So, we are sick and tired of Charter Communications, which has some of the worst, most evil customer service reps in the world, and some VERY high prices. I’d happily pay a fair price for just Internet service if I could be assured of getting reliable, high-speed Internet (not talking anything fabulous here, 3MBPS would do) at my home. Basically, my son enjoys MMO gaming, as do I, and my wife likes streaming movies, so we can really use some bandwidth.
So I thought I’d ask the Dopers … we don’t want anything more than good Internet. Where can we get it, at reasonable prices (say ~$50/month or less)?
Let me clarify further. I know there are alternatives like Xfinity and Clear out there, but what I want is word from Dopers who have actually used them, as opposed to their marketing people, which is what you get from ads (and way too many “objective” reviews). Also, if there OTHER cable providers than Charter I might use, I’m down with that. I have no problem with cable internet, just Charter Communications.
I looked the Dish network but their usage plans are pretty paltry when it comes to data. The maximum usage plan is only 30 GB per month. Five hours of streaming HD video is more than 10 GB, and I’ll sometimes stream that much in a day.
We switched from Time Warner to Fios 3 years ago and I’ll never go back! I can play WoW, my husband can watch naked people do the nasty, my son will blast the radio while playing whichever shoot 'em up he and his friends are into at the moment and my daughter can watch youtube videos of girls getting their nails done all at the same time without even a blip.
I do believe I have the middling package with them that includes phone and TV.
You probably won’t have other cable alternatives, as Charter likely has the exclusive license in your locality. Which means Xfinity won’t be available. But as others have mentioned, there are other alternatives such as satellite and DSL.
How do you get DSL from someone other than your local Cable provider? And is it any cheaper? We only get internet service from our local cable provider–and because it’s only internet, it’s super expensive. Like almost sixty bucks a month. We could pay the same sixty bucks for internet plus cable tv, but we don’t really want the cable tv.
We have two potential cable providers actually, but their prices are basically identical.
Cable broadband and DSL aren’t the same thing. DSL comes over the phone line and there can be several DSL providers. The main DSL provider would be your local phone company, however. In my area, it’s Century Link.
ETA: If you bundle your phone, TV, and Internet with them, the price of the Internet is only $19.99 a month for the next five years.
How do speeds generally compare between broadband and DSL? (And thanks for clearing up my abject ignorance of the distinction. I’m all just like ‘iunno just give me internets lol’)
Most people have at most two good choices: the cable company and the phone company. In a few places the phone company has switched to fiber, which is the best service. But in most places the phone company offers DSL, which is usually a slower service than cable.
If you are a light user, then a cell phone company offering 4G is an alternative–but they are going to charge big money if you exceed 5GB or so a month.
Ultimately, it’s only as stable as the wiring in your neighborhood, but IME, DSL is more reliable than cable broadband.
If it’s available to you, look into Uverse. The entire service coms to you on very high speed DSL. I’m getting 300+ channels of TV on four HD TVs, 24 meg broadband and two telephone lines for about $195 a month. (Or you can roll AT&T cell phones into the bundle.) There were a few kinks in the original installation, but in the past year, the only significant problem I’ve had wasn’t even their fault - some road construction snagged a fiber, so we had no service for about five hours.