Starting this thread to solicit help / advice.
I currently have Verizon Fios Gigabit thingy for high speed internet. But, I'm really trying to see what other options there are. I'm in the NOVA area so I don't have access to Google Fiber unfortunately, but all other options seem to be only Xfinity and other non-gigabit-level internet speeds. Can anyone suggest alternatives? TIA.
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If you want really fast reliable speeds you are probably stuck with someone like Comcast or Cox. In most areas now they have Gigabit speed but most people don't need near that level for a household. 300mbps is usually about the max a normal household uses. Obviously some people have special needs, but Gig Speed is a ton of internet.
You already have the best option around. Xfinity has gigabit, but it's coax, not fiber, so the upload speed is butts. I miss Fios.
If you ask Xfinity, their upload speed is butts because they don't want to encourage torrenting and whatnot, but I'm assuming it's to free more bandwidth for boosting the download speeds they can advertise. I can't think of any technical reason that coax can handle gigabit in one direction but only 10 megabits in the other.
You have options for internet providers?? Wow
This was my thought too.
High speed internet options? Why don't you just sign up with your pre-assigned cable provider?
Yeah, that's crazy talk.
What do you think we are? Capitalists? A place with competition?
I get that communities would sign away some rights in order to get free cable installation. What I don't get is why that would give companies a monopoly in perpetuity. Seems like at some point the ownership would revert back to the community.
Some times it's not in perpetuity, but once anyone can come in how does company #2 make their ROI? They cant guarentee customers so they don't lay the infrastructure.
The main issue is that the infrastructure isn't reusable because the company's own the last mile infrastructure. Non of this got viewed as infrastructure. I only have one water company, but if there are issues with water pipes or sewage I can call the city.
We have a local fiber company here that is slowly providing competition to the Spectrum juggernaut. What they do is divide areas into districts, and get homeowners to commit to their service once it is available. They require a $10 deposit. Once the "district" reaches a certain number of commitments, they then begin to look at how to provide service in that area. It helps that their fiber service is 20% cheaper than the established cable service.
The growth has been slow, but they added my area last summer, and now we have options. Our district was originally set up 5 years ago. As their customer base grows, they have the ability to service more areas - ones that are less dense.
Yeah my parents have a company like that. It's been around since the 90s, started on dialup. I know the guy who started it, he's only a few years older than me. So I know it CAN happen. But its alway a local company, a comcast, verizon, cox arent going to move in.
It is depressing that my parents have better internet, phone, and TV in the middle of nowhere WV (it's not that remote) and I live in a major metropolitan area minutes away from the HQs of MAJOR ISPs and can't get service as good as they have it.
Also when they call support they get some one that works in the same town that can actually fix something that day.
Can you give us more background? How is Fios not meeting your needs? It's faster and significantly more reliable (less downtime) than Xfinity or Cox in the DC area.
I'm only on a 100/100 Mbps Fios plan and it can easily handle my family's streaming demands. I've had seven streams going at once without issue. The gigabit plan is overkill for most households so if you want to spend less each month and still get fast, reliable service, then drop down to one of their lower plans. They offer a 200/200 and 400/400 plan and both of those should meet the needs of almost every household.
Its not necessarily that FIOS isn't meeting my needs, it's more that I want to see if there are other options to shop around with. I'd like to cut Verizon out of my life permanently, but as noted I don't know if there are other options that are truly good or not.
For my 1 gigabit speed, if i'm on the 5g wifi network, I can get around 200-300 mbps dl/ul on my Pixel 4 phone. However, on my laptop, I'm only getting ~150 Mbps dl/ul. I don't know if the 1 Gbps is false advertising or that's only if you're hard-lined into the router / modem, but my thought process was that if i'm not getting 1 Gbps then maybe it's time to shop around. Thoughts?
You are NEVER going to get 1 Gbps on wireless. The technology just doesn't exist at the moment. You have to be wired to get the full 1 Gbps.
...at the moment...
There is a LOT that goes in to a fast connection, and every device in the chain needs to be capable of that speed in order to actually realize that max speed. The gigabit connection is just the maximum transmission rate between your router (the one provided by Verizon) and the first switch you connect to in Verizon's network. Everything else outside of that is just another hop that introduces latency or forces the connection to slow down because its not capable of the gig speed.
Your results are very similar to my own, and I have a pretty robust network inside my house to minimize the bottlenecks that I can control.
Bottom-line - if you are getting those rates then you are in good shape with verizon, and in the top 1% of residential connection speeds in the US.
Do you use a mesh network?
I'd kill for Fios. Out in the sticks where I am, we're lucky to have 4G cell internet or slow ass DSL.
Century link for the ah fuck its froze again.
I am too far for even DSL. Cell or a local WISP, what I currently use, are my only options. Refuse to even consider HughesNet satellite.
yeah, I have heard nothing but bad things about satellite internet. High prices, slow speeds, and connection issues. No thanks.
Maybe Starlink will help eventually.
Hughes Net is hot garbage - they are at the top of my "most hated companies" list.
Fios is the best you are going to get in standard residential.
My options here are either Spectrum or AT&T
pretty much fucked either way
i just had ATT fiber installed today because my comcast was up and 1 gig DL/UL is cheaper on ATT than 100DL/5UL on comcast even with having my own equipment. they are running a promo where it is $60 a month including equipment rental (mandatory) but then I got $225 in gift cards so its really $41 a month. already notice a big difference
I moved just to get Verizon /s
When Verizon was laying fiber in my town they started from both ends and then decided to stop when they weren't getting the ROO they thought they would get. Well my town house was in that area of no verizon. I was literally one of ~30 homes in my town (pop ~80k) that didnt get fios. I didnt find this ot until I went drinking one night with a coworker and beside us was the VP for Verizon at the time. Interesting things I learned that night about where the fios roll out stopped.
I didnt move for fios, but it was a huge benefit to moving. I can imagine going back to Comcast or Cox.
I also hate Verizon. But their service is also hard to beat. I guess a company can afford to suck in one (or many) aspect(s) so long as it is a rockstar at the one thing it's supposed to do. I'm all on board the "F$%^ Verizon" wagon but I'm also aware that they're the best at what they do in most areas
Why do you hate them? Just curious? Price? FIOS has been absolute money for me. I can count on one hand when it's been down in 15 years.
When my wife and I were leaving to join the Peace Corps in the middle of 2017 we lobbied for Verizon to hold our phone numbers so we could get our same numbers back upon our return in the middle of 2019. Verizon has a deal for over-seas service members that does exactly this. They will hold a number, free of charge, for up to 3 years for service members who are over-seas during that time. When they return from service they get their numbers back and begin paying their regular bills, just like normal. Verizon refused to extend this offer to Peace Corps volunteers, despite the fact PCVs receive less financial support than other service members. Instead, they said we could pay them $30 per month per line to keep our numbers. I know that doesn't sound like a huge sum of money for working folks but that is way too expensive for unpaid volunteers. $60 per month for the two of us over a span of 27 months just wasn't in the cards for us. There
arewere around 7000 volunteers world wide at any given time. That's a tremendously small number, even if you assume that all of them are Verizon customers who wish to hold their numbers. It's unreasonable to think that holding our numbers would impact their bottom line. Their refusal to do so and insistence that we pay them to keep our numbers irritated me to no end. Therefore, I am making every attempt to avoid paying them for any services henceforth.Tangent - awesome you were in PC. Where were you located? I've visited buddies in Morocco and Philippines.
We were in Uganda. We stayed in a small town in the western part of the country. It was really nice...we miss it a lot
I doubt that Verizon holds numbers for service members out of the goodness of their own hearts. Is it possible that Verizon gets money from the military to offer this service?
it's certainly possible. Especially when you consider how in-efficient military expenditures are. If that is the case I still wouldn't like Verizon for taking advantage of a system that puts tax-payers' money right in Verizon's coffers
I used to work at Verizon right out of college and the 3 year thing for military members doesn't have (or it didn't from 2009-2012) a lot of restrictions. Basically if you walked into a store and someone was in a good mood, they could've extended the same benefit to you and your wife that military members get.
well, as of 2017 that was not the case. I tried multiple times to no avail
There wasn't an appropriate thread to post this on so figured i'd do it here - as much as I like to dog IP / phone providers, looks like Verizon is doing a solid here:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/14/business/verizon-jobs-ceo-hans-vestberg/i...