8 ms·

>Of course, not everyone's home Internet is terrible. I dispute this. Is Google Fiber all right? Do you Silicon Valley folks get decent service? Because out he

by drcube 13y ago

>Of course, not everyone's home Internet is terrible. I dispute this. Is Google Fiber all right? Do you Silicon Valley folks get decent service? Because out here in the real world, ISPs are uniformly horrible. I haven't met or talked to anyone on the entire Internet who is satisfied, or simply not constantly enraged, by their ISP. It seems every single one is corrupt and incompetent at the same time.

Tyr42 13y ago
I don't hate my ISP. But I've got no cap, and good speeds.
- alongenemylines 13y ago
  Ditto. My only complaint is the price. I pay for 10 mbit service from TWC, and regularly have speeds of 18 mbit. Also, my external ip hasn't changed since I installed my modem, and I don't pay for a static IP.
mintplant 13y ago
Comcast in San Jose provides decent speeds, but the connection can be spotty and drops out at times. Also, despite claims to the contrary, torrent traffic appears to be very heavily throttled. Whenever I try downloading a Linux ISO via torrent, download rates will often start out high, then sharply drop to somewhere under 100 kbps. On a related note, for whatever reason, no traffic on ports 6660-6669 (IRC) can get through, but I haven't seen this problem reported anywhere else. Combing through the settings on the router they provide, there doesn't seem to be anything blocking it on my end.
dankoss 13y ago
I've had no trouble with Comcast in my area in service or support. My problem with them is that they're colluding with AT&T to keep internet prices high and upsell everyone onto bundled plans, when all I need is internet (not home phone and TV service). Thus they charge $20/mo for 3Mbps, $50 for 6Mbps and $65 for 25Mbps unbundled internet, and AT&T charges roughly the same.
bluedino 13y ago
>> Because out here in the real world, ISPs are uniformly horrible. Not really. Sure, there are a lot of bad ISP's and places to live with few options, but there's a lot of great internet service out there. Go on any message board and view the threads "Post your speedtest results", and for everyone who's stuck with some shit DSL provider with 1mb up and .25 mb down (my current situation) there's someone with 45.99/month 30mb up 3mb down cable internet or $89.99 FIOS. Sure, it's not as fantastic as some of the connections you see from people in Europe or Asia with 100mb+ for $39.99, but you have to remember everyone doesn't have that mystical connection who lives outside the USA. There's plenty of bad internet to be had as well.
- chroem 13y ago
  Keep in mind that people go there to brag about their unusually high connection speeds.
sjm-lbm 13y ago
There's a sizable portion of the country that has Verizon Fios - in a random suburb of Dallas, I can get 75/35 for ~$80 with no data caps. It's not amazing, but it's not horrid.
- harshreality 13y ago
  What's so frustrating is that only some sections of some large metro areas (like Los Angeles and Dallas) can get it. Looking at the FIOS map from broadbandreports[1], there's no FIOS availability within the 635 ring east of I-35, which is most (all?) of Dallas proper. The main places with solid FIOS coverage are in the northeast: most major metro areas in the VA Beach-DC-NYC-Boston corridor. And Pittsburgh. And Ft. Wayne, IN. Because Ft. Wayne clearly needs FTTP more than Indianapolis. Most other municipalities in the rest of the country are either locked into exclusivity contracts with other providers, or can't be bothered to give their residents real choice of good providers, or Verizon doesn't want the initial outlay for infrastructure costs for more deployment at this time, or some combination. [1] https://secure.dslreports.com/gmaps/fios https://secure.dslreports.com/gmaps/fios
nathanb 13y ago
I am not constantly enraged at TWC. They charge way too much for what I get, but it works consistently at the advertised speed. The installer added a coaxial port for me in the room I wanted without complaining or charging extra, and my external IP has been static for three years now. I have never seen evidence of a cap (not that I am a heavy bandwidth user). I still feel like I am charged way too much for what I get, and I'm scared to mess with anything (for example, to buy my own modem to avoid the ridiculous modem rental fee they tacked on) because I don't want stuff to stop working (or to have to deal with their tech support line). I am in no way happy with them. But I am not enraged. (When I lived in Blacksburg, VA there were three options for broadband -- DSL, cable, and a university-affiliated provider -- which were all in heavy competition to be the most horrible. I was actively enraged pretty much constantly over the miserable state of affairs. So I know that feel.)
Locke1689 13y ago
I love my ISP, CondoInternet. $60, 100M symmetric. Upgrade to 1000 available. Free static IP, full IPv6 support.
- steve-howard 13y ago
  Same. The only downside is that the buildings they provide service to are horrendously expensive.
- aklemm 13y ago
  I had that for free in my building in Seattle. The best days of my life! Now I'm on the East coast and I doubt I'll ever have a great ISP again.
wiredfool 13y ago
I like my ISP. My internet's expensive and not terribly fast (18/2), but it's reliable. (more so than the power co. the phone co buried their lines, the power people didn't.) I'm in a rural area, and as far as I know, there are 2 options, Comcast and the local phone co. I'm with the local company. I've had to call customer service a few times, and the phone is answered at an office 5 miles from here. It's one (not difficult to arrange) transfer to someone who knows what I'm talking about when I go on about routers with the default password and a privilege escalation bug. They're the only telecom that has ever impressed me with their customer service.
nucleardog 13y ago
Our primary ISP is crown-owned (it's basically a public utility, just like our power, water, gas, etc). They also provide phone service and cellular service. Their prices are not the best in the world, but they're reasonable and the best around here. While every other ISP is trying to find ways to get people to use less data to avoid infrastructure upgrades, they're rolling out FTTH. $160/mo get's you 200/60. Everywhere I've ever lived and every connection I've ever tested as been the speed sold +/-3%. There are no monthly caps (not even soft caps). When the CRTC allowed charging for bandwidth overages, they came out and simply said "Our mandate is not to make money, it is to provide a service to the public. We will not charge for overages as it does not further our mandate." We have surprisingly close to full coverage of the province even though there are a lot of rural locations. On the cellular side of things, it's thanks to them our province gets better deals from all of the carriers (even national ones). Our crown corp had been offering deals that were worlds better than every other carrier, forcing the others to try and compete. At the end of the year, they still generally drop money back in the province's coffers. Guess what? I'm pretty much satisfied (a little sad my neighbourhood is so far down the list for the FTTH rollout is all) and not constantly enraged. We have this strange hybrid between market competition and a public utility. I don't know if going fully to a utility would be a benefit for us - the way it's structured now there are still incentives/requirements for the utility to remain competitive and keep prices low. I hesitate to see how this would be bastardized should those requirements go away.
- dmunoz 13y ago
  I'm only guessing here based on what you said and what little knowledge I have, but you're talking about SaskTel in Saskatchewan, right? Others who find it interesting might want to look into them. From what I have heard about SaskTel's cellular service, I'm jealous that more provinces haven't adopted the model. Of course, crown corporations are not always so rosy; a few provinces over, we have the mess that is BC Ferries.
crymer11 13y ago
I love the service I get from my ISP (EPB) - 1 Gb/s symmetrical fiber connection for ~$70/month with customer service that's been very pleasant and helpful every time I've dealt with them. FWIW, EPB is owned by the city of Chattanooga, so they aren't your typical ISP. My only complaint is that you have to be a business customer to be assigned a static IP address (which is reasonable), but they've mentioned they'll be re-evaluating that policy once they're switched over to IPv6 (and there's the fact that my address hasn't changed since switching to them over 3 years ago).
km3k 13y ago
I'm actually happy with my Verizon FIOS in Western New York. That said, I am in a grandfathered special plan where I get 25Mb up & down for $45 a month. I have no idea how long that will last. I haven't had many problems with their service except that once or twice a year the DHCP lease on their server gets stuck where it won't give me an IP and I need to call them to break the DHCP lease so I can get an IP address. The last couple times I broke the DHCP lease via their Twitter support ( https://twitter.com/VerizonSupport https://twitter.com/VerizonSupport ) and it was faster than calling on the phone. I also use OpenDNS so I don't know if their DNS servers are bad. I use OpenDNS because I used to have Time Warner Cable and their DNS servers went down several times per week.
carlospaulino 13y ago
It's true that TWC and Comcast are the worst of all. But I have to disagree, not all providers suck. In my current town (Clifton, NJ) we can get Verizon FIOS and Optimum. Both providers are fighting fiercely for customers. I used FIOS for a year and it was great, no caps,full speeds and good support. I later switched to Optimum and it is fantastic, I've never been so happy with a service provider, they upgraded most users from 50mbit to 100mbit for free, and they are actually giving me a true 100mbit connection, not to mention an outstanding customer support.
- kvinnako 13y ago
  that's because you have competition. Most of the places have no chioce. They are either stuck with optimum or verizon dsl. So you are in a minority. Also, clifton, nj is a rich neighborhood, thats why probably you have both fios and optimum.
  - carlospaulino 13y ago
    Competition does force the provider to give you a better service. But most of the time it’s just that the provider decides to be awful. But that’s not always the case. About four years ago I used to live in the Bronx, and the only thing in my area was Optimum, and the service was almost as good as now. It's about the company caring for the customers.
TeMPOraL 13y ago
Might be an American thing. In Europe things aren't so bad. I live in Poland and I have a pretty good connection (think ~60MB for $15 a month), and for years I never really had any problems with my ISP. That is not to say they aren't any crap providers out there. The rule of thumb is: landline and mobile phone company give crappy, capped, unreliable Internet for riddiculous prices; cable TV companies give good, high-speed, high-reliability connection very cheaply.
Groxx 13y ago
Moving into the SV bay area, my internet cost doubled, speed cut in half, and call-center service got significantly worse. It's not the worst internet in America, but it's noticeably below the average that I've seen, and costs more.

by drcube 13y ago

Tyr42 13y ago

I don't hate my ISP. But I've got no cap, and good speeds.

alongenemylines 13y ago
Ditto. My only complaint is the price. I pay for 10 mbit service from TWC, and regularly have speeds of 18 mbit. Also, my external ip hasn't changed since I installed my modem, and I don't pay for a static IP.

mintplant 13y ago

Comcast in San Jose provides decent speeds, but the connection can be spotty and drops out at times. Also, despite claims to the contrary, torrent traffic appears to be very heavily throttled. Whenever I try downloading a Linux ISO via torrent, download rates will often start out high, then sharply drop to somewhere under 100 kbps. On a related note, for whatever reason, no traffic on ports 6660-6669 (IRC) can get through, but I haven't seen this problem reported anywhere else. Combing through the settings on the router they provide, there doesn't seem to be anything blocking it on my end.

dankoss 13y ago

I've had no trouble with Comcast in my area in service or support. My problem with them is that they're colluding with AT&T to keep internet prices high and upsell everyone onto bundled plans, when all I need is internet (not home phone and TV service). Thus they charge $20/mo for 3Mbps, $50 for 6Mbps and $65 for 25Mbps unbundled internet, and AT&T charges roughly the same.

bluedino 13y ago

>> Because out here in the real world, ISPs are uniformly horrible. Not really. Sure, there are a lot of bad ISP's and places to live with few options, but there's a lot of great internet service out there. Go on any message board and view the threads "Post your speedtest results", and for everyone who's stuck with some shit DSL provider with 1mb up and .25 mb down (my current situation) there's someone with 45.99/month 30mb up 3mb down cable internet or $89.99 FIOS. Sure, it's not as fantastic as some of the connections you see from people in Europe or Asia with 100mb+ for $39.99, but you have to remember everyone doesn't have that mystical connection who lives outside the USA. There's plenty of bad internet to be had as well.

chroem 13y ago
Keep in mind that people go there to brag about their unusually high connection speeds.

sjm-lbm 13y ago

There's a sizable portion of the country that has Verizon Fios - in a random suburb of Dallas, I can get 75/35 for ~$80 with no data caps. It's not amazing, but it's not horrid.

harshreality 13y ago
What's so frustrating is that only some sections of some large metro areas (like Los Angeles and Dallas) can get it. Looking at the FIOS map from broadbandreports[1], there's no FIOS availability within the 635 ring east of I-35, which is most (all?) of Dallas proper. The main places with solid FIOS coverage are in the northeast: most major metro areas in the VA Beach-DC-NYC-Boston corridor. And Pittsburgh. And Ft. Wayne, IN. Because Ft. Wayne clearly needs FTTP more than Indianapolis. Most other municipalities in the rest of the country are either locked into exclusivity contracts with other providers, or can't be bothered to give their residents real choice of good providers, or Verizon doesn't want the initial outlay for infrastructure costs for more deployment at this time, or some combination. [1] https://secure.dslreports.com/gmaps/fios https://secure.dslreports.com/gmaps/fios

nathanb 13y ago

I am not constantly enraged at TWC. They charge way too much for what I get, but it works consistently at the advertised speed. The installer added a coaxial port for me in the room I wanted without complaining or charging extra, and my external IP has been static for three years now. I have never seen evidence of a cap (not that I am a heavy bandwidth user). I still feel like I am charged way too much for what I get, and I'm scared to mess with anything (for example, to buy my own modem to avoid the ridiculous modem rental fee they tacked on) because I don't want stuff to stop working (or to have to deal with their tech support line). I am in no way happy with them. But I am not enraged. (When I lived in Blacksburg, VA there were three options for broadband -- DSL, cable, and a university-affiliated provider -- which were all in heavy competition to be the most horrible. I was actively enraged pretty much constantly over the miserable state of affairs. So I know that feel.)

Locke1689 13y ago

I love my ISP, CondoInternet. $60, 100M symmetric. Upgrade to 1000 available. Free static IP, full IPv6 support.

steve-howard 13y ago
Same. The only downside is that the buildings they provide service to are horrendously expensive.
aklemm 13y ago
I had that for free in my building in Seattle. The best days of my life! Now I'm on the East coast and I doubt I'll ever have a great ISP again.

wiredfool 13y ago

I like my ISP. My internet's expensive and not terribly fast (18/2), but it's reliable. (more so than the power co. the phone co buried their lines, the power people didn't.) I'm in a rural area, and as far as I know, there are 2 options, Comcast and the local phone co. I'm with the local company. I've had to call customer service a few times, and the phone is answered at an office 5 miles from here. It's one (not difficult to arrange) transfer to someone who knows what I'm talking about when I go on about routers with the default password and a privilege escalation bug. They're the only telecom that has ever impressed me with their customer service.

nucleardog 13y ago

Our primary ISP is crown-owned (it's basically a public utility, just like our power, water, gas, etc). They also provide phone service and cellular service. Their prices are not the best in the world, but they're reasonable and the best around here. While every other ISP is trying to find ways to get people to use less data to avoid infrastructure upgrades, they're rolling out FTTH. $160/mo get's you 200/60. Everywhere I've ever lived and every connection I've ever tested as been the speed sold +/-3%. There are no monthly caps (not even soft caps). When the CRTC allowed charging for bandwidth overages, they came out and simply said "Our mandate is not to make money, it is to provide a service to the public. We will not charge for overages as it does not further our mandate." We have surprisingly close to full coverage of the province even though there are a lot of rural locations. On the cellular side of things, it's thanks to them our province gets better deals from all of the carriers (even national ones). Our crown corp had been offering deals that were worlds better than every other carrier, forcing the others to try and compete. At the end of the year, they still generally drop money back in the province's coffers. Guess what? I'm pretty much satisfied (a little sad my neighbourhood is so far down the list for the FTTH rollout is all) and not constantly enraged. We have this strange hybrid between market competition and a public utility. I don't know if going fully to a utility would be a benefit for us - the way it's structured now there are still incentives/requirements for the utility to remain competitive and keep prices low. I hesitate to see how this would be bastardized should those requirements go away.

dmunoz 13y ago
I'm only guessing here based on what you said and what little knowledge I have, but you're talking about SaskTel in Saskatchewan, right? Others who find it interesting might want to look into them. From what I have heard about SaskTel's cellular service, I'm jealous that more provinces haven't adopted the model. Of course, crown corporations are not always so rosy; a few provinces over, we have the mess that is BC Ferries.

crymer11 13y ago

I love the service I get from my ISP (EPB) - 1 Gb/s symmetrical fiber connection for ~$70/month with customer service that's been very pleasant and helpful every time I've dealt with them. FWIW, EPB is owned by the city of Chattanooga, so they aren't your typical ISP. My only complaint is that you have to be a business customer to be assigned a static IP address (which is reasonable), but they've mentioned they'll be re-evaluating that policy once they're switched over to IPv6 (and there's the fact that my address hasn't changed since switching to them over 3 years ago).

km3k 13y ago

I'm actually happy with my Verizon FIOS in Western New York. That said, I am in a grandfathered special plan where I get 25Mb up & down for $45 a month. I have no idea how long that will last. I haven't had many problems with their service except that once or twice a year the DHCP lease on their server gets stuck where it won't give me an IP and I need to call them to break the DHCP lease so I can get an IP address. The last couple times I broke the DHCP lease via their Twitter support ( https://twitter.com/VerizonSupport https://twitter.com/VerizonSupport ) and it was faster than calling on the phone. I also use OpenDNS so I don't know if their DNS servers are bad. I use OpenDNS because I used to have Time Warner Cable and their DNS servers went down several times per week.

carlospaulino 13y ago

It's true that TWC and Comcast are the worst of all. But I have to disagree, not all providers suck. In my current town (Clifton, NJ) we can get Verizon FIOS and Optimum. Both providers are fighting fiercely for customers. I used FIOS for a year and it was great, no caps,full speeds and good support. I later switched to Optimum and it is fantastic, I've never been so happy with a service provider, they upgraded most users from 50mbit to 100mbit for free, and they are actually giving me a true 100mbit connection, not to mention an outstanding customer support.

kvinnako 13y ago
that's because you have competition. Most of the places have no chioce. They are either stuck with optimum or verizon dsl. So you are in a minority. Also, clifton, nj is a rich neighborhood, thats why probably you have both fios and optimum.
- carlospaulino 13y ago
  Competition does force the provider to give you a better service. But most of the time it’s just that the provider decides to be awful. But that’s not always the case. About four years ago I used to live in the Bronx, and the only thing in my area was Optimum, and the service was almost as good as now. It's about the company caring for the customers.

TeMPOraL 13y ago

Might be an American thing. In Europe things aren't so bad. I live in Poland and I have a pretty good connection (think ~60MB for $15 a month), and for years I never really had any problems with my ISP. That is not to say they aren't any crap providers out there. The rule of thumb is: landline and mobile phone company give crappy, capped, unreliable Internet for riddiculous prices; cable TV companies give good, high-speed, high-reliability connection very cheaply.

Groxx 13y ago

Moving into the SV bay area, my internet cost doubled, speed cut in half, and call-center service got significantly worse. It's not the worst internet in America, but it's noticeably below the average that I've seen, and costs more.