Price and speed of your internet?

[ravenclawtrekkie]

My roommate has been paying over $70/mo for, I believe, a promised 20 Mbps DSL connection from Centurylink (which averages about 4 Mbps on speed tests). We're switching to a Bright House cable connection to get a promised 35 Mbps for essentially the same cost, so we'll see what speeds we actually get from them.

We have 3 people in the house who do Netflix and online gaming, so living with DSL has been torture.

 

[3 MEN AND A BOAT]

Wow, when reading these speeds I feel like I live in the Stone Age. I'm paying $35+tax for 10mbps (I think this is the fastest they offer) through centurylink, their the only phone and Internet service available in my area though so.

 

[Stitch69]

Neighbors wireless no charge

 

[mel&me]

50 Mbps both ways $45.00

 

[IDoDis]

We pay $50 for 50 Mbps. It includes a $5/mo add-on for boost. We don't get 50mbps though. Our tested speeds are closer to 30 Mbps. I have to call every 6 months to bring the monthly bill back down after they increase the monthly amount.

 

[xlxo]

Thoughts....

• Use speedtest.net to regularly check your speeds. I find the site can be confusing for novices with ads... here's an alternate site...
  http://rimouski.speedtest.telus.com/
• I can live with 15Mbps... however when I got a couple of Dropcam's.... I had to go with 25Mbps.
• In general 15Mbps is good enough for one person, but when there's IP cameras and other users, it's worth getting the faster connections.
• also check your speeds with Ethernet, not just wifi. Wifi speeds can vary with distance and interference.
• Faster speeds will come with larger monthly data cap without surcharges.

 

[bcla]

Thoughts....

• Use speedtest.net to regularly check your speeds. I find the site can be confusing for novices with ads... here's an alternate site...
  http://rimouski.speedtest.telus.com/
• I can live with 15Mbps... however when I got a couple of Dropcam's.... I had to go with 25Mbps.
• In general 15Mbps is good enough for one person, but when there's IP cameras and other users, it's worth getting the faster connections.
• also check your speeds with Ethernet, not just wifi. Wifi speeds can vary with distance and interference.
• Faster speeds will come with larger monthly data cap without surcharges.

WiFi speeds may also be slowed down by encryption and assorted overhead.

 

[bcla]

My roommate has been paying over $70/mo for, I believe, a promised 20 Mbps DSL connection from Centurylink (which averages about 4 Mbps on speed tests). We're switching to a Bright House cable connection to get a promised 35 Mbps for essentially the same cost, so we'll see what speeds we actually get from them.

We have 3 people in the house who do Netflix and online gaming, so living with DSL has been torture.

DSL speeds always go down relative to the distance relative to the switching location. You would need to be within a certain distance of the "node" to get their max speed and it just goes down from there. I noted that various forms of U-Verse use DSL from a neighborhood box to the home, and they can generally guarantee a short enough distance in a high population density area. However, DSL is traditionally hooked up at your phone company's switching station to be connected via existing telephone wire, and that could literally be miles away from your home. Granted the technology has changed over the years to extract higher speeds, but it's at its heart kind of a strange way to go about transmitting data over in shielded telephone wire designed for a 3.5 kHz voice signal.

I'm not really an expert on signals and waves, but I do remember testing electrical transmissions through plain cables. Just a few inches and there weren't really nasty "reflections" or echoes. Make it any longer and the signal would be subject to a lot of noise.

 

[EMAW_KSU]

My roommate has been paying over $70/mo for, I believe, a promised 20 Mbps DSL connection from Centurylink (which averages about 4 Mbps on speed tests). We're switching to a Bright House cable connection to get a promised 35 Mbps for essentially the same cost, so we'll see what speeds we actually get from them.

We have 3 people in the house who do Netflix and online gaming, so living with DSL has been torture.

Thanks for posting this. Mine went up last month with Cox

$77.99

Advertised 100-10
Actual 30-6

 

[Meriweather]

Okay....not tech savvy here, how do you tell how fast it is?

 

[mnrose]

35 down, 4.5 up. (via a wireless connection, so wired would be faster, right?). I pay $60 a month (TOO much). But, it is standalone service....I have no cable no wired phone, etc.

 

[LisaR]

Thoughts....

• Use speedtest.net to regularly check your speeds. I find the site can be confusing for novices with ads... here's an alternate site...
  http://rimouski.speedtest.telus.com/
• I can live with 15Mbps... however when I got a couple of Dropcam's.... I had to go with 25Mbps.
• In general 15Mbps is good enough for one person, but when there's IP cameras and other users, it's worth getting the faster connections.
• also check your speeds with Ethernet, not just wifi. Wifi speeds can vary with distance and interference.
• Faster speeds will come with larger monthly data cap without surcharges.

Thanks for that. I pay for 15Mbps and the test showed 16.98 using wifi so I guess I can't complain. At least I am getting what I pay for.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

In our new place it is supposed to be like $60 a month, which sounds too high to me, but one of those situations of what choice do we have. They bundle in the phone which we do not want or need. It is actually cheaper to have the phone thrown in than it is to not have phone.

 

[JayhawkMomma]

We have 1gig for $150 per month, including cable tv.

 

[phinz]

Price: Too much
Speed: Not enough

American Internet service is a joke compared to most of the rest of the civilized world.

 

[tvguy]

My son is here now. He pays $80 for Comcast blast, 150 Mbps.