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I live in a small town in Georgia and literally my only internet access options are Comcast and AT&T. AT&T's service here is fairly slow compared to Comcast's

I live in a small town in Georgia and literally my only internet access options are Comcast and AT&T. AT&T's service here is fairly slow compared to Comcast's offerings, and since I work from home remote for a company based in Florida I have to choose the fastest options available to me, and that's Comcast. I would love to have more options, but I just don't. I only pay for internet access, I don't use their cable TV or telephone offerings. Internet alone is about $80/month. I just ran a speed test and I get 14.1Mbps down & 8.6Mbps up. I forget which speed tier I'm paying for, but I know I'm paying for much more than that! Ugh...

krisdol 11y ago
I live in a large town (Boston) and the situation is not much different.
- colanderman 11y ago
  If you're in Boston proper, you can get NetBlazr: http://netblazr.com/ http://netblazr.com/ (wireless mesh network) Unfortunately they don't even reach JP, so I'm stuck with Comcast.
supermatt 11y ago
What are your options for satellite internet? The pricing these days seems very competitive, and although latency is (much) higher it should be ideal for the vast majority of use cases.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  It looks like they charge the same price for ~1/10 the speed and 1/20 the transfer (Does Comcast still have a 300 GB limit? That compares favorably to 10.)
- mikeash 11y ago
  Latency is pretty important for browsing the web. No matter how much bandwidth you have, making every request take two round-trips to geosync is going to make the connection feel very slow. If low Earth orbit broadband internet ever happens, that could potentially be an excellent choice. But with the current offerings, it's always going to be the absolute last resort.
hoorayimhelping 11y ago
I'm sorry, that sounds brutal. I live in Brooklyn and thankfully there is competition from TWC, RCN and Fios here. I have TWC cable at 300 megs down and about 50 up for about $60 a month. The cable television is still horrible and an enormous rip off.
- Vendan 11y ago
  God, I pay that much for a 20/5 from TWC...
jug5 11y ago
You know you live in a first world country when that's considered "the fastest option."
naveen99 11y ago
Get their business plan. I always get exactly my paid for rate, and they claim business plan speeds are the same everywhere they provide service. you save money on land living in a small town, spend some of the savings on bandwidth... Or expense it to your company. Cheaper than office space in florida. Or try calling them, maybe there is a configuration issue with the router. What is the advertised rate ? You should be getting that speed.
- Eldarrion 11y ago
  You're a bit naive there. Business plans are not magical in any way. In fact, the past week we seem to be having a lot more issues with our business plan on Comcast than I am with my personal plan at home which seems to drop the connection roughly every other hour. Still, Comcast shares their internet between customers in your area. If you're the only customer in your area, you can certainly get what you're paying for. If you're not, the best you can hope for is 1/4 of your promised connection speed during peak hours. It is something that Comcast has been doing for years, but it allows them to advertise higher speeds for lower prices than AT&T and people believe them because not everyone is familiar with the fine print.
  - geggam 11y ago
    ATT business plan here... I have no issues only 20Mbit down and 2Mbit up but when I call customer service I have someone on site to fix things in 3 hrs or less I wont ever use Comcast again... I had to get the local govt involved to get them to stop billing me for a place I hadnt lived in for 6 months. ( yes there is an agency here to deal with them they are that shitty ) The smaller speed with usable internet speeds and decent customer service is worth it.
    - Roboprog 11y ago
      Similar experience: our older house had AT&T - only 7.5 Mbit/s or so, but it pretty much never went down; our newer house has Comcast - supposed to be 30 Mbit/s, but often goes wonky or out. It's a tough call: go 1/4 speed at 1/2 the price, reliably, or try to go 4 times faster at "only" twice the price (appx), but gamble from day to day :-(
fndrplayer13 11y ago
Same thing in my big town -- Chicago. Some parts of Chicago you get RCN competing, which is amazing. They have 100mb plans for $40 a month. But for most people, myself included, you pay $80/mo for "50mb" internet that really runs at about 20mb 80% of the time, 2-3mb 15% of the time, and totally not working at all 5% of the time.
- selectodude 11y ago
  In my different area of that small town, I pay $40 for 75 mbit, that actually gives me 95mbit (even at 7:00pm). And is rock solid. I don't mean to sound like a shill but I think "most people" is an incredible stretch.
  - fndrplayer13 11y ago
    Yeah, you're totally right. I just went to Comcast's website and it seems like we're basically just getting shafted. I wonder if they adjusted their prices now that RCN is selling 105mbps internet for ~$40-50/mo
- zupreme 11y ago
  Fellow Chicagoan here: In the suburbs the options are fewer, but the functional speeds are better - at least for Comcast delivered over coax. I get an average of about 120/15 for $80/mo at home and about the same speed at our suburban office for roughly double that price (business class). AT&T DSL sucks no matter where you are though.
- thoughtpalette 11y ago
  Also in Chicago, RCN was amazing. Now stuck in Comcast hell since they're not over in Logan Square. And the service starts shitting out every night around 7:30pm. Assuming they don't have enough cards in the box on the block.

krisdol 11y ago

I live in a large town (Boston) and the situation is not much different.

colanderman 11y ago
If you're in Boston proper, you can get NetBlazr: http://netblazr.com/ http://netblazr.com/ (wireless mesh network) Unfortunately they don't even reach JP, so I'm stuck with Comcast.

supermatt 11y ago

What are your options for satellite internet? The pricing these days seems very competitive, and although latency is (much) higher it should be ideal for the vast majority of use cases.

maxerickson 11y ago
It looks like they charge the same price for ~1/10 the speed and 1/20 the transfer (Does Comcast still have a 300 GB limit? That compares favorably to 10.)
mikeash 11y ago
Latency is pretty important for browsing the web. No matter how much bandwidth you have, making every request take two round-trips to geosync is going to make the connection feel very slow. If low Earth orbit broadband internet ever happens, that could potentially be an excellent choice. But with the current offerings, it's always going to be the absolute last resort.

hoorayimhelping 11y ago

I'm sorry, that sounds brutal. I live in Brooklyn and thankfully there is competition from TWC, RCN and Fios here. I have TWC cable at 300 megs down and about 50 up for about $60 a month. The cable television is still horrible and an enormous rip off.

Vendan 11y ago
God, I pay that much for a 20/5 from TWC...

jug5 11y ago

You know you live in a first world country when that's considered "the fastest option."

naveen99 11y ago

Get their business plan. I always get exactly my paid for rate, and they claim business plan speeds are the same everywhere they provide service. you save money on land living in a small town, spend some of the savings on bandwidth... Or expense it to your company. Cheaper than office space in florida. Or try calling them, maybe there is a configuration issue with the router. What is the advertised rate ? You should be getting that speed.

Eldarrion 11y ago
You're a bit naive there. Business plans are not magical in any way. In fact, the past week we seem to be having a lot more issues with our business plan on Comcast than I am with my personal plan at home which seems to drop the connection roughly every other hour. Still, Comcast shares their internet between customers in your area. If you're the only customer in your area, you can certainly get what you're paying for. If you're not, the best you can hope for is 1/4 of your promised connection speed during peak hours. It is something that Comcast has been doing for years, but it allows them to advertise higher speeds for lower prices than AT&T and people believe them because not everyone is familiar with the fine print.
- geggam 11y ago
  ATT business plan here... I have no issues only 20Mbit down and 2Mbit up but when I call customer service I have someone on site to fix things in 3 hrs or less I wont ever use Comcast again... I had to get the local govt involved to get them to stop billing me for a place I hadnt lived in for 6 months. ( yes there is an agency here to deal with them they are that shitty ) The smaller speed with usable internet speeds and decent customer service is worth it.
  - Roboprog 11y ago
    Similar experience: our older house had AT&T - only 7.5 Mbit/s or so, but it pretty much never went down; our newer house has Comcast - supposed to be 30 Mbit/s, but often goes wonky or out. It's a tough call: go 1/4 speed at 1/2 the price, reliably, or try to go 4 times faster at "only" twice the price (appx), but gamble from day to day :-(

fndrplayer13 11y ago

Same thing in my big town -- Chicago. Some parts of Chicago you get RCN competing, which is amazing. They have 100mb plans for $40 a month. But for most people, myself included, you pay $80/mo for "50mb" internet that really runs at about 20mb 80% of the time, 2-3mb 15% of the time, and totally not working at all 5% of the time.

selectodude 11y ago
In my different area of that small town, I pay $40 for 75 mbit, that actually gives me 95mbit (even at 7:00pm). And is rock solid. I don't mean to sound like a shill but I think "most people" is an incredible stretch.
- fndrplayer13 11y ago
  Yeah, you're totally right. I just went to Comcast's website and it seems like we're basically just getting shafted. I wonder if they adjusted their prices now that RCN is selling 105mbps internet for ~$40-50/mo
zupreme 11y ago
Fellow Chicagoan here: In the suburbs the options are fewer, but the functional speeds are better - at least for Comcast delivered over coax. I get an average of about 120/15 for $80/mo at home and about the same speed at our suburban office for roughly double that price (business class). AT&T DSL sucks no matter where you are though.
thoughtpalette 11y ago
Also in Chicago, RCN was amazing. Now stuck in Comcast hell since they're not over in Logan Square. And the service starts shitting out every night around 7:30pm. Assuming they don't have enough cards in the box on the block.