Desperately need Internet provider alternative.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Cable One is s***. Rancid, fetid, forgotten-outhouse-in-the-desert s***. Their pricing is abominable, they CAP YOUR DATA FOR CABLE INTERNET, and the bandwidth is throttled and allotted according to their nonsensical fair-use policy. I pay more for my Cable One 50/2 service with a 100GB/month cap than I paid for 80/20 unlimited fiber back in Utah. It's a joke. Unfortunately the only alternative I can find is Centurylink, who are even MORE of a joke ($30 for 7 meg down! MY f*** PHONE IS FASTER THAN THAT, AND CHEAPER!).

I'm desperately hoping someone has some kind of recommendation. I live in the middle of effing nowhere. We can't get FIOS here. Even Comcast's horrendous customer service would be welcome here...at least $50 bought me 30/5 uncapped!

Why the Hell are data-capped internet contracts even legal? It's the same problem we faced with cable TV twenty years ago: one provider controls an area and can do pretty much whatever the Hell they want with their services and pricing because there's literally NO alternative.

The second I find anything faster than 20 Meg in the area, I am cancelling the living Hell out of my Cable One contract. Scumbags.

EDIT:

50 MB my bony a**.

[darylzero]

wow that is crazy; they offer a 50Mb connection with a 100GB cap!?!?! What is the point? With that fast of a connection I would be over the 100GB limit in 2 days. Don't get me going on Cable TV/ Internet providers! They are all thieves.

At least Intel is going shake up the cable tv industry by offering a la carte programming

I must say though if you live in the middle of nowhere and still get 20Mb connection that is better than 99% of most people who live in the middle of nowhere.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Yeah 20 down isn't horrible. 2 up leaves a little to be desired, but really it isn't far off what I have in Jackson, MS. 207 ms ping sucks balls though bro.

[float_6969]

You already have a cell, have you considered an unlimited data plan with your cell provider and use the cell as a wifi hotspot, or is that too slow? What about satellite? The upload is TERRIBLE (basically dialup), but the download is insane. But if you get weather there a lot, it might not be a good idea.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I've looked into satellite but it's monumentally expensive and some providers even want you to BUY the equipment outright.

My phone's connection is fast, but not consistently enough to be my primary internet source. It's great for tethering my N7 though.

[Dattebayo]

Phone/mobile internet stick data plans usually have a data limit of 3, 5 or 10 gb before the pricing gets insane, often charging as much as 5 cents a MB after the limit has been breached... so that's not really an option anyway.

[MinisterofDOOM]

T-mo does genuinely unlimited. But I'm afraid if I take TOO much advantage via tethering they might not be happy.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Cross that bridge when you get there haha.

But seriously, I feel your pain bro. The BEST internet I could get in my last town was 1.3 MB down DSL service, and it was pushing fifty bucks a month (and went down all the time).

I literally called Verizon and begged for FIOS. After being told they had no plans of coming to the area, I very seriously suggested- "Name your price". Alas, they would not

[float_6969]

Being somewhat close to Kansas City, I'm hoping that Topeka will see Google Fiber soon. Right now I'm on ATT U-verse and I'm happy enough with it, but I don't do any gaming.

[flohtingPoint]

Were going to get a little techy here, ready?

Are you connected with a hardline (GBE or at least 100) to your router/switch or via wireless? A lot of wireless routers or wireless cards dont have there required bandwidth to take full advantage of anything past 20mb. I know I'm fairly hardcapped on my wireless router at about your speed, though on my work PC I have in my apartment's office room I built in a drop with a GBE hardline, I'm able to get 53Mbps at peak hours.

QoS? Is it enabled on your router? Is your MAC in the table for high priority?

[Ace2cool]

Knowing MoD, he's probably hardwired in and running a full gaming desktop.

And most modern routers can handle way more than 20Mbps. My 2 year old router got me 32Mbps when I was still in CA.

MoD, my parents said they tried satellite internet and that it blows d!ck. Just thought I'd pass that down. Apparently it was slower than what we have now, and what we have now doesn't exceed 6 Mbps. Just for benchmark.

[Dattebayo]

T-mo does genuinely unlimited. But I'm afraid if I take TOO much advantage via tethering they might not be happy.

Sure, that's what they say, but it's not true. A company I used to work for tested that one time several months in a row.

[darylzero]

It would be nice to live in KC right now.

[gwoods]

pass, I'll keep my slow internet.

[davidoliva]

I have verizon dsl and its great even though i downgraded from fios...im always able to perfectly stream and watch all my "live tv" channels on my ipad via directv anywhere....even though i dont pay for any dtv service

[WDRacing]

I has FIOS 75/35. My speeds are blazing and I have a teenager that is online gaming from wake-to-sleep that I share bandwith with.

Wireless


Hard

[gwoods]

because of this thread I replaced my router with a new WD (western Digital) N600 that can broadcast 2 300 mbps signals.

I also upgraded my connection speed with COX Cable for free from 5 mbps max to 25 mbps max speed. Last night on speedtest.net I clocked almost 22 mpbs download. Graded 86% faster then global

[MinisterofDOOM]

Were going to get a little techy here, ready?

Are you connected with a hardline (GBE or at least 100) to your router/switch or via wireless? A lot of wireless routers or wireless cards dont have there required bandwidth to take full advantage of anything past 20mb. I know I'm fairly hardcapped on my wireless router at about your speed, though on my work PC I have in my apartment's office room I built in a drop with a GBE hardline, I'm able to get 53Mbps at peak hours.

QoS? Is it enabled on your router? Is your MAC in the table for high priority?

GBE. Only things that are wireless in my house are mobile devices. As far as that goes, though, it's simultaneous dual-band. Results from my Nexus 7 are usually in the ~13Mbps range. Bizarrely, my phone fares far worse on Wifi, but often outdoes the N7's Wifi on HSDPA+.

Router is set up as it was when I was getting results like these back in Utah:

[flohtingPoint]

Intranet throughput is the same? No chattering/collisions? What router do you have? Is it SNMP capable and if so is it throwing traps? 20Mbps is insanely slow if you're GBE, even I get 50 with the junk of the suburbs of DC in peak hours.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I am a DUMB@SS.

I just realized that my new DOCSIS 3.0 modem (a Moto Surfboard with integrated wired/wireless router) was causing an ip conflict with MY router. I am not using the router functions on the Surfboard (and have its wireless features entirely disabled as I already have a dual-SSID setup with my Netgear router), but it still stole the 192.168.0.1 address and the router got reassigned. Ran ipconfig to find where it was hiding, made sure the change updated throughout the settings, and updated the firmware while I was at it.
My last two ISPs have been modem-free, and Comcast before them used only a basic routerless modem, so I didn't think about this until just now.

New result since the fix:

Ping is ABOMINABLE but that's to be expected when you're half an hour from even the tiniest speck of civilization (sometimes known as Idaho Falls).

I still despise Cable One for their data caps. Scumbags.

[flohtingPoint]

I am a DUMBASS.

I just realized that my new DOCSIS 3.0 modem (a Moto Surfboard with integrated wired/wireless router) was causing an ip conflict with MY router. I am not using the router functions on the Surfboard (and have its wireless features entirely disabled as I already have a dual-SSID setup with my Netgear router), but it still stole the 192.168.0.1 address and the router got reassigned. Ran ipconfig to find where it was hiding, made sure the change updated throughout the settings, and updated the firmware while I was at it.

New result since the fix:

Ping is ABOMINABLE but that's to be expected when you're half an hour from even the tiniest speck of civilization (sometimes known as Idaho Falls).

There we go, looking MUCH more proper. Good stuff!

[Ace2cool]

idjut.

[float_6969]

OUCH, I was going to complain about my 51ms ping speed, but that is TERRIBLE.

[davidoliva]

OUCH, I was going to complain about my 51ms ping speed, but that is TERRIBLE.

why would you complain about ping if you don't do any gaming?

[float_6969]

Do you want a crappy ping response? That's like saying, "Why do you want 400whp if you're just going to drive around town?". Because I want it there if I decide to use it.

[WDRacing]

Good analogy!

When you pay for a service, you usually want the best service you can get.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Especially when you're paying out the arse for it.

[davidoliva]

Well im only getting 1.58/1.52 Mbps with 65 ms ping and i can stream Directv channels perfectly without any lag or jitter...so ping isn't really an issue like it used to be back in the day.

[Ace2cool]

Ping only really matters if you're gaming. That's already been said in here. And as far as streaming, you must be doing it in standard def, probably no more than 360p. I can't stand anything less than 720p now.

[float_6969]

Well, since it's come up;

ATT U-Verse. Paying for 5Mbps/1Mbps. This is also at 10:13PM CST on a Sunday, so these are a bit higher than normal for me. I think I pay about $40/month for the DSL, but it's in a TV package, so I'm not exactly sure what the internet costs alone.