Need opinions RE internet speed
5I got baited and switched by AT&T at the Direct TV kiosk at Costco. They said I’d be able to get 50mbps internet thru AT&T as part of their package with Direct TV. The package I bought was supposed to be Direct TV with 3 free months of premium channels plus 50mbps internet for $80 month for 2 years (this may not include taxes). I am currently paying just under $100 for Sling plus Spectum 50mbps internet. This seemed like a great deal as I could get local channels (I can’t receive them normally), have 3mos of premium stuff, and still have the same internet and channels I have on Sling for about the same price I’m paying, for the cost of all the aggravation of switching internet.
Although their own website says I can get speeds up to 75mbps at my address, AT&T insists that only 10mbps are available, and thats what they’re coming to install tomorrow. So now I have to decide if I’m willing to take an 80% reduction in internet speed to get better TV programming.
I don’t understand this stuff very well, I don’t know how much being ratcheted back to 1980s internet speeds is going to affect my usage. Supposedly AT&T’s lines are better. But if it’s going to lag and drag when I stream those Direct TV shows on my tablet in the screen room then there’s no point in having it. If I’m going to lose more Hearthstone matches due to disconnects or slow service then there’s not point in switching. What do you guys think? Is 10mbps enough? I don’t know if I can even back out at this point as the Direct TV has been installed.
- 17 comments, 37 replies
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10mbps is going to cut it close just for HD and won’t cut it for 4k if you plan to stream (need about 25mbps for 4k), especially at peak times when you may not even get the full 10 or have multiple devices/people trying to use the internet in the household. no, i wouldn’t take that deal. i don’t even want to know what your upload speed is. stick with what you currently have.
Yeah, I wouldn’t take the deal either, personally. Especially since most services rarely give you the speed they claim you’re paying for and just say it’s “speeds up to”. Like @meh says, peak times will have a negative effect, too. If you’re sharing with other household members, it’ll be even worse.
@PurplePawprints @meh Thanks! Just called AT&T, he said AT&T’s lines are fiber optic direct to my house rather than shared cable, supposedly 10 fiber optic is better than 50 cable in real usage. He assures me that it will easily support streaming and tablet gaming. Is he full of shit or is that truthy? He suggested I do the install and try streaming while the techs are here, but didn’t say what the result would be if I’m not satisfied. There are no other household members competing for internet, unless the dogs grow thumbs.
@moondrake lol 10mbps is 10 mbps. he’s full of it.
@moondrake it is true fiber has some benefits, it may have symmetrical upload speeds and is prob more reliable. but 10mbps just isnt a lot of bandwidth, even if more consistent than cable. it still wont do 4k streaming.
@moondrake Bandwidth is bandwidth is bandwidth regardless of the capacity of the pipe that carries it.
@moondrake I’d call and get very, very explicit information about what will happen if they install, you try, you cancel since they suggested that. You may be screwed with a 2 year contract because someone may or may not not be telling you the truth.
Also I have 10 and more often than not get around 7
@moondrake ps and some stuff does take a while to load compared to when I am elsewhere.
@Kidsandliz i def wouldn’t say fiber 10 is equatable to cable 50, however i would say maybe a 10 to 15 or 20. fiber is going to be less latent, have better upload pipe, far more stable and consistent, and typically more channels. while bandwidth is bandwidth is bandwidth is correct, this doesn’t take into account the many other items that actually affect perceived speed of the internet connection download bandwidth is merely a piece. also typically on fiber connections (at least in my IT experience 10 is >=10)
@brdubb A real fiber connection is going to have a lot of qualities that are better than a similar cable connection (latency, packet drop rate, etc). But AT&T’s home connections are not typically real fiber. They usually run fiber to a junction box somewhere in your area, then it’s DSL to your home on your regular phone lines. This should get decent performance, but the few I’ve tested were a bit worse than traditional DSL.
So AT&T’s 10 is probably no better than cable’s 10, much less cable’s 50.
@fibrs86 parts of my city actually get real fiber to the home from ATT (called gigapower). so it’s possible he gets fiber to the home, however if it’s true fiber (under the gigapower name) it would be 100/100 not 10/10. ATT is working to roll it to the rest of the city but time tables are unknown. So i won’t say typically DSL as that assumption could just as easily be wrong as right where i live.
@brdubb I thought that gigapower was vaporware. AT&T spent almost two years advertising it locally and digging up a lot of the city streets. Then they just disappeared without delivering it to a single customer.
Of course, Verizon’s FIOS did the exact same thing the next year. Right now RCN is digging up all the streets, but without any advertising. Soon we may have the infrastructure for 5 major ISPs, but only 2 actually providing service.
How can the ISPs justify the cost? It must be millions of dollars in manpower alone.
@fibrs86 only way most companies justify the cost…it’s called competition. currently have two companies (maybe a third) working on fiber installations city wide for residentials.
@brdubb I should have been clearer. I don’t understand how they justify spending $10+ million in a single town and then abandoning it. We are on our 3rd ISP doing the same thing. That’s probably over $30 million to install infrastructure that will probably never be used. (though the hardware, asphalt, sod, and construction tape providers probably don’t mind)
It’s hard to consider it competition when the two active ISPs have raised their prices ~25% in the same time period.
@fibrs86 that’s odd…in some cases the previous work can be reused/utilized in the new system. it just depends on the city’s laws and regulations.
Yeah, bandwidth is bandwidth, if you get it. Have you run something like speedtest.net to see what you get now? Versus tomorrow with the new service? e.g
Mine is supposed to be 50/50, and I call this close enough.
@sligett I don’t know how well I can trust this test. Side by side my tablet just got ping 50ms, 13.95dl and 7.2ul, while my phone got ping 67 ms, 70.45dl and 6.13ul (on airplane mode with internet turned on). I’m supposed to be getting 50mbps, so I don’t know what’s up with that.
@moondrake i never trust a wifi device for a true speed test. too many internal factors at play. Best way is start with a hardwired device to test bandwidth as long as you get the full there, then it becomes a question of the equipment in the house (including the mobile devices) as to why the speed is slower.
If you live alone and don’t have to compete for bandwidth, 10mb will do. If you have a bunch of smart home devices, or you’re aiming for 4K streaming your likelihood of trouble-free satisfaction will rapidly deteriorate.
I have 12mb down, 2mb up with Centurylink. My real-world speeds are closer to 9.5mb/1.6mb. With a roommate in the house, this isn’t really ideal. If he’s watching Netflix for example, I can’t answer my Skybell video doorbell, or play online FPS games.
before you make a decision , call up Spectrum and ask about their new internet plans
i got upgraded from 50(old twc plan) to 100mbs(new spectrum plan) for around the same cost (spectrum doesn’t charge for modem rental)
and no i dont think 10mbs is enough
heck even 100 is not enough when my cousins visit
Frontier, used to be Verizon, 100/100
Box is a few years old, on wifi in another room
I’ll take it
AT&T Uverse used/uses fiber to the node (big ugly khaki box on the corner) then uses the phone lines the rest of the way to the house. In my neighborhood, the phone lines are still the same physical wires that have been there since the 50’s. In the neighborhoods to the south of me, it’s actually fiber to the premises, and the lowest speed they offered when I was doing installs three years ago was 50 mbps. They use pair bonding (using all four wires) to up speeds in older homes/neighborhoods, and to extend the reach, but AT&T is still, at its core, DSL technology, and it’s limited by the outdated physical technology that they refuse to replace. If they sold you on 50, and they can’t give you 50, then they need to take a hike.
If it were fiber to your home 10mbps would be the bare minimum you should be able to get, and the same pipe should support much more bandwidth. You said it yourself in your first sentence, you got baited and switched.
I’d tell them to pound sand.
@djslack @moondrake I agree. I have a hard time believing they actually strung fiber to your house if you’re only getting 10 Mbps. I think they’re yanking your chain.
@moondrake, I really don’t understand speeds but I have DirecTV & 20/2 broadband cable internet. About half the time, when trying to stream on-demand programs, I get messages that my internet speed is too slow and rather than streaming the show I have to record it to the DVR and watch it later. Never get the message with Netflix or Amazon Prime so I don’t think it’s the internet.
Might be worth a call to DirecTV. In my experience, ask for a supervisor, they seem to be more knowledgeable.
Around here, the installers are contracted, not AT&T/DirecTV employees. Had dealt with 3 different ones (long story) until supervisor sent the 4th who knew what he was doing & resolved the issue.
@sassymango Yeah - AT&T is like that around here too. Took 4 tried to get the line buried rather than (1) just tossed in the ivy, (2) cover it with pine needles, (3) no show, (4) use the tool to dig a trench and dump the line in then don’t back fill (I finally did that as I had given up). On the other hand Comcast, OMG customer service, lies, more lies and even more lies. In the building I live in it is either 3 mpbs AT&T or 10-150 Comcast + service outages due to “throw the yarn and a cat into a closet. Shut the door”, type of wiring in this building. They’d send someone to fix one person’s issue and that person would take out an entire floor. Rinse and repeat for 8 days.
@Kidsandliz
I live against a mountain, very rocky & surrounded by trees. Long story short, the dish should never have been put on the roof but nobody wanted to dig in the rocks to make a trench.
The dish was installed in the fall, once trees bloomed in the spring, the signal was lost. 3 different installers pointed to 3 different groups of trees, facing 3 different directions with instructions to cut them down for service. 2 groups were in the front of dozens of trees that went back in the woods or up the mountain, when this was pointed out them, they admitted they didn’t know if I would get a signal. 1 told me he was a former tree guy & it was safe to cut a 100’ tall tree in half vertically to get a signal.
After complaints to upper management, they sent out an installer who was great & knew what he was doing! He worked his ass off digging a trench & was able to set the dish up in the yard without removing trees. We have had good service every since.
Behold the majesty that is rural AT&T DSL and bow down before its brilliance.
The craziest part is that I’m lucky. AT&T is no longer providing new DSL service around here so everyone else is SOL.
@SSteve
Brave man. Rattlesnakes, skunks, coyotes, ticks, and bits so slow you can count them going by in order to get yourself to sleep.
@SSteve That speed test brings back some painful memories: in 2012 I was living in a pretty urban area and signed up for AT&T Uverse. The plan was for 20 down and 5 up.
I never got better than 2.5 down. After several of their techs couldn’t fix, I canceled. 30 days later I got a notice from a collection agency stating that I owed them $150 for a ‘cancelation fee’, despite originally signing up for a ‘no contract’ plan, and never getting a bill directly from AT&T.
I wanted to fight it, but I was trying to buy a house at the time and the bank told me to take care of it as soon as possible.
tl;dr: AT&T, never again.
@SSteve hopefully you’re in one of the states where AT&T is deploying its new fixed wireless system for rural customers. It still isn’t 50mbps fast but should be a lot faster than that. It requires installing a dedicated antenna on your home. Ask them about it. They want you off that DSL shit yesterday just like they’re pushing the remaining POTS folks off “Plain Old Telephone Service” with constant price hikes.
@RedOak
Used fixed wireless when I was rural for a while. Some small potatoes company that uplinked to a bigger one.
Sucked way less than Hughes.
Other options were dialup or 2g.
@RedOak Not much chance of fixed wireless. It’s hilly and forested where I live. There are some people around who can use it (from a local company, not AT&T), but not at my house. There is another local company that’s promising to run fiber to the house around here, but they’ve been “breaking ground real soon now” for about 18 months. That’s to bring fiber to their Phase One area. I’m in Phase Two which is “5-7 years”. So if I’m lucky maybe by 2027 I’ll be able to enter the 21st century.
@SSteve
Before then you will have 5g and 6g and whatever.
And skunks and rattlesnakes and coyotes and ticks.
@f00l I guess so, huh? Hopefully the 5g and 6g won’t have stupid data caps that I’d blow through in three days of software updates like LTE does now.
And bears. Don’t forget the bears. We can’t put out bird feeders any more because the bears come tear them down.
Usually, but not always, the skunk smell is a pot grow.
@SSteve … so it might be wishful thinking that Microsoft’s wireless efforts for rural areas would be a challenge as well.
Their hope is to use the space between TV channels to provide rural Internet.
And of course by the time 5/6 G comes about one of these private rocket companies will be blanketing us with a new low orbit satellite internet system.
@SSteve Hey you are doing better than when I was living on someone’s farm. There we never, ever got better than 1.57 down. Up was 0.2 to 0.3. I forget ping…probably could have boiled water in how long that took. With two of us online at once it was 0.6-0.8. Supposed to be 3mbps. And that was the only choice. And don’t ask me how but I managed to get a fuko once with that.
keep the speed man!
Don’t get me started (too late) on those Costco/Sam’s DirecTV assholes.
They work for a subcontractor and don’t have to worry about your satisfaction after the fact.
At least Costco’a rent agreement with the DirecTV contractor company at their stores says something like if you harass our customers and follow them out of the electronics section, we can kick your ass out.
Apparently the Sam’s arrangement with the subcontractor (a different DirectTV subcontractor) has no such customer safe harbor clause. Via the Sam’s corporate contract they are allowed to follow you all over the damned warehouse until you relent! The Sam’s store managers are almost as frustrated but they throw up their hands and point at “corporate”.
And then there are the traveling tin salesmen hocking DirecTV. They’re even worse. They will imply they work directly for DirecTV and make all kinds of promises they can’t back. These clowns literally drive from state to state doing this. Your dead giveaway they’re lying - when they ask to see your current UVerse bill.
I managed a team that included taking care of media connections (included DirecTV) at our locations around the country. Pure hell to deal with DirecTV. We cringed whenever we had a problem or needed to make a service change.
At home we years ago cut the TV cable. Thank goodness there is virtually no scenario where we’ll have to deal with DirecTV… Except for resisting flipping off the irritating subcontractors at Sam’s.
@RedOak one nice thing about buying through Costco, there’s a dedicated Costco customer service number. They’ve been much more knowledgeable and helpful than the regular Direct TV AT&T folks when I’ve forgotten and called direct. The only problem I’m having now is the direct tv receiver can’t maintain connection with the modem (which is in another room) and I have to keep rendering the password and most times it still won’t connect. Not a huge problem but it means I can’t watch on demand.
@moondrake Okay, it is now tomorrow. I am anxiously awaiting an update to see what happened!
@moondrake
Fwiw
Not my biz, but I hope you cancelled.
Attached might irught nit he good at your place.
YouTube TV will be coming to all the big cities soon enough and will have local channels thru streaming.
I hate hate hate Dish and DirecTV resellers who are all scumbag liars. (ok maybe 3 if them aren’t. Only I never met those 3.)
If you do choose to switch, I hope you only do so after a bunch of research.
Let us know what happened.
@f00l agreed. Although…
I choose not to let DirecTV off the hook with that “reseller” label. It implies DirecTV has less influence over them than does the label “subcontractor”.
Clearly they have a product that does not support a full and transparent sales process so they openly choose the slime route.
Lots of good advice in here. If you ever want to know more or have questions, feel free to ask me. In a past life I was the Manager for a Fiber Optic ISP for 9 years.
@Bogie how much work was it if a customer needed a dedicated ip?
@communist For me it was easy. We utilized VLANs, so blocks of 8 IPs (5 usable) assigned to each customer If they wanted static IPs, we just marked not to ever change their VLAN. [We would sell /17s (32,768 IPs) to e-mail spammers prior to the IPv6 push and made an absolute boat load. They would get the IPs blacklisted in 2-3 months, and we would scrub them through our residential services for 1 year before rinsing and repeating.]
From my understanding in DSL, you can simply provision an IP to the MAC address to the customers router.Keep in mind the effects of DHCP servers here…
Cable is a bit different with how the service works, but I don’t know a lot of its inner workings. The cable company in our area just doesn’t do Static IPs.
The complicated part is ensuring the IP isn’t already utilized. It has to be in a separate partition to ensure it doesn’t get randomly assigned. This isn’t difficult to do in networking, but it does require additional configuration that some companies may not manage well, or at all.
@Bogie Thanks for the offer. When talk gets to tech I start hearing white noise. I’m an idiot savant at hooking things up and making devices function (except Android, which is still not intuitive for me), but I have no clue how they actually work.
@moondrake It’s all relatively easy, as long as I can find something you understand to compare it to. IE water flowing through Pipes, etc.
TL:DR 6mbps is all you need to stream if you have an oldish tele and a bunch of computers and smartphones
srsly, have you done a “taste test” comparing 4K vs. 1080p?
when i rent from redbox i cannot see the difference between DVD and Bluesteam, or whatever it’s called.
/giphy don’t get sucked in
@Yoda_Daenerys you might want to see a vision specialist if you can’t see the difference between a dvd and a bluray… who knows what all you might be missing.
Thanks, everyone for your sage and thoughtful advice. I spent a lot of the last couple of days talking with people on the phone and reading agreements. As near as I could tell I was pretty much stuck. I’d already had the DirecTV installed, so I was stuck with that two-year contract. I purchased it as a package deal, and so they could have jacked up the DirecTV price on me if I dropped the AT&T. You guys were right, it is fiber optic to the box and DSL to my house. However he was able to get the full signal, and I had him install it in the bedroom which is more or less the center of the house, to maximize range. I’ve been playing Hearthstone and streaming videos in the backyard off and on all day with no problems. If they were upfront about costs (they say the only extra is state sales tax) I am going to be saving about $20 a month, and getting a $200 Costco gift card out of this, and the AT&T contract is only for a year. So it looks like I’m going to be living with it. Hopefully I’ll be able to still perform all the functions that I am accustomed to. If anyone bites on this in the future, get the internet installed first in case they are pulling your chain on what’s available. @pitamuffin @f00l
@moondrake try running this speed test https://sourceforge.net/speedtest/
@communist Thanks! I keep getting an unrecoverable error on the upload test on both my phone and tablet. But the download test runs 11.7 on the phone to 12.3 on the tablet. I’m two rooms away from the modem. The installer said he got 15 at the box and the box was quite close to my house so he could promise me the full 10. Looks like I’m getting a little better than that.
@moondrake another good test is:
http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest
which tests form multiple points around the net simultaneously
and
http://fast.com
which tests netflix networking/cache systems.