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Man, usually things are Cheaper in America, but I get 50 down (rates around 65), 10 up with unlimited bandwidth for $77 a month; if I wanted a 250gig limit it would be $57. The top end packages are $120 for 250 down, 20 up, unlimited ($100 for 1tb limit, which, that's got to be close to server grade no?).

[abbaZaba]

Comcast customer for ~17 years. ~64Mbps down and ~10Mbps up

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

My carrier pigeon is faster than your internet.

I couldn't live with that, given the choice I'd do without and only use 3G. We pay to piggyback on to a local company's OC line and VPN through that.

[SSharon]

I get 50/30 fios in my area which I'm happy with. I pay about $130/month but that includes tv and phone as well. It is more than I used to pay with Cablevision/optimum, but their service was terrible.

I definitely appreciate having the faster upload speeds and find it painful to visit my parents with something close to 8/2 DSL. I end up tethering my phone when I'm there it is so painful.

[ghporter]

Dialup was too slow at 56k, so I "bit the bullet" and paid for DSL at "about 1Mbps" downstream with probably 300k upstream.

That lasted fine for a while, but it didn't seem fast enough, so I upgraded. And I upgraded again. When we built a home in a new area with all new infrastructure my 6M down/750k up was fast! That was 12 years ago, and it's not that the new infrastructure got crappy in that time. It's all about what you're using the Internet for and the size of the content you upload and download.

My home isn't a huge user, and yet that 6/750 isn't nearly fast enough at times, not because we are online more, but because what we're online for is bigger, more complex and requires more interaction.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

My home isn't a huge user, and yet that 6/750 isn't nearly fast enough at times, not because we are online more, but because what we're online for is bigger, more complex and requires more interaction.

There's also like three of you, right? That means if one person s streaming 720 content, the connection is nearly maxed out already.

[ghporter]

Only two right now; our son's connection at his house is probably more heavily used at any given moment than what my wife and I do together at our busiest. But he has an XBox 1, several other game systems, he gets all of his TV via Internet, etc., etc.

Our typical streaming use would be either Pandora (kinda streaming, right?) or a short video, rather than streaming a movie or TV show. Like I said, we're not heavy net users. We are, though, frequent users, and when we have to wait for something as simple as a web page, it makes our connection seem really slow, even though it's probably because there's some huge component of that page that's the real bottleneck.

[P]

I have 50/10 cable now, had 24/3 DSL for the longest time, and 10/1 cable in a transitional phase. I could get 50/50 or 100/50 at not too terrible a cost (and up to 1000 down if I want to pay for it, but the cost goes up quickly), but it would require a new cable modem and therefore a new commitment to stay with my current provider, so I haven't bothered. Either of these qualifies as broadband to me.

Currently I pay $38 a month for the 50/10, including all taxes and whatnot. It also includes a fixed phoneline, but calls on it are metered. That cost amounts to less than a buck a month, however - I rarely use it.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Lol.....that is ludicrous! Socialism at it's very worst I might add!

[Gankdawg]

For years, CenturyLink was all I could get at my house -- 10 down, 768 up. Cost was roughly $65 per month. Charter finally came to town last December -- 30 down, 4 up for $40 per month. Charter just doubled my download speed but in the early morning, I'm getting well over 100 down.

So what is broadband? I'd say 10 down minimum. That was good enough for one Netflix stream and a couple users on the internet.

[P]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Lol.....that is ludicrous! Socialism at it's very worst I might add!

Telecom was terrible in Sweden when it was a state monopoly, but that was broken up. The old state monopoly (now partially state owned and partially private) is forced to lease the last mile phone lines to anyone who wants to run a fiber cable into the closest switching station, and they had to sell off their part of the biggest cable provider to avoid collusion. It's not that our ISPs are wonders of customer service and low rates, it is just that if they're too terrible, I can leave - or convince my neighbors that we ought to get fiber. The wonders of healthy competition. (IMO, that is what the US ISP market needs - not socialism but a healthy competitive marketplace - but this promises to get political, so maybe I stop here)

[reader50]

I'm updating my vote. I'd said 4/4 as a minimum internet speed today. But the question was what to consider broadband, not minimum serviceable internet. I'm changing my vote to 10/10.

[subego]

Comcast is so desperate they just offered to double my upload and half my price if I'll take a 36 month contract.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by subego 

Comcast is so desperate they just offered to double my upload and half my price if I'll take a 36 month contract.

Yeowch. 36 months. Otherwise, I imagine you're as desperate for double the upload as a virgin on prom night.

[subego]

That is a long time, but my building is already locked in with Comcast. I have a de facto contract with them as long as I live here.

So, if I don't move in 18 months I've broken even. I don't plan on moving. I'm also allowed to bust it down to the minimum business package and stay on contract. Pretty sure this is a no-brainer.

[subego]

The big issue will be if they offer to boost my upload later down the line, they're going to want to hit the reset button on the contract timer.

[reader50]

Originally Posted by subego 

Comcast is so desperate they just offered to double my upload and half my price if I'll take a 36 month contract.

If they're that desperate, they'll probably do those things for everyone soon enough. I don't like contracts.

However, check the bandwidth cap status with / without this new contract. Might be something else going on, especially if you aren't capped today.

Hmm ... odd they'd be so generous, in exchange for a long-term contract. Like google fiber or muni broadband is coming to the area within the next 1-2 years.

[subego]

I didn't ask if a cap would be added, but where I figured they'd try and be sneaky is the SLA. Since that's not changing, I doubt they're sneaking in a cap.