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Which internet provider, speed should I get?


Trouble Maker

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So we are probably going to cut the cable cord.

 

Currently have 8mb from Wow, plus their cable. I started looking around out of curiosity and unless I'm missing something the other providers are much less expensive for internet only?

 

Wow 8mb is $58

ATT Uverse 12mb is $45 (18mb is $55)

Time Warner 7mb is $45 (15mb is $55)

 

Am I missing something or is Wow expensive for just internet?

 

How are the other providers, reliability, customer service, etc.?

 

What speed should I get for lots of (highest video quality I can get) streaming? I got 8mb for that reason, is it the sweet spot for that they of use right now or is it even too much? Uverse has a 6mb for $40/month, Wow and Time Warner's next lower tier is 2mb so too slow. Pretty often one of us will be watching TV while the other one browses on a different PC, and rarely both of us will watch streaming on separate PCs.

 

I don't really like Time Warner so I would prefer Uverse.... but if we readd cable at some point I will probably throw a digital cable tuner in the PC and I don't think you can get cable cards through Uverse. If we are stuck with Uverse because of some contract that would suck. But Uverse would also be easy because our phones are through ATT. I'm not sure but I don't think we would get a bundle discount because that's only 2 services and you need 3 to get discounts.

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I have 12mb U-Verse from AT&T, I was told the 18mb is not available in my area (Little Turtle). No issues though. Always up so far.

 

12mb = 1.3MB/s-1.4MB/s

18mb = 1.9MB/s-2.0MB/s

 

To download and stream HD content I suggest at least a 12mb connection, I would prefer 18mb. I stream HD movies from iTunes to my Sharp Aquos with an AppleTV.

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My 7mb works just fine

But if I can get ATT 12mb for the same price as TWC 7mb why not?

 

What area of town are you in? TWC is launching 30/3 and 50/5 in Columbus here soon.

Near bethel and godown, I'd guess those will be $$$ and more speed than what I need.

 

att is great, but 'spensive

I thought so too, but it seems like their Internet only is less expensive unless I'm missing something. Mostly why I posted this.

 

Anyone know if you can do cable cards with ATT cable or do you have to use their boxes.

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I have TW with their 15 package. I used to have WOW, but got stood up on two service calls for issues I was having. So I switched to TW and only got internet, no cable. I had no issues with my WOW internet, just my DVR cable box. I complained enough to TW about wanting to switch to their service so they gave me the 15 pkg guaranteed for 3 years at the price of 40/mo.

 

TW is OK, but not great. I had much more consistency with WOW. My TW works fine probably 50% of the time. Other times the bandwidth is all over the place. I will be streaming Netflix one night and it will be fine. The next it will rebuffer every few minutes because of speeds changing. According to TW, everything is fine on my end and theirs. They say it is a Netflix issue or a random happening. It happens anytime I try and watch anything streaming on the computer too. Especially YouTube.

 

I will probably switch back to WOW pretty soon.

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But if I can get ATT 12mb for the same price as TWC 7mb why not?

 

Well considering I have TWC 7mb, and TWC has done a lot to make me hate them, and considering if anything else was available for me other than crappy DSL then yeah, I say go for the ATT.

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Well considering I have TWC 7mb, and TWC has done a lot to make me hate them, and considering if anything else was available for me other than crappy DSL then yeah, I say go for the ATT.

 

 

Keep in mind that uverse is VDSL, not the old ADSL which is slow as shit. Its a somewhat different tech that is actually competitive in todays market.

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u verse.... you get your own dedicated line. No interferance, consisten up and down!

 

I worked for insight ( uses the same internet lines as time warner) and i wll say that their internet service is horrible.

You were a door to door sales rep...Insight shares the backend with TW, but all of the lines feeding the customer are Insight owned/maintained.

 

As for DSL vs. Cable, a properly maintained cable network will have 0 slowdowns from multiple users.

 

As for WOW's price - WOW focuses on bundling packages, so their single tier of service prices aren't that good. Good product/service, but not the best price.

 

And don't think for a second TW will up their speeds without WOW doing it as well (and likely before TW).

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so much mis-information in this thread.

 

If you know so much, then just come out and say it. I posted this thread for good info, so if you have it I would greatly appreciate it.

 

You should probably also disclose who you work for since that might bias you a little bit, just to be honest about the situation (but I'm sure it will be obvious anyways).

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If you know so much, then just come out and say it. I posted this thread for good info, so if you have it I would greatly appreciate it.

 

You should probably also disclose who you work for since that might bias you a little bit, just to be honest about the situation (but I'm sure it will be obvious anyways).

 

I work for Time Warner - as a NE - Thorne can attest to it.

 

I am not biased - In fact in most cases I hate what we (TWC) has to offer our customers as far as pricing is concerned. I think it is over priced, etc.. I also think when you are the largest company in the area - you will obviously have more complaints.

 

TWC - We will launch 30/3 and 50/5 here soon in select areas in Columbus. I would say most people who have an issue with TWC Service - is not because of our IP Transit, it is because of our HFC Plant. While this may or may not lower the price on our current tiers (I would go with not).

 

U-Verse - great if you live close to the DSLAM, but the whole "You get your own line" is crap. You "get your own line" because U-Verse is VDSL, still using Twisted Pair Phone Line, period. Your bandwidth is shared from the DSLAM Northbound. That would be like me saying "You have your own Cable Drop".

 

While I will always say - U-Verse has the best delivery method (all IP). Their choice of using VDSL and Twisted Pair was poor. Had they invested the money they could have really been leading the way everywhere they deployed U-Verse.

 

Insight - TWC Manages their CMTS's as far as IP Connectivity - that is it. Insight manages their own plant, they also schedule their own node breakouts/splits. They also tell us what services to enable/disable and when.

 

WOW - Like Joe mentioned WOW seems to price really high if you don't bundle. I don't agree with this, but every other MSO does the same thing, so I can't blame them. I have used their Internet piece before and it has always seemed to work just fine. My only knock on WOW (same as Insight) was the Advertisements in the On-Screen Guide. I have also heard WOW has a low number of HD Channels (I could be wrong about this).

 

In the end for what you are looking for - Anything at 7Mbps and over will do you just fine. If you are just using it to do streaming Netflix - then you won't need much more than that. I can never think of a time I have pulled more than 3Mbps from Netflix.

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I will be streaming Netflix one night and it will be fine. The next it will rebuffer every few minutes because of speeds changing. According to TW, everything is fine on my end and theirs. They say it is a Netflix issue or a random happening. It happens anytime I try and watch anything streaming on the computer too. Especially YouTube.

 

I will probably switch back to WOW pretty soon.

 

WOW 8mb ? Package here. Whatever package you have to get when using them as the phone carrier. Works flawless. Minor issues as noted here on CR just a couple weeks back, but otherwise zero.

 

Never have had a problem streaming Net Flix. (knocks on wood)

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WOW - Like Joe mentioned WOW seems to price really high if you don't bundle. I don't agree with this, but every other MSO does the same thing, so I can't blame them. I have used their Internet piece before and it has always seemed to work just fine. My only knock on WOW (same as Insight) was the Advertisements in the On-Screen Guide. I have also heard WOW has a low number of HD Channels (I could be wrong about this).

One of the biggest reasons for non-bundle prices being higher is customer retention. Single product customers tend to skip around between providers more often. The costs of installing and disconnecting service is high, so this is the main factor.

 

As for On-Screen ads on WOW's guide, I have never seen this ever (I have with Insight, who is pretty shameless about it I might add). Never seen it with TW either. For the HD channels, you are correct that the content is currently low, but WOW will have over double the number of HD channels currently offered by the end of May, with them beginning to roll out the end of next month. At that point, TW will have the fewest HD channels in the area, with all other providers pretty much on par (give or take a couple channels). Hopefully TW steps up their selection too, as I'm stuck with them and would like some additional HD content, as I don't watch any non-HD channels.

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