Who is your Internet Provider

[techtitan100]

This might be in the wrong place, well I guess it could be in 2 places but I want to know from you guys who provides your cable TV Service, telephone, and internet service, right now we have Bright House Networks in my home, but we are moving soon and plan to switch to Comcast and yes even local companies where you live is welcome as well

 

[Elljay]

Telus.

 

[JustCall]

Ziggo. Worst company ever.

 

[leejosepho]

SuddenLink, and I am quite pleased!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Here's my recommendation:

Move somewhere where you are not expected to haggle for a deal every year with your provider, just as if you were trying to buy a used car from your average shyster car dealer.

Cox expects that. They jack you up 20 or 30 bucks per month every year for their phone/TV/Internet bundled "deals" and you are then expected to call customer service and beg, plead, and threaten to drop them until after 20 minutes you get a deal maybe 5 or 10 bucks higher. Everyone I know goes through that as a matter of course. It's demeaning, pathetic, and infuriating.

It's obviously part of Cox's business model. I'm not sure if it pervades the entire industry. Does it?

I don't know of any other industry other than car dealerships that has this model, but they should all be sentenced to 2 to 14 years in the electrical chair. Then taken out and shot.

Grumpy old man signing off.

 

[derekimo]

Cox expects that. They jack you up 20 or 30 bucks a year for their phone/TV/Internet bundled "deals" and you are then expected to call customer service and beg, plead, and threaten to drop them until after 20 minutes you get a deal maybe 5 or 10 bucks higher. Everyone I know goes through that as a matter of course.

It's obviously part of Cox's business model. I'm not sure if it pervades the entire industry. Does it?

Comcast is exactly the same.

It's demeaning, pathetic, and infuriating.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[leejosepho]

This might not work with all companies, but I have recently discovered some unexpected willingness to make deals. With SuddenLink, for example, I began at an introductory rate for a year and then managed to keep that rate for the second year after I had called to close my account and telling them, when asked, I was switching to AT&T. DirecTV did something similar and came up with a decent two-year deal when I called to cancel after about 20 years, but then they later broke that deal by charging more and refusing to adjust and now they want me to pay a fee for early cancellation. Bottom Line: You can likely get a decent rate while getting started, but stay on top of that and maybe even call before the end of your contract and ask whether the next cycle can also be made affordable for you before you go looking elsewhere for a new provider.

 

[techtitan100]

I heard that Comcast likes to charge you for every single thing, they are charging you to rent their modem and I do want to say they charge you to send a paper bill to, if you ask me the whole modem rental fee is silly, you would be better off buying your own, but I have no idea on what the process of doing that is like as far as getting back online, I would assume you just plug in the cables in your good to go

 

[RoasterMen]

PLDT. Extremely disappointing

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Cox is the only game where I live and, apparently, they know it.

 

[leejosepho]

...if you ask me the whole modem rental fee is silly, you would be better off buying your own...

Simply paying a monthly rental seems convenient for many folks who do not want (or are unable) to pay a larger up-front sum for a purchase, and that is fine if you might likely be switching providers at the end of the current service year anyway. But overall, yes, an outright purchase ultimately costs less and especially if you do a little shopping ahead of time rather than purchasing a modem from the provider at signup time.

...but I have no idea on what the process of doing that is like as far as getting back online, I would assume you just plug in the cables in your good to go

A cable modem (as opposed to a phone modem) needs to be provisioned (acceptable, recognized and allowed to connect), but that is a fairly simple process that should be doable via a phone call at the time.

 

[Joan Archer]

I'm with BT, they own the exchange box I get my broadband from, fibre hasn't got to us yet.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

When I first got cable internet, I had the good fortune to at least know it made more economical sense to buy my modem and router from Cox instead of renting it. When my router started dying earlier this year after five years or so, I knew enough to buy and set up my own hardware instead of buying from Cox, especially since Cox had switched to a combo modem/router. It cost me considerably more than Cox's hardware but I wound up with much better hardware.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

When I first got cable internet, I had the good fortune to at least know it made more economical sense to buy my modem and router from Cox instead of renting it. When my router started dying earlier this year after five years or so, I knew enough to buy and set up my own hardware instead of buying from Cox, especially since Cox had switched to a combo modem/router. It cost me considerably more than Cox's hardware but I wound up with much better hardware.

I think Cox charges 5 or 6 bucks a month for a modem? Maybe more now, I haven't checked in 10 years. You can get a good cable modem for well under 100, so I don't really understand why people rent them.

I assume there is no way to buy the desktop receiver (Scientific Atlanta) you need to get Cox cable? I think they charge 8 bucks a month for that thing.

And they have a bad habit of trying to get you to upgrade your modem when you call customer service. Probably get a commission if they can sell you.

What are the tangible measurable benefits of Docsis 3 modems compared to Docsis 2, as opposed to allegations?

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

When I first got cable internet, I had the good fortune to at least know it made more economical sense to buy my modem and router from Cox instead of renting it. When my router started dying earlier this year after five years or so, I knew enough to buy and set up my own hardware instead of buying from Cox, especially since Cox had switched to a combo modem/router. It cost me considerably more than Cox's hardware but I wound up with much better hardware.

I think Cox charges 5 or 6 bucks a month for a modem? Maybe more now, I haven't checked in 10 years. You can get a good cable modem for well under 100, so I don't really understand why people rent them.

I assume there is no way to buy the desktop receiver (Scientific Atlanta) you need to get Cox cable? I think they charge 8 bucks a month for that thing.

And they have a bad habit of trying to get you to upgrade your modem when you call customer service. Probably get a commission if they can sell you.

What are the tangible measurable benefits of Docsis 3 modems compared to Docsis 2, as opposed to allegations?

I don't remember how much Cox charges to rent or how much I paid to buy my modem and router from them but, assuming $100 to buy versus $5/mo rent, I saved 400 shekels over their life (only the modem actually started dying).

I more than doubled my speed when I upgraded from the DOCIS 2.0 modem to the DOCIS 3.0 modem. I'm paying for 50Gbps down (Cox doesn't advertise upload speeds) but the old modem was getting only around 10-12Gbps down. Just adding the new router and Wi-Fi adapter (USB 3.0) gave me about 20-25Gbps and adding the new modem and tweaking the cabling where the router and modem are (the biggest improvement came from simply adding a terminating cap to the unused terminal of the data tap) ran it up to a wee bit over 60Gbps most of the time.

The improvement with DOCIS 3.0 over DOCIS 2.0 is dramatic but you have to keep in mind any weak area in your system will throttle your speeds. If using a USB Wi-Fi adapter to connect to your computer, you have to use one that connects via USB 3.0 to get the faster speeds.

This is generally the slowest time of day (4:30 PM) and I just got these results:

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Hmmm.....I just got 28 down and 7 up on that Ookla test, with an 8 ping.

That's on a mid-tier Cox package and an 8 year old Motorola Surfboard Docsis 2.0 modem. OK by me, considering their insufferable pricing.

 

[ThrashZone]

Cox expects that. They jack you up 20 or 30 bucks per month every year for their phone/TV/Internet bundled "deals" and you are then expected to call customer service and beg, plead, and threaten to drop them until after 20 minutes you get a deal maybe 5 or 10 bucks higher. Everyone I know goes through that as a matter of course. It's demeaning, pathetic, and infuriating.
.

AT&T is the same way too
They're getting really weird with U-Verse billing but still better than dealing with Comcast

But this year I may switch to a Roku or what ever the darn thing is and get rid of U-Verse and keep the internet only

For what's on t.v. it would be better just to steam Netflix...

 

[techtitan100]

ThrashZone we got U-Verse hooked up in our home in January 2011 and the tech did not seem to know what he was doing because at the time we only had a desktop and he made it wireless instead of plugging it into the Ethernet jack, his excuse was "Your Ethernet jack is probably broken", well in about December of that year we cancelled U-Verse and got Comcast and the when we hooked up our internet to the desktop, the Ethernet port did work, so we ended up cancelling Comcast after a few years because we was sick of the way they was charging us and switched to Bright House Networks, now as customers of Bright House it isn't really that bad, the internet is ok, not as fast as I wish it was and we get a great selection of channels, well here in a few weeks we are moving to an area in which Bright House doesn't serve and have to switch back to Comcast, but anyhow the whole point of this story is that by far U-Verse is the worst, their techs are lazy, and the TV boxes are so slow it was so hard to pull up the Caller ID for the home phone

 

[ThrashZone]

I wouldn't go by 2011 standards or box all installers as useless

My service has been flawless equipment and installer as well but it was my request to hardwire to the t.v. and not wireless
I already had a Ethernet cable wired from my desktop to my t.v. so it was easy for him to do the request to forget wireless

I don't have a home phone my parents do and the caller i.d. shows up on the t.v. when an incoming call comes in = actually pretty cool

But as all things I was fortunate to have fiber optic cables ran up our street so might be why U-Verse is functioning well as it is
I don't believe any internet speed benchmark fairs well but most of that is because java and flash are not installed on my systems or Chrome for that matter either

 

[leejosepho]

...this year I may switch to a Roku or what ever the darn thing is and get rid of U-Verse and keep the internet only

For what's on t.v. it would be better just to steam Netflix...

Yes, but be careful there or you can easily end up spending just as much as for a cable provider. We use SuddenLink ($35.00) for an internet connection and nothing else, then we have our purchased Roku and its Sling Television app ($20.00 with a few live TV channels plus decent movie rentals) connected to that. After dropping DirecTV ($60.00) and purchasing a quality OTA (Over-The-Air) antenna, all of that is enough for us.