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What are you paying for your Internet service?

tzhu07

tzhu07

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 12, 2008
197
27
Comcast. Seattle, WA.

$49.99 for 25Mbps.

As I'm sure many of you are well aware, ISPs can have local monopolies. Unfortunately, in my condo building, it looks like Comcast is the only ISP for broadband. (25Mbps meets the FCC's minimum definition)

I could pay more for greater speeds, but it already meets my needs, and I don't want to give Comcast any more of my money.

It really sucks. :(
 
Cox Communications…

View-Pay Bill | Cox Communications (Build 20150826023504).png
 
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Break down the service? Channel count and packages, as well as net connection speed.
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keysofanxiety said:
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. £47 per month for 1Gbps (up & down).
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One day... Is this fiber? Our provider is due to have asymmetric gig net by the end of 2018. And get near symmetrical speeds by 2022. Or so they claim.
 
Still on an unlimited data plan via AT&T (iPad plan). Supports LTE, some network shaping after 20GBish as of last year, unfortunately. I've found in my area a specific band isn't often "shaped" (throttled) so I tend to use it, but even with shaping I haven't really noticed any significant slowdowns. $29.99 a month for roughly 20-40mbps speeds. Really hoping they extend this plan to 5G when it rolls out like they've done for every other new technology since it's been released.
 
new provider:
CenturyLink ~ GPON/FIOS $80/mo gig bit symmetric. $60 install no contract. I bought my own $65 craigslist combo modem Zyxel c2100z, plan to put it in bridge mode so see how things go?

was using:
comCast 250Kbps/100 for $65. Un reliable; once a month their equipment would lock up and when it was running speeds would vary a lot.
 
jeyf said:
CenturyLink ~ GPON/FIOS $80/mo gig bit symmetric. $60 install no contract. I bought my own $65 craigslist combo modem Zyxel c2100z, plan to put it in bridge mode so see how things go?
Click to expand...
Learn something new every day. Always thought Century was COAX.
 
Indeed. Pulled up the rate card and bill for us, and it looks like we currently pay $79.99 for 300/20, but actual speeds are 340/32 Mbps. We're going to get bumped up to 400/25 in a month or two, so actual speeds will probably be around 440-450/32-40 Mbps. Gotta love over provisioning. Not sure if we'll ever do Giga when it's offered in our area. I just don't see the point when it's just us and the kids are too young to stream or game.

And, really, 400 Mbps assuming no over provision is plenty fast. 50 MB/s download speed if I've done the math correctly.
 
Just wondering... can anyone notice the difference between 200mbit down and 1,000mbit down?

Even if everyone in your home was streaming 4K Netflix at once... which is unlikely... you still wouldn't come close to saturating a normal broadband connection... let alone a gigabit fiber connection.

I do see the desire for a faster upstream connection... it would make cloud storage a lot more usable.

But we're probably reaching diminishing returns on downstream speeds.
 
bopajuice said:
What do you get for $154.48 worth of TV service?
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We have Cox Contour. Whole-home DVR. Up to six recordings at a time, can record in one room and view in the next. Watch in one room and then move to another room and continue viewing. Part of that is also their HD charge for the HD channels if you have an HDTV.

We're also paying rent on the DVR and the second receiver (which lets us control the DVR but is not a DVR itself) and the remotes.

One of these days I'll get my own receivers and stop paying Cox rent.
 
Michael Scrip said:
Just wondering... can anyone notice the difference between 200mbit down and 1,000mbit down?
Click to expand...
The bump from 100 to 300 was noticeable for us. We made a large move to streaming a few years ago because the tide was turning, and we use premium subs to get the best quality available. Now, we're at 300 going on 400, so I'm not completely sure if I'll notice the difference or not. If you're a heavy user of streaming functions, then I'd say it's worth it. Especially when the price keeps coming down with each passing year. It also pushes other ISPs to up their game while maintaining a low price if not a slight bump in prices and still retain customers.

Michael Scrip said:
Even if everyone in your home was streaming 4K Netflix at once... which is unlikely... you still wouldn't come close to saturating a normal broadband connection... let alone a gigabit fiber connection.
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Not quite. You're both correct and wrong at the same time. When you sign up for Netflix's 4K, you have to manually set your quality settings to get 4K when it's available. If not, Netflix may modulate your download speed based on how busy they are and whether there's loss in downloading data to your network/computer. In any case here's the following download per hour on Netflix.
Low (0.3 GB per hour)

Medium (SD: 0.7 GB per hour)

High (Best video quality, up to 3 GB per hour for HD and 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD)

Auto (Adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current Internet connection speed)
Click to expand...

You still have enough juice but then you must take into account the loss of speed through device overhead, and other services running on your network that may have a higher priority that can't quite be controlled through QoS. Aside from that, even 7 GB/hour Ultra HD is still fairly compressed. Additionally, it's difficult to ascertain just what's going on. Netflix cannot be streamed at 4K on a Mac. The only way to stream 4K/UHD on Netflix is using a Windows 10 computer with the Edge browser, and provided you have at least a Kaby Lake processor because it's capable of decoding HEVC. Firefox and Chrome top out at 720p but there's ways of unlocking higher streams that bypass the DRM Netflix uses provided your plan allows for it. Of course, 4K TVs are capable of streaming 4K/UHD from Netflix.
 
Zenithal said:
The bump from 100 to 300 was noticeable for us. We made a large move to streaming a few years ago because the tide was turning, and we use premium subs to get the best quality available. Now, we're at 300 going on 400, so I'm not completely sure if I'll notice the difference or not. If you're a heavy user of streaming functions, then I'd say it's worth it. Especially when the price keeps coming down with each passing year. It also pushes other ISPs to up their game while maintaining a low price if not a slight bump in prices and still retain customers.
Click to expand...

Yeah... if it doesn't hurt anything... let them keep cranking up the download speeds.

I just wish the upstream speeds would also get a boost.

However... I still visit people's homes who have 20/5 or even slower. What kind of plan are they on? :)

Zenithal said:
Not quite. You're both correct and wrong at the same time. When you sign up for Netflix's 4K, you have to manually set your quality settings to get 4K when it's available. If not, Netflix may modulate your download speed based on how busy they are and whether there's loss in downloading data to your network/computer. In any case here's the following download per hour on Netflix.

You still have enough juice but then you must take into account the loss of speed through device overhead, and other services running on your network that may have a higher priority that can't quite be controlled through QoS. Aside from that, even 7 GB/hour Ultra HD is still fairly compressed. Additionally, it's difficult to ascertain just what's going on. Netflix cannot be streamed at 4K on a Mac. The only way to stream 4K/UHD on Netflix is using a Windows 10 computer with the Edge browser, and provided you have at least a Kaby Lake processor because it's capable of decoding HEVC. Firefox and Chrome top out at 720p but there's ways of unlocking higher streams that bypass the DRM Netflix uses provided your plan allows for it. Of course, 4K TVs are capable of streaming 4K/UHD from Netflix.
Click to expand...

Sure... I understand overhead and availability.

I was just saying the chances of pegging multiple streams of 4K at once would be unlikely.

There might be four people streaming at once... but li'l Susie and li'l Johnny are streaming 720p on their iPads upstairs. :p


It's weird... in this comment I've covered two different angles:

People getting 300+mbps that they probably don't need... or people having super slow internet. We need a happy medium!
 
Faster speeds are inevitable. The more pressure on ISPs to upgrade and expand, the cheaper it'll get over time. I agree with upload. Our ISP claims they'll bring near symmetrical speeds in the future, but I don't have high hopes. It's also why we don't use them as a business provider at work, and instead opted for fiber.
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Michael Scrip said:
However... I still visit people's homes who have 20/5 or even slower. What kind of plan are they on? :)
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Light/Lite packages and I assume that's the only viable internet available. That's DSL speeds in a lot of places.
 
Michael Scrip said:
Just wondering... can anyone notice the difference between 200mbit down and 1,000mbit down?...
Click to expand...
good point.
quite a few apple fan boys still have their airPort Express working overtime so maybe we wont experience any difference

once upon a time, a few months ago, per chance i was watching my scheduled cloud back up happen. Something was wrong! as the status bar was just ripping across the screen towards done. Normally it takes its time. For some unknown reasons my speeds were 8x faster than expected. it was comcastic and lasted about a week. The old speeds returned. Either way my life remained the same.
 
jeyf said:
good point.
quite a few apple fan boys still have their airPort Express working overtime so maybe we wont experience any difference

once upon a time, a few months ago, per chance i was watching my scheduled cloud back up happen. Something was wrong! as the status bar was just ripping across the screen towards done. Normally it takes its time. For some unknown reasons my speeds were 8x faster than expected. it was comcastic and lasted about a week. The old speeds returned. Either way my life remained the same.
Click to expand...
If you actually ordering gigabit. I'm sure you would be more technical. It's sad to be apple stop making their wireless gear.
 
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