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dexter6
Sep 22, 2003
I don't use the Verizon FiOS router for anything other than the connection (my Apple Time Capsule handles the routing and wifi).

Verizon just sent me a new router (Quantum Gateway) to replace my old router (Actiontec MI424-WR Rev E)

Should I bother swapping this out for any reason?

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Daily Forecast
Dec 25, 2008

by R. Guyovich

life is killing me posted:

The only problem with them really is that it's cable (AFAIK) and if a bunch of people in your new apartment complex have it, it'll slow down. But I'd bet their cable can offer faster than 7mbps.

Considering that we'll be getting their 75mbps plan, I'd say so.

I think I haven't not been a Comcast customer long enough to get their signup bonus (has to be a year I think?) but clever workaround: while I have been a previous Comcast customer, my wife has not. :buddy:

Thwomp
Apr 10, 2003

BA-DUHHH

Grimey Drawer
The Consumerist has an epic takedown today of all the arguments against Net Neutrality and heavier regulations that the ISPs made last year.

They took everything they claimed would occur in their filings with the FCC and compare it to what they told investors at the end of last year/beginning of this year. Shocker: investment has continued without interruption and the sky didn't fall.

Sticky
Jan 1, 2006

Pornhub. XTube. I know these names, better than I know my own grandmothers.

dexter6 posted:

I don't use the Verizon FiOS router for anything other than the connection (my Apple Time Capsule handles the routing and wifi).

Verizon just sent me a new router (Quantum Gateway) to replace my old router (Actiontec MI424-WR Rev E)

Should I bother swapping this out for any reason?

Did you get Quantum set top boxes too? If so, yes. You'll need to swap the router out for those to work.

dexter6
Sep 22, 2003

Sticky posted:

Did you get Quantum set top boxes too? If so, yes. You'll need to swap the router out for those to work.
I have internet only. No cable or phone.

Daily Forecast
Dec 25, 2008

by R. Guyovich
Welp, we moved, and are on Comcast again. Actually went to the local Xfinity store (Yep, we have one of those here in Seattle) and the whole process was nothing but pleasant and smooth with no needless upselling except for the dude offering us a higher speed for a TWO year price agreement for the same price, which we decided to jump on. $50/mo for 150mbps and works like a dream. I actually missed the Xfinity TV service, which is like Netflix except actually good. Bought my own router modem, got Best Buy to price match Amazon for like $50 off a Netgear N600.

Am... am I a satisfied Comcast customer? what happened :ohdear:

Actually, I seem to remember reading something about Comcast 'cleaning up' their customer service and image; maybe it's true.

Blackchamber
Jan 25, 2005

Daily Forecast posted:

Welp, we moved, and are on Comcast again. Actually went to the local Xfinity store (Yep, we have one of those here in Seattle) and the whole process was nothing but pleasant and smooth with no needless upselling except for the dude offering us a higher speed for a TWO year price agreement for the same price, which we decided to jump on. $50/mo for 150mbps and works like a dream. I actually missed the Xfinity TV service, which is like Netflix except actually good. Bought my own router modem, got Best Buy to price match Amazon for like $50 off a Netgear N600.

Am... am I a satisfied Comcast customer? what happened :ohdear:

Actually, I seem to remember reading something about Comcast 'cleaning up' their customer service and image; maybe it's true.

I dont think anyone was saying comcast was horrible at the start. Its the middle and the drawn out end that people have a problem with. A bit like going in for a colonoscopy and thinking 'I dont see why people dont enjoy this, the waiting room staff and their magazines are so nice!'.

Daily Forecast
Dec 25, 2008

by R. Guyovich

Blackchamber posted:

I dont think anyone was saying comcast was horrible at the start. Its the middle and the drawn out end that people have a problem with. A bit like going in for a colonoscopy and thinking 'I dont see why people dont enjoy this, the waiting room staff and their magazines are so nice!'.

Well, this is our second time on Comcast, and I seem to remember back three years ago it being a lot more of a pain in the rear end to even get the thing set up and working. And I seem to remember the lady constantly trying to upsell us on home security and TV packages (for the TV we don't have) and having to tell her, no, we just want the goddamn internet, like five times. This time it was just "hey, we want internet" "k, here's internet"

It was nice.

Daily Forecast fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Feb 12, 2016

Thwomp
Apr 10, 2003

BA-DUHHH

Grimey Drawer
I think that's partly to do with how the business looks three to five years ago.

Back then, cable cutting wasn't quite as prevalent as it is now (still not a super big deal but it's grown since then). The focus was still on getting as many people in as many bundles as possible.

I think the major ISPs see where things are headed (Internet being the major subscriber draw, TV secondary) and their priorities are less on bundles.

What their current priorities are right now would make for an interesting debate.

life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

Thwomp posted:

I think that's partly to do with how the business looks three to five years ago.

Back then, cable cutting wasn't quite as prevalent as it is now (still not a super big deal but it's grown since then). The focus was still on getting as many people in as many bundles as possible.

I think the major ISPs see where things are headed (Internet being the major subscriber draw, TV secondary) and their priorities are less on bundles.

What their current priorities are right now would make for an interesting debate.

AT&T stills seems to be very much all about the bundles, hard to get affordable anything period, even with bundles. Since they bought DirecTV, at least, you can get small discounts if you were already a customer with one or the other. Their priorities are still pretty much being the top dog, if they are the only provider in the area they are not much about improving their service because they know they are your only real option. That said, our internet bill has always been much lower than our home phone bill with them ($20 a month versus $50 a month). AT&T doesn't get much competition out where I live other than the areas of town that have FiOS.

I really am curious to see how Frontier handles the FiOS and whether they will continue being Frontier, or start to get competitive with other ISPs wherever they have competition. My wife was involved (consulting) in their acquisition of Verizon's fiber and she opined that the higher-ups at Frontier, all of whom she met and sometimes presented to, were just cruddy people with cruddy practices who seemed to have little interest in the customer service side of their company and weren't very nice to their employees.

Mrit
Sep 26, 2007

by exmarx
Grimey Drawer

life is killing me posted:

AT&T stills seems to be very much all about the bundles, hard to get affordable anything period, even with bundles. Since they bought DirecTV, at least, you can get small discounts if you were already a customer with one or the other. Their priorities are still pretty much being the top dog, if they are the only provider in the area they are not much about improving their service because they know they are your only real option. That said, our internet bill has always been much lower than our home phone bill with them ($20 a month versus $50 a month). AT&T doesn't get much competition out where I live other than the areas of town that have FiOS.

I really am curious to see how Frontier handles the FiOS and whether they will continue being Frontier, or start to get competitive with other ISPs wherever they have competition. My wife was involved (consulting) in their acquisition of Verizon's fiber and she opined that the higher-ups at Frontier, all of whom she met and sometimes presented to, were just cruddy people with cruddy practices who seemed to have little interest in the customer service side of their company and weren't very nice to their employees.

I had Frontier FIOS, and the service was great. But I HATED their customer support. They are assholes and liars.

Blackchamber
Jan 25, 2005

I had Comcast do an install on my new apartment, they claimed nobody had their service in 6 years so they needed to send someone there to check out the set up.

At the end of the service call the tech copied down the information from the bottom of my modem, which I thought was odd since it was my modem and not one they provided.

Is this fishy? Docsis cloning or something?

whydirt
Apr 18, 2001


Gaz Posting Brigade :c00lbert:
Does anyone have experience convincing a traditional ISP to deliver service to a currently "out of area" residence? The house in question used to be very rural, but now is literally two doors down (500 feet away) from one that gets Comcast service and across the street from a brand new subdivision.

WithoutTheFezOn
Aug 28, 2005
Oh no
I've dealt with that problem twice, and both times it ended up in something similar to "if you want to pay $8000 for us to run cable to your house, we'll be glad to let you spend $60/mo on our internet service!"

adorai
Nov 2, 2002

10/27/04 Never forget
Grimey Drawer

whydirt posted:

Does anyone have experience convincing a traditional ISP to deliver service to a currently "out of area" residence? The house in question used to be very rural, but now is literally two doors down (500 feet away) from one that gets Comcast service and across the street from a brand new subdivision.
From the business side, we had to pay $200ish to get an AERIAL run across a state highway. If you want it buried, they're going to charge you a lot. It's probably $2k just to get the horizontal boring machine out of the garage.

life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

whydirt posted:

Does anyone have experience convincing a traditional ISP to deliver service to a currently "out of area" residence? The house in question used to be very rural, but now is literally two doors down (500 feet away) from one that gets Comcast service and across the street from a brand new subdivision.

I'm dealing with something similar except where AT&T won't upgrade the Internet lines because we are "in a rural area" so it's like 56k speed here on "DSL." Not kidding. Until they see an area as profitable, they aren't going to do poo poo. In the view of most companies, you're lucky to have any internet at all and you'll be even luckier when they deign to bless you with sweet, sweet internet you can actually use to do anything.

Ours is literally so slow we can't even browse on it.

Serenade
Nov 5, 2011

"I should really learn to fucking read"
My experience with Verizon fios in the greater Boston area in the past month has been abysmal. Is xfinity so bad that it's not worth considering or am I stuck making angry phone calls until I get the internet I'm paying for from Verizon?

Thwomp
Apr 10, 2003

BA-DUHHH

Grimey Drawer

Serenade posted:

My experience with Verizon fios in the greater Boston area in the past month has been abysmal. Is xfinity so bad that it's not worth considering or am I stuck making angry phone calls until I get the internet I'm paying for from Verizon?

General consensus is it depends. One building may be wired better than another, or have tenets who use more or less capacity than others. If fios sucks for you, switch to xfinity and give them a try for a few months. It can't possibly be worse than what you've got, right?

I guess there's some rules of thumb to follow:

1) Urban areas tend to be crapshoots. Just look at all the trouble NYC has had to go through to get Time Warner to deliver on its promises. Wiring old buildings is a nightmare and the more people in a building, the better chance you'll have slower than expected speeds.
2) Suburban areas tend to get better service because white people of lower density and easier installation.
3) The further from an urban center you get, the shitter your service will be.

life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

Thwomp posted:

General consensus is it depends. One building may be wired better than another, or have tenets who use more or less capacity than others. If fios sucks for you, switch to xfinity and give them a try for a few months. It can't possibly be worse than what you've got, right?

I guess there's some rules of thumb to follow:

1) Urban areas tend to be crapshoots. Just look at all the trouble NYC has had to go through to get Time Warner to deliver on its promises. Wiring old buildings is a nightmare and the more people in a building, the better chance you'll have slower than expected speeds.
2) Suburban areas tend to get better service because white people of lower density and easier installation.
3) The further from an urban center you get, the shitter your service will be.

FiOS shouldn't be dependent on number of users since it's fiber, but I bet xfinity will be.

KS
Jun 10, 2003
Outrageous Lumpwad
That's kinda silly. They all terminate to a box in your neighborhood somewhere, and the backhaul on that box can be oversubscribed no matter the tech.

The "shared" aspect of cable is overblown.

Bizarro Kanyon
Jan 3, 2007

Something Awful, so easy even a spaceman can do it!


We currently have Mediacom internet. We have decently new lines. Last year, we switched to their Ultra tier of Internet. This provides 100 down, 10 up and a data allowance on 999 GB. We got this because we stream everything so that data allowance is very important.

Normally, we get around 40-50 down and 15 up. For the last year or so, we will have 3 weeks of normal Internet but then will have a few days where the Internet is sporadic (less than 1 down and 20 ups). It will jump up and down with speeds fluctuating at first before dropping off completely. It will then be fine and will happen 3-4 weeks later again. This happens whether I have the cable split to our tv (for a few local channels) or if I do not have it split.

I have contacted them and they send someone out but nothing is ever solved.

Any ideas on what can be causing this? Is it just their system or would a new non-company modem possibly help?

I Like Jell-O
May 19, 2004
I really do.

Blackchamber posted:

I had Comcast do an install on my new apartment, they claimed nobody had their service in 6 years so they needed to send someone there to check out the set up.

At the end of the service call the tech copied down the information from the bottom of my modem, which I thought was odd since it was my modem and not one they provided.

Is this fishy? Docsis cloning or something?

Not even a little bit. The modem has to be registered in Comcast's systems in order for it to work. The CMAC is the number that is used to identify it, and gets added to the billing system to facilitate troubleshooting and maintenance. It's not like the MAC address is hidden information or anything. It's even usually printed on the outside of the retail packaging I think.

Blackchamber
Jan 25, 2005

I Like Jell-O posted:

Not even a little bit. The modem has to be registered in Comcast's systems in order for it to work. The CMAC is the number that is used to identify it, and gets added to the billing system to facilitate troubleshooting and maintenance. It's not like the MAC address is hidden information or anything. It's even usually printed on the outside of the retail packaging I think.

Well that is odd indeed, if it needs to be registered in Comcast's system to work and I've used it for over 2 years with them already without issue. I was merely switching service locations, using the same modem.

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life is killing me
Oct 28, 2007

Has anyone used cablemover in their area to see what providers service their area, and found they are full of poo poo?

I checked them on a whim and they said Charter Spectrum services my area. I check Charter's site and they say they don't. Months ago they said TWC services us, same deal, go to their site and enter my address and they don't.

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