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I live 3 miles from downtown Austin, which has numerous internet options (Google Fiber, Spectrum, AT&T, and Grande), but the options in my apartment complex are

by xur17 7y ago

I live 3 miles from downtown Austin, which has numerous internet options (Google Fiber, Spectrum, AT&T, and Grande), but the options in my apartment complex are: * Spectrum (up to 400mbps) * AT&T (5mbps dsl) I technically do have some choice, but given that one of these is close to 100x faster than the other, and the pricing is fairly similar... I think wireless isps and 5g are our best chance at disrupting this.

mikepurvis 7y ago
Oh gross, yeah, multi-unit buildings are a funny case where the choices are severely reduced due to factors outside your control. And it's not like a condo building where your HOA can demand better options— as a renter, you really do have no say in the matter. I wonder why the cable option is so bad? Is it just because it's a single coax entering the building shared by all residents? Where I am (Kitchener ON), I can get 200mbps cable. I have family living in a motor home, and they deal with something similar at RV resorts; they're stuck with the wifi available to them there, and little ability to use an alternative (short of cellular).
geggam 7y ago
Wireless is already getting too congested for this to be a viable alternative
briffle 7y ago
I used to live 8 miles from Madison, WI (technically, one exit south of their beltline interchange on I-90). My ONLY two choices were 2mb WISP for $65/month, or 4g hotspot, and all of them were VERY expensive for over 15GB a month. (I used about 20GB per month on the 2mb wisp because I had little kids who loved netflix cartoons, faster speed would also cause higher quality video) There was NO cable or dsl. ATT always said DSL was available in our area, and that they would schedule the install, then 3 days later, the local guy would call, and say "oh, hell no, lol" and cancel it
- mikepurvis 7y ago
  I don't know if this was viable at the time, but nowadays I expect you could use an OpenWRT router to do per-domain/mac traffic shaping on the device displaying the cartoons. That would force it down to 480p (or whatever) and reduce your overall usage. Another option that might not have been available at the time would be taking the Netflix device to a different connection (work, the library, whatever) and then pre-downloading a bunch of the cartoons for offline viewing.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
Even that spectrum connection is garbage because the upload will only be 2 or 3 mbps, barely enough for one FaceTime call. Anything short of symmetric fiber is a sham in this day and age.
- alyandon 7y ago
  At least in my area Spectrum/TWC service has 400 mbps down and 20 mbps up. Still not great but far better than the old days.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    It's probably 20mbps shared between the whole neighborhood with high latency. At this point, we should have symmetric fiber with at sub 50ms latency and 100mbps down and up everywhere like we work to have water, sewage, electricity, and gas. Right now, all of our money goes towards maintaining an antiquated system for providing commercial laden garbage media.
    - alyandon 7y ago
      A 20mbps shared limit for an entire neighborhood for a major cableco might have been the case 20 years ago when cable internet deployment was in its infancy. While I agree that symmetric fiber would be better, my speeds are always consistently close to what I'm paying for and I'm one of those types of people that: 1) utilizes my upstream because of things like DR backups 2) treats cabelco with suspicion and thus records speeds, latency, packet loss stats continously 3) will pick up the phone and complain when I see problems until they are resolved to my satisfaction For example, this is representative of what I typically see: https://pastebin.com/wSt8fdee https://pastebin.com/wSt8fdee I count myself as one of the lucky ones and YMMV.
hedvig 7y ago
> at disrupting this. Or, you know, democratic policy changes a majority of us all agree are sensible.

by xur17 7y ago

mikepurvis 7y ago

Oh gross, yeah, multi-unit buildings are a funny case where the choices are severely reduced due to factors outside your control. And it's not like a condo building where your HOA can demand better options— as a renter, you really do have no say in the matter. I wonder why the cable option is so bad? Is it just because it's a single coax entering the building shared by all residents? Where I am (Kitchener ON), I can get 200mbps cable. I have family living in a motor home, and they deal with something similar at RV resorts; they're stuck with the wifi available to them there, and little ability to use an alternative (short of cellular).

geggam 7y ago

Wireless is already getting too congested for this to be a viable alternative

briffle 7y ago

I used to live 8 miles from Madison, WI (technically, one exit south of their beltline interchange on I-90). My ONLY two choices were 2mb WISP for $65/month, or 4g hotspot, and all of them were VERY expensive for over 15GB a month. (I used about 20GB per month on the 2mb wisp because I had little kids who loved netflix cartoons, faster speed would also cause higher quality video) There was NO cable or dsl. ATT always said DSL was available in our area, and that they would schedule the install, then 3 days later, the local guy would call, and say "oh, hell no, lol" and cancel it

mikepurvis 7y ago
I don't know if this was viable at the time, but nowadays I expect you could use an OpenWRT router to do per-domain/mac traffic shaping on the device displaying the cartoons. That would force it down to 480p (or whatever) and reduce your overall usage. Another option that might not have been available at the time would be taking the Netflix device to a different connection (work, the library, whatever) and then pre-downloading a bunch of the cartoons for offline viewing.

lotsofpulp 7y ago

Even that spectrum connection is garbage because the upload will only be 2 or 3 mbps, barely enough for one FaceTime call. Anything short of symmetric fiber is a sham in this day and age.

alyandon 7y ago
At least in my area Spectrum/TWC service has 400 mbps down and 20 mbps up. Still not great but far better than the old days.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  It's probably 20mbps shared between the whole neighborhood with high latency. At this point, we should have symmetric fiber with at sub 50ms latency and 100mbps down and up everywhere like we work to have water, sewage, electricity, and gas. Right now, all of our money goes towards maintaining an antiquated system for providing commercial laden garbage media.
  - alyandon 7y ago
    A 20mbps shared limit for an entire neighborhood for a major cableco might have been the case 20 years ago when cable internet deployment was in its infancy. While I agree that symmetric fiber would be better, my speeds are always consistently close to what I'm paying for and I'm one of those types of people that: 1) utilizes my upstream because of things like DR backups 2) treats cabelco with suspicion and thus records speeds, latency, packet loss stats continously 3) will pick up the phone and complain when I see problems until they are resolved to my satisfaction For example, this is representative of what I typically see: https://pastebin.com/wSt8fdee https://pastebin.com/wSt8fdee I count myself as one of the lucky ones and YMMV.

hedvig 7y ago

> at disrupting this. Or, you know, democratic policy changes a majority of us all agree are sensible.