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I am. The Gigabit service is about €90 (includes TV+Phone) which in U.S. dollars would be about $110. I don't think it's expensive but I just checked the router and apparently it sucks. It's single-band, MIMO 2x2 whereas the router I'd get in case I upgraded to 1 Gbps is dual-band, MIMO 3x3 and has some other technologies such as beamforming and whatnot. Maybe I should buy a router and use the one I have as a bridge?
Honestly you should probably not use any isp provided equipment. With very few exceptions they choose their equipment based on price, not performance. If you live in a apartment building you may want to look at a mesh wifi system. Companies have products such as Google WiFi, and eero that come with 3 APs(routers). You place them strategically throughout your home and you will always be close to the wifi.

My friend has gigabit fiber in her high rise apartment with metal framed walls. Even with very nice nigh end consumer gear she had tellible wifi down the hall. With Google WiFi she has spotless wifi everywhere, and pulls a very impressive 500 Mbps.

If they are moving you up to 1 gig over cable then you are probably being upgraded to docis 1.4 so the traffic management should be excellent.

For those who say the often download files at close to 1 gbps I am curious what consumer server is allowing you to download that fast?

I currently have 300mbps only because it was part of the package from my isp. I wouldn't pay any more for it then maybe 50-100mbps. I am a power user as well, and I don't really feel any appreciable difference from my old 50mbps fiber.

My PS4 does download games marginally faster. However would it be worth 3
$40 a month extra to have gigabit just so I can get a game a hour faster? Not for me it's not.

Browsing the internet streaming 4k Netflix etc only uses a small fraction of that.
 
[...]

For those who say the often download files at close to 1 gbps I am curious what consumer server is allowing you to download that fast?

[...]

Browsing the internet streaming 4k Netflix etc only uses a small fraction of that.

I chuckled. I highly doubt there is any server out there that allows downloads faster than 100 Mb/s.

As per streaming 4K on Netflix, 100 Mb/s should do it 3 times over.
 
Cable, once staurated beyond the capacity of the main lines, is very unreliable in terms of speed.

Jav6454 I have always suspected this but am not educated on this subject. I have a coaxial cable connection with a new supposedly top shelf modem. (Arris) My router is the newest version of AirPort Extreme and my entire house is connected via CAT 6 along with some gigabit switches. In total there are 15 wired and 10 wireless devices in my home. I experienced trouble not getting my 100 Mbps and the internet company (WOW) came out, ran some tests and rewired the entire neighborhood I am in. (Including running new cable from my pole directly to my modem.) I have never had any dropout issues and since they ran the new cable NO buffering issues. They re-wired about a year ago. I now have much tighter variations in tested download speed. Will you please help me better understand the "saturated beyond the capacity of the main lines" concept? Thank you for your time.
 
Jav6454 I have always suspected this but am not educated on this subject. I have a coaxial cable connection with a new supposedly top shelf modem. (Arris) My router is the newest version of AirPort Extreme and my entire house is connected via CAT 6 along with some gigabit switches. In total there are 15 wired and 10 wireless devices in my home. I experienced trouble not getting my 100 Mbps and the internet company (WOW) came out, ran some tests and rewired the entire neighborhood I am in. (Including running new cable from my pole directly to my modem.) I have never had any dropout issues and since they ran the new cable NO buffering issues. They re-wired about a year ago. I now have much tighter variations in tested download speed. Will you please help me better understand the "saturated beyond the capacity of the main lines" concept? Thank you for your time.

There are a few different things at play. It sounds like your original issue was due to substandard wiring. Either the gauge of the wire was too small, or you had some sort of fault in the line.

As to the lines getting oversaturated I can speak on it. However I am not a network engineer but I know a few.

The way data moves down a coaxial network is very similar to a water main. The data runs on a finer optic cable with huge capacity to a node, where it then leaves on a thick guage cable, to then hit the distribution hubs, and be split off to each customer.

From my understanding until relatively recently the company would send a bunch of data to each modem. The newer docis technologies do take advantage of advances in speed, but where they find the speed is by very agressivly shaping traffic so that when people are not home, or doing very low bandwidth things the system will shift your surplus capacity to others who need it.

This is all great. The average speed for those on cable has skyrocketed. However it does not change the original issue that there is still a finite amount of data to each node. Cable companies love to oversell their nodes, because it is cheaper.

Majority of time this is no issue but depending on how many people are on at once you can see huge fluctuations in your performance, as the system tries to balance everyone's needs.

This will be especially problematic in apartment buildings or dense areas where a bunch of people are sucking on the straw at the same time.
 
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I wouldn't pay any more for it then maybe 50-100mbps.

I agree. I have 52Mbit fibre and over Christmas we were 5 adults and a baby in the house. Some days we had 5 smartphones, 4K ATV, 2 iPads and 1 laptop sucking juice at the same time. Not once did anyone experience buffering, loss of connection and slow ping times.

As others have mentioned, a good router can make all the difference. I'm with BT and my powerline adapter plugs straight into it the BT router/modem and exclusively handles WiFi and Ethernet in the house.
 
I am. The Gigabit service is about €90 (includes TV+Phone) which in U.S. dollars would be about $110. I don't think it's expensive but I just checked the router and apparently it sucks. It's single-band, MIMO 2x2 whereas the router I'd get in case I upgraded to 1 Gbps is dual-band, MIMO 3x3 and has some other technologies such as beamforming and whatnot. Maybe I should buy a router and use the one I have as a bridge?

As others have suggested, it may not be your router, rather it may be your ISP.

Cable service tends to deteriorate when everyone in your area is surfing at the same time. There is only so much bandwidth between the local node you are connected to and the rest of the ISP network, they build the uplink for average load, but keep adding users until the complaints pile up. So, document speeds throughout the day, and complain.

If they advertise 200Mbps service, in a healthy node you would expect to see 10-20% higher speeds during the low use periods, and 10-20% slower speeds in high use periods. In other words, should roughly average to somewhere close to 200Mbps.

But, you state speeds while wired to the network are far under the 200Mbps service level, so either the router or modem is ill equipped for that service level, or their network is oversubscribed in your area. 1Gbps service level may not really help if it is oversubscribed. If the modem\router was put in place a few years ago when service levels were lower, it may be the router is not sufficient for the 200Mbps service. The industry has been moving to DOCSIS 3 and 3.1 to achieve higher speeds, but it may be the modem in your current router is DOCSIS 2 and thus not capable of the kinds of speeds you are paying for. Your ISP probably wouldn't care unless you complain, so complain!

Since 200 should be adequate for your needs, I would push the ISP to get answers on why their service fails to deliver promised service levels before just upgrading and paying more (for perhaps little or no gain). It may be as simple as replacing your modem\router with a more current one.

I don't use my ISPs equipment. They charge a $12\Mo fee to rent their gear, so I bought my own Modem and Router and consistently get speeds consistent with the advertised service level. It pays for itself in a year or two, so then just money in the bank.
 
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Honestly you should probably not use any isp provided equipment. With very few exceptions they choose their equipment based on price, not performance. If you live in a apartment building you may want to look at a mesh wifi system. Companies have products such as Google WiFi, and eero that come with 3 APs(routers). You place them strategically throughout your home and you will always be close to the wifi.

My friend has gigabit fiber in her high rise apartment with metal framed walls. Even with very nice nigh end consumer gear she had tellible wifi down the hall. With Google WiFi she has spotless wifi everywhere, and pulls a very impressive 500 Mbps.

If they are moving you up to 1 gig over cable then you are probably being upgraded to docis 1.4 so the traffic management should be excellent.

For those who say the often download files at close to 1 gbps I am curious what consumer server is allowing you to download that fast?

I currently have 300mbps only because it was part of the package from my isp. I wouldn't pay any more for it then maybe 50-100mbps. I am a power user as well, and I don't really feel any appreciable difference from my old 50mbps fiber.

My PS4 does download games marginally faster. However would it be worth 3
$40 a month extra to have gigabit just so I can get a game a hour faster? Not for me it's not.

Browsing the internet streaming 4k Netflix etc only uses a small fraction of that.

I agree with almost all of this but....
If they are moving you up to 1 gig over cable then you are probably being upgraded to docis 1.4 so the traffic management should be excellent.
I have never heard of docis 1.4, and an internet search didn't find any results. Did you mean DOCSIS 3.0 or 3.1?

My PS4 does download games marginally faster. However would it be worth 3
$40 a month extra to have gigabit just so I can get a game a hour faster? Not for me it's not.
I agree.
If it even downloads that fast too. I think it was already mentioned on the thread, but just because someone is paying for Gigabit service, doesn't mean that things will download anywhere close to that speed. For many people, probably the majority of people, Gigabit internet is overkill.
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The Gigabit service is about €90 (includes TV+Phone) which in U.S. dollars would be about $110. I don't think it's expensive
It is hard to judge if that is a good deal or not due to plans are usually priced at the local level, and I am not sure where you live, but it is probably very far form me.

Maybe I should buy a router and use the one I have as a bridge?
You can, or you can buy your own modem too.

I have both Cable and FiOS at my home, when I use the Cable ISP, I use my own cable modem and my own router.

It saves a lot over time in rental fees, and I have control over quality.
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I have a coaxial cable connection with a new supposedly top shelf modem. (Arris) My router is the newest version of AirPort Extreme and my entire house is connected via CAT 6 along with some gigabit switches. In total there are 15 wired and 10 wireless devices in my home. I experienced trouble not getting my 100 Mbps and the internet company (WOW) came out, ran some tests and rewired the entire neighborhood I am in. (Including running new cable from my pole directly to my modem.) I have never had any dropout issues and since they ran the new cable NO buffering issues. They re-wired about a year ago. I now have much tighter variations in tested download speed.

I had a similar issue when upgrading from DOCSIS 2.0 to 3.0.

Long story short, the cable was cut slightly when I had my FiOS installed. When I went back to Cable, my DOCSIS 2.0 modem worked great, even with the damaged line. When I upgraded to 3.0 modem, my speeds were inconsistent, sometimes lower than it was with the 2.0, I would have constant drop outs, some lasting for 15 minutes or more.

I suspected the problem was with the cable companies lines, and not mine, but I replaced all my lines anyways, so when I explained the problem, they would just check their end. That is when they found the damaged line.

Anyways, it was amazing how different 2.0 and 3.0 was. 3.0 had a much higher sensitivity to signal issues, while 2.0 ran with a barely functional line.
 
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Jav6454 I have always suspected this but am not educated on this subject. I have a coaxial cable connection with a new supposedly top shelf modem. (Arris) My router is the newest version of AirPort Extreme and my entire house is connected via CAT 6 along with some gigabit switches. In total there are 15 wired and 10 wireless devices in my home. I experienced trouble not getting my 100 Mbps and the internet company (WOW) came out, ran some tests and rewired the entire neighborhood I am in. (Including running new cable from my pole directly to my modem.) I have never had any dropout issues and since they ran the new cable NO buffering issues. They re-wired about a year ago. I now have much tighter variations in tested download speed. Will you please help me better understand the "saturated beyond the capacity of the main lines" concept? Thank you for your time.

Think of this as water pipes. Each household that has water draws from a main line for your neighborhood which in turn is connected to another water main for your city district. Now let's say that everyone starts filling their pools. Water pressure will start to drop and hence everyone will start getting less water pressure and by default, less water itself. What to do? Pump more water? Makes sense and you can do that as long as you have a big enough water pump overhead to push the required water. However, once you reach your pump's limit, there is nothing you can do.

Now, let's take this back to our internet concept. Think of the data as water, the pipes as the coaxial cables and the pumps as the modems that transmit data. If people start downloading and transferring data on a coax that, then everyone's speed is decreased. Internet companies offset this by buying bigger modems for main backbone lines. These modems have large per backbone line connection speeds; let's say 10 Gb/s per line transfer rates. There is also an issue of physical capacity of the coax, but let's ignore that for now. However, if that capacity is reached, then everyone's connections to that same coax line will have to share the available bandwidth and that's when speed starts to drop. The more people connect and transmit data, the less capacity for everyone there is and hence speeds drop further. This usually happens during peak hours (say 6.00pm to 9.00pm).

Many times to offset those speed drops internet companies make backbones fiber cables which have modems with much faster data transmission rates at perhaps much more cheaper costs per Gb/s of bandwidth than a copper wire. Fiber can reach easily up to 1 Tb/s. That is why older and much densely packed neighborhoods tend to have the biggest speed gaps between advertised and real world. Simply because older infrastructure is copper vs newer fiber. Also why newer neighborhoods have better connections and service reliability. Also reason why companies that offer fiber offer it at higher prices, but guarantee speeds much more and tend to have higher data speeds for sale. Also, due to the fact that since the infrastructure is fiber end to end (even the last mile), network congestion is minimal due to the huge amount of bandwidth available in the backbones (usually in minimum range of 1 Tb/s).

That's for coaxial based data transmission which is the focus of Cable Companies. DSL tech for example is much more reliable as each house has their dedicated line to the server at the phone exchange. However, the issue with DSL is that the farther away you are from the main district telephone switch exchange, the slower your speeds become due to electrical noise inherent to copper (lowers your Signal to Noise Ratio [SNR]).
 
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Since 200 should be adequate for your needs, I would push the ISP to get answers on why their service fails to deliver promised service levels before just upgrading and paying more (for perhaps little or no gain). It may be as simple as replacing your modem\router with a more current one.

They say that they only guarantee the advertised service levels via Ethernet. And they will only get anything done about it (without charging) in case internet speed falls under 75% of 200 Mbps in my case (via Ethernet). They say that via Wi-Fi there are lots of factors that can lower the speed like other devices, appliances, walls, etc. and that if I am having trouble to plug in an Ethernet cable. Sounds like they're reading a script.

I don't use my ISPs equipment. They charge a $12\Mo fee to rent their gear, so I bought my own Modem and Router and consistently get speeds consistent with the advertised service level. It pays for itself in a year or two, so then just money in the bank.

That's what I will probably end up doing.
 
They say that they only guarantee the advertised service levels via Ethernet. And they will only get anything done about it (without charging) in case internet speed falls under 75% of 200 Mbps in my case (via Ethernet). They say that via Wi-Fi there are lots of factors that can lower the speed like other devices, appliances, walls, etc. and that if I am having trouble to plug in an Ethernet cable. Sounds like they're reading a script.



That's what I will probably end up doing.

I read your original post to mean wired speeds way below the 200 service level. If it is just WiFi speeds that are that low, I agree with your ISP assessment, WiFi interference is a tough nut to crack.

Benefits to rolling your own (bring your own Modem\Router) are you can save rental fees, buy newer tech, and avoid some of the interference.

The easiest way to avoid interference is with 5Ghz WiFi, it has a shorter range than 2.4Ghz, meaning less interference from neighbors. It also doesn't conflict with appliances and bluetooth, etc.
 
I recently made a post about people over paying for internet speeds that they don't need.

In your case, I think that 50 Mbps would be fine. I think 25Mbps is the upper end of 4K streaming requirements, so as long as it is just 2 streams going at the same time, you should be fine.

Another thought, I have access to 2 ISPs in my area, and I notice that both of them tend to have slightly higher speeds than what is advertised.

For example, I currently have FiOS 50Mbps downloads, and I typically get close to 60Mbps on both speedtest.net and fast.com

When I had Comcast a few months ago, my 25Mbps service was closer to 30Mbps.

My point is, that you will probably be fine with the 50Mbps speed, and if your service is like mine and gives you a little bit extra, maybe that will give you a little more peace of mind about choosing the cheaper plan.


This.

You need to watch out for two main things.

  • Is the ISP delivering speeds as promised?
  • Am I able to deliver the speeds to my device?

If the ISP delivers 50 mbps and you are able to get that data to your device then 50 mbps is way more than enough unless you have heavy simultaneous use from other devices. If the ISP delivers 50 mbps and you can only deliver 15 mbps because of wi-fi issues then it's another story(this is a common problem).

A little story. When I dropped my Comcast cable and went Comcast internet only they cut my service off for a bit and when I got it back I found out a few weeks into it I was getting 35 mbps download when I did a speed test. I called up and they fixed it and I got back my 240 mbps connection. Moral of story. I could not spot the difference between 35 mbps and 240 mbps in daily use. I wasn't doing anything crazy in terms of use but I was doing a lot of 4K watching and I didn't even notice a difference. All my devices are using ethernet anyways which eliminates extra possibilities of problems.
 
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Just notice how old this thread is
What were you going to say?

I know a lot of people complain about posting to old threads, but I personally think if the post adds something meaningful to the thread, there is nothing wrong with doing it.

Many people get to these threads by searches, so if there is new information or anything helpful that wasn't already mentioned, it would help when people find these threads.

I have something to add since last time I posted on the thread. I have since upgraded my TV and ATV to 4K. Even with a heavy streaming house, 50Mbps download speed was perfectly fine. Although, this is only with one 4K TV and a few 1080p ones.

I switch my ISPs often, and usually take whatever the cheapest deal is. My two available ISPs are Comcast and Verizon FiOS.

The cheapest Comcast deal are usually 60Mbps or 100Mbps download with the occasional 30Mbps download promotion. For FiOS, the cheapest plans are usually 50Mbps or 100Mbps download, depending on the current promotion.

I say that to say that not that I am streaming 4K in my home, I will most likely never be on a plan that is less than 50Mbps, and will most likely try to be @ 100Mbps or above.


A note to current FiOS subscribers: I may not ever switch back to Comcast ever again.

Use this link to save money, but don't take the initial offer, click on the "other" deal link to get better deals:

Corporate FiOS used to subscribe to the business model that it is harder to get a new customer than keep an old one, which is generally true. FiOS, like most ISP in the U.S. would have great deals, but only for new customers only. The deals would usually have built-in price increases, and expire after a year or two.

Customers then could sign up for a new deal with FiOS, but the new deals for existing customers were never as good and the new customer deals and usually involved signing one or two year contracts.

Most people do not like to shop around (or can't due to lack of competition), so they would just keep paying these high rate prices, which is why it is much harder for FiOS to get a new customer than keep an existing one.


But, with the cord cutting trend, people started to educate themselves on ways to save money with the ISPs, one way is switching ISPs to always get the new customer price. More and more people started doing this. I have been doing it for over a decade.

Corporate FiOS realized that while it is still harder to get a new customer, it is no longer easy to retain current customers.

That was a long story to tell you why they started a website for existing FiOS customers to lower their bills to the new customer rate.

If you call the FiOS retention reps, they will not give you the good deals, as getting the lower rate as an existing customer only works via the website.

If you try the website, do not pick the first good deal you see, click on the "other" deals link as the deals in there are much better than the initial deals offered.

I was paying for the FiOS new customer deal of 100Mbps up and down for $39.99 a month for 12 months.... Not bad. But when I went to the website, the initial deal they offered was the same 100Mbps for $39.99.

I click on the "other" deals, and they had an offer for 200Mbps up and down for the same price of $39.99 a month. Also, this is a locked in rate, and it may not change. (although, who knows if that is actually true)

A side note, when I tested my speed after signing up for the new deal, it was actually 300Mbps down and 350Mbps upload. Not bad for only $40 a month.
 
This was mentioned in a previous post.

Netflix was complaining about Verizon throttling them, so Netflix started Fast.com to show actual speeds from their servers.

I alway do both Fast.com and Speedtest.net, as Fast.com only tells you download speed, and not ping or upload.

In my experience since using Fast.com, the speeds tend to be similar.

This is from a few minutes ago:


View attachment 750678
[doublepost=1518279145][/doublepost]View attachment 750679

Fast.com does show upload and ping speeds.
When it’s finished, just press “more info”
 

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