Opinions on ISPS: Comcast vs. Century Link. + are there better options??

[zombitroid]

Hey guys. I have finally made the decision to switch out my ISP. I am looking for is an ISP which can provide me with gaming internet which doesn't cost me 250$/mo. Any advice?

 

Never dealt with comcast before. Also I am more than open to hearing opinions on all other ISPs. I am shopping around for just the right gaming ISP. PS: I live in the city, and speeds aren't as important as long as I am not lagging!

 

thanks guys

[Slipknot31286sic6]

Xfinity 150 extreme is 90 a month 180down /25 up. I love it. Worth price. U don't need fast Internet for gaming.

[thegaurdian1]

If you can get anything better than the Xfinity garbage I would!  Even for slower speeds and more money I would get something other than Comcast/Xfinity garbage.  This is my personal opinion.  I am forced to use Comcast/Xfinity because there is no competition where I live.   I've always had the worst service, quality of connection and so on when it comes to Comcast/Xfinity.

[Slipknot31286sic6]

Hmm I've had Comcast at 2 different locations. No problems. Their cable TV pack is a joke but I don't pay for cable TV anymore. Internet hasn't let me down in over 15 years. I also set up and by no own hardware. . To each their own. I'd take comcast over anyone In usa. Lot of these guys with twc have issues keep their insane speeds they getting. Ping 20 ms to most cod servers in my area as well.

[Slipknot31286sic6]

To each their own.

[Dillinger]

I worked in the Cable TV industry for more than a few years, and have built plant in 8 US States, so I am a bit more in the know than the average Bear.

 

Having said that, I don't personally believe that Comcast, or any Cable TV provider, is using the ideal configuration for a gaming minded person.  While the speeds are always higher on Cable TV (outside of Fiber to the House/FTTH or Fiber to the Curb/FTTC), the combining model that they use, especially for UPSTREAM, is a detriment.

 

I personally switched from Comcast to a dedicated gaming ADSL line of 40U/5D from Century Link(because it was the same price as the 12/5 package) and I have found my gaming experience was just better.  All around.

 

Several other members here, including Fuzzy Clam, have gone the dedicated gaming line and have all reported much better results over their cable TV feeds.

 

FTTH would be my first choice.  That has the lowest chance of outside interference and has the cleanest response tests of all that I have personally seen.

 

FTTC would be next.  While not as isolated as Fiber to the Home, Fiber to the Curb is going to keep you pretty happy and the average user will NEVER know the difference.

 

Then ADSL or a variant like it, where there is a fiber optic backbone to feed a small service area.  It is not ideal, speeds will be average at best, but it is better than cable.

 

DSL - Slow speeds and they only get slower the further you get from the hub, but the combining happens much further upstream, so you see less outside interference and the ability of your neighbor to affect your game is greatly reduced.

 

Cable - Probably the worst choice, on the whole, of the lot.  While a brand new, well-built and maintained Cable TV plant will give you fast pings and great speeds, it needs to be maintained.  But when it comes to Cable TV, even the new stuff suffers from the combining of signals, especially on the return path.  This is where Cables's Achillie's Heel really is and nothing has been done (outside of Segmentation of existing nodes and digitalizing the return paths/UPSTREAM) to help alleviate the problem.

 

Again, your mileage can and will vary.  These notes are from a few years spent fixing a lot of what was built poorly and I know for a fact a lot of that stuff is still out there, in cities and counties all over the globe.

 

JD

[Slipknot31286sic6]

I guess try it out. Dillinger gave you the dictionary version. He is right cable varys on node or ppl on ur line. I think it also depends on modem and hardware as well. He seems to know his stuff. Doesn't hurt to try. Most places have 30 day money back

[demonchine]

I have a question for Dillinger. I'm on cable internet and when school lets out in my area, my internet starts lagging (games-wise, sans Netduma) will bumping my internet tier up give me a little more priority on the line? I've heard that it does, but I'd rather hear from someone in the know, such as yourself.

Also for the original poster, I have cable internet, my roommate has DSL (Centurylink, to be exact) and the advantage cable has over cable, that I've seen is that downloads (game downloads, updates, etc) are much faster on cable. The advantage DSL has is the consistency. I.e. her internet doesn't start lagging when local internet traffic picks up.

Man, re-reading that makes me sound like a jerk. "Hey will paying more money for my internet make the cable company realize my gaming hobby is more important than kids doing homework?"

[Slipknot31286sic6]

I believe that's buffer bloat. That's where netduma helps throttle and fix that in games like cod.

Yes dsl gives u dedication and more constistancy if u don't need that insane speed. Takes a min to change connection on r1. But honestly if u set R1 right. U won't need to worry. Also get a good modem. Tp link tc 7620. Not Motorola. I noticed difference when changing modems I run 150 extreme for speed on comcast

 

Have Dillinger give his insight as well.

[Dillinger]

Apologies for the long post:

 

 

demonchine, on 20 Oct 2016 - 4:17 PM, said:

I have a question for Dillinger. I'm on cable internet and when school lets out in my area, my internet starts lagging (games-wise, sans Netduma) will bumping my internet tier up give me a little more priority on the line? I've heard that it does, but I'd rather hear from someone in the know, such as yourself.

 

 

Man, re-reading that makes me sound like a jerk. "Hey will paying more money for my internet make the cable company realize my gaming hobby is more important than kids doing homework?"

 

 

LOL - I loved your moment of self-reflection at the end of that.... fucking priceless.   

 

For the purpose of this discussion I need to make a couple of assumptions and build on them with my answer.  I realize this won't cover every persons' real world situation, so try to read with a grain of salt.

 

First, an illustration:

 

http://imgur.com/a/XIzRd

 

This example is not the end-all/beat-all, but the similarities will ring true with a lot of you.  This will be especially true if you live more in the city and not out in rural farm land or rolling lush countryside.

 

Demonchine:  I suspect you have a similar layout, based on what you said about school being out, and seeing a drop in speed and performance.  

 

During the day, when the people who live in the Townhomes (as an example) are away from the house, your DOWNSTREAM and UPSTREAM paths are not being saturated with other requests.  The available bandwidth has very little to prioritize and deliver as there are just less users on the system.

 

Think of your local internet kind of like the airport.  The websites that you are visiting are the various places you can go (The Maldives like Bagsta, or maybe you draw the short straw and have to go to Detroit) and the company you are paying for service (Your local ISP) are providing the planes that could take you there.  Some planes carry more people, some are faster end to end, just like some “bundled” packages offer “higher speeds” or “support for every device in your home”.

 

No matter where you are going, you can’t get there until you board the plane and you can’t do that until you get through security.

 

The available bandwidth in your neighborhood (from the Node to your home), provided by your Cable TV provider in this case, is the security checkpoint.

 

This is the bottleneck that slows you down, both in real life and on the internet.

 

If no one is home in the neighborhood, then there are very few others trying to send and receive information during the same time slot.  In essence, your packets walk right up and walk right through security with a minimum of fuss.

 

 Now if everyone is home, and everyone is trying to get to their websites and stream their shows at the same time you are playing, there is a HUGE bottle neck in the local infrastructure.  This is like showing up late to your flight and realizing the line at security is 30 minutes long. 

 

While the available speed is the MAX that CAN BE achieved, that is the maximum during the most ideal time (IE – when everyone is not home, or not using the available infrastructure and you’re the only one requesting data). 

 

In regards to whether you will get “priority queueing”, or some sort of “advanced-head-of-the-line” privileges by upgrading?  No, I do not know of anything in the STANDARD Cable TV application that would do this sort of thing, regardless of package price.

 

Now regardless of what ISP you end up getting, there will be a bottleneck in the transfer of data.  The biggest difference is where this takes place and what devices are used to handle the problem.

 

Cable TV: This is handled on the street, closest to the homes being served. The devices that handle this operation are designed to be outside, susceptible to the elements, and are designed to be easily replaced by low-to-mid-dollar, moderately trained field staff.

 

FTTH/FTTC: This is handled much further upstream, in climate controlled environment by bench quality equipment that have constant, non-fluctuating & clean power sources that are much more tunable and scalable.  They are just built to a better overall quality because they face entirely difference operational risks.

 

ADSL/DSL: These fall in-between the two previous examples and this is where my hands on knowledge begins to fade into the fog of years gone past, so I am just going to leave this as is.

 

Does that help?

[demonchine]

Helps me. Thanks. I'm the only one who really uses my Internet in my home at the hours I do, so having 200 down and 20 up is overkill.

[Slipknot31286sic6]

I'd check prices via online. I went to xfinity site got 150/25 for 90 bucks a month. 10 bucks more than 75meg they over over phone and at the office. The online deal is only online and they had me up n going in 5 hours

 

Remember ur browser won't dl past 10 MN unless you use fire fox ext. Downloadthemall. Ps4 doesn't dl pass 6MB on a good day.

[zombitroid]

Life got a bit crazy and my roomie and I just had to get wifi in the home so we got xfinity 150 down and 10 up. havent gotten to try it out as of yet. I am a little more discouraged seeing these posts, because I got the comcast service now.. Maybe I will opt out if it doesnt perform..

 

Anyways enough self therapy, thanks for the replies guys. I really appreciate them. Hopefully this thread helps others as well. Thanks to dillinger for his insight. even if it does mean I am doomed

[Slipknot31286sic6]

Meh don't believe ur doomed. I love my Comcast. Everyone has their own opinion. If u can get a 16x4 modem not the 8x8 they recommend.

Don't get their TV junk. Jus get Internet.

 

If u serious need some crazy dedicated ping line blah blah. Netduma should help. I. 2.31k/d, 371spm. 130k kills on bo3. I guess with his line u should be like a perfect 4.6k/d right? Some ppl throw this jitter /buffer bloat up in the air all crazy. My jitter is 3-5 ms, 20 ms ping to Chicago. I go avg 50 kills a game. Drop mother ships in hc tdm. I love my 25MB per second downloads. 60/90cc in IW for sliders, 98/98cc in bo3.

[zombitroid]

well I have been trying it out for a couple of days now. its really laggy on the wifi, and ethernet fixes the rubberbanding however hit detection isnt quite pristine.

 

My old ASDL 2 + line is basically the same as comcast in terms of lag. And my comcast set up has 150 Down and 12 up, compared to my ADSL 2+ line, which was 20 down .8 up.

 

very strange! This is black ops 3 I am talking about. I think that possibly a factor might be that I live in an apartment complex in the city, so there might be a traffic issue becuase I am near so many people. Still havent done enough testing with this comcast shit to make a verdict. I will have to hook up my netduma to it and then give it a shot!

[zombitroid]

Apologies for the long post:

 

 

 

 

LOL - I loved your moment of self-reflection at the end of that.... fucking priceless.   

 

For the purpose of this discussion I need to make a couple of assumptions and build on them with my answer.  I realize this won't cover every persons' real world situation, so try to read with a grain of salt.

 

First, an illustration:

 

http://imgur.com/a/XIzRd

 

This example is not the end-all/beat-all, but the similarities will ring true with a lot of you.  This will be especially true if you live more in the city and not out in rural farm land or rolling lush countryside.

 

Demonchine:  I suspect you have a similar layout, based on what you said about school being out, and seeing a drop in speed and performance.  

 

During the day, when the people who live in the Townhomes (as an example) are away from the house, your DOWNSTREAM and UPSTREAM paths are not being saturated with other requests.  The available bandwidth has very little to prioritize and deliver as there are just less users on the system.

 

Think of your local internet kind of like the airport.  The websites that you are visiting are the various places you can go (The Maldives like Bagsta, or maybe you draw the short straw and have to go to Detroit) and the company you are paying for service (Your local ISP) are providing the planes that could take you there.  Some planes carry more people, some are faster end to end, just like some “bundled” packages offer “higher speeds” or “support for every device in your home”.

 

No matter where you are going, you can’t get there until you board the plane and you can’t do that until you get through security.

 

The available bandwidth in your neighborhood (from the Node to your home), provided by your Cable TV provider in this case, is the security checkpoint.

 

This is the bottleneck that slows you down, both in real life and on the internet.

 

If no one is home in the neighborhood, then there are very few others trying to send and receive information during the same time slot.  In essence, your packets walk right up and walk right through security with a minimum of fuss.

 

 Now if everyone is home, and everyone is trying to get to their websites and stream their shows at the same time you are playing, there is a HUGE bottle neck in the local infrastructure.  This is like showing up late to your flight and realizing the line at security is 30 minutes long. 

 

While the available speed is the MAX that CAN BE achieved, that is the maximum during the most ideal time (IE – when everyone is not home, or not using the available infrastructure and you’re the only one requesting data). 

 

In regards to whether you will get “priority queueing”, or some sort of “advanced-head-of-the-line” privileges by upgrading?  No, I do not know of anything in the STANDARD Cable TV application that would do this sort of thing, regardless of package price.

 

Now regardless of what ISP you end up getting, there will be a bottleneck in the transfer of data.  The biggest difference is where this takes place and what devices are used to handle the problem.

 

Cable TV: This is handled on the street, closest to the homes being served. The devices that handle this operation are designed to be outside, susceptible to the elements, and are designed to be easily replaced by low-to-mid-dollar, moderately trained field staff.

 

FTTH/FTTC: This is handled much further upstream, in climate controlled environment by bench quality equipment that have constant, non-fluctuating & clean power sources that are much more tunable and scalable.  They are just built to a better overall quality because they face entirely difference operational risks.

 

ADSL/DSL: These fall in-between the two previous examples and this is where my hands on knowledge begins to fade into the fog of years gone past, so I am just going to leave this as is.

 

Does that help?

Dillinger,

 

    I really appreciate your post on this. I already knew all this when I chose comcast. I'll explain why I chose them anyway in a second. My roomie and I

 

were in a sticky situation and we just needed wifi in our place. So I started researching ISP's that would be pertinent to my location, I found two. Century

 

link, and Comcast. (dish cable is satellite internet, and we all know what that is about). I didn't have time to look for more possible ISP's, and to be honest,

 

I wasn't ready to put my dollar into a more privatized internet company or a smaller company because I wanted to choose a company which I knew was the

 

real deal. (maybe I the smaller companies are more reliable?) Also comcast is what most of the people in this apartment complex use anyways. In fact, it

 

wasn't hard to set up comcast at all because the previous people had it here.. ANYWAYS, finally to what I want to say! When I called them I spoke with an

 

internet representative and I absolutely drilled this guy with questions for at least 30 minutes, some of which he didn't know the  answer to... I actually

 

asked him about the "security check" or the ques during peak hours. I asked him if there are less ques rural areas compared to what my area is like. I

 

asked him all of the above in regards to this issue. he literally said that none of that is the case because I

 

have a direct line to comcast/xfinity. I dont know who to believe, but I think dillinger is right on this, and the representatives probably arent trained to

 

handle questions like this. But yeah comcast either has a direct line to me independent of ques OR they dont know what they are talking about. Maybe

 

the only person that has the answer is the guy that built and programmed the internet delivery service? idk. But yeah its pretty annoying when you have a

 

professional rep on the phone and he gives you false information.... So yeah, I made a mistake in trusting the guy on the phone. If I had known for sure

 

 

So one last thing: you mention these other providers: FTTPS and such, can you recomend me to one of these and I will google them? Like which one

 

should I research on?

[Slipknot31286sic6]

Wait what? Why in hell would u game on WiFi that's auto 100ms ping vs 17 MS lan.... Hope ur not running from Comcast cuz ur wifi. That's jus ignorance. I finished IW beta going 5k pts a game, avg 3.0 40 kills a game. I guess ur good or ur not. Wouldn't day comcast I'd bad for gaming. Maybe if not set up right who knows. I love my 25MB downloads.

[thegaurdian1]

Hmm I've had Comcast at 2 different locations. No problems. Their cable TV pack is a joke but I don't pay for cable TV anymore. Internet hasn't let me down in over 15 years. I also set up and by no own hardware. . To each their own. I'd take comcast over anyone In usa. Lot of these guys with twc have issues keep their insane speeds they getting. Ping 20 ms to most cod servers in my area as well.

From experience and from my personal belief I don't believe that Comcast/Xfinity has good quality of service.  So while I did have speeds of 150mbps of download and 10mbps of upload it was the same quality as the speeds I have now 100mbps download and 5mbps upload.  I've played BlackOps3 and the new Infinite Warfare Beta.  My ping is 17-20 maybe a little more at times but that's the average.  While the NetDuma shows I have great ping in game of what is happening and me shooting first dying first does not reflect the ping.  When the stars align and the gaming gods shine on me once very 6 months I have an awesome match or two and then have to wait another 6 months.  I've had best experience with Verizon Fios from customer service to quality of the services they offer.  I will look into Dillingers suggestions as well.  Also maybe I just don't have my settings on NetDuma setup correctly.

[thegaurdian1]

I am NO MLG or any pro gamer of sorts but I have decent skills.  I do not mind losing at all but I do mind laggy connections, lag compensation etc.  It is what is though.  Well back to work for me catch you all later.

[LocalLegend615]

I worked in the Cable TV industry for more than a few years, and have built plant in 8 US States, so I am a bit more in the know than the average Bear.

 

Having said that, I don't personally believe that Comcast, or any Cable TV provider, is using the ideal configuration for a gaming minded person. While the speeds are always higher on Cable TV (outside of Fiber to the House/FTTH or Fiber to the Curb/FTTC), the combining model that they use, especially for UPSTREAM, is a detriment.

 

I personally switched from Comcast to a dedicated gaming ADSL line of 40U/5D from Century Link(because it was the same price as the 12/5 package) and I have found my gaming experience was just better. All around.

 

Several other members here, including Fuzzy Clam, have gone the dedicated gaming line and have all reported much better results over their cable TV feeds.

 

FTTH would be my first choice. That has the lowest chance of outside interference and has the cleanest response tests of all that I have personally seen.

 

FTTC would be next. While not as isolated as Fiber to the Home, Fiber to the Curb is going to keep you pretty happy and the average user will NEVER know the difference.

 

Then ADSL or a variant like it, where there is a fiber optic backbone to feed a small service area. It is not ideal, speeds will be average at best, but it is better than cable.

 

DSL - Slow speeds and they only get slower the further you get from the hub, but the combining happens much further upstream, so you see less outside interference and the ability of your neighbor to affect your game is greatly reduced.

 

Cable - Probably the worst choice, on the whole, of the lot. While a brand new, well-built and maintained Cable TV plant will give you fast pings and great speeds, it needs to be maintained. But when it comes to Cable TV, even the new stuff suffers from the combining of signals, especially on the return path. This is where Cables's Achillie's Heel really is and nothing has been done (outside of Segmentation of existing nodes and digitalizing the return paths/UPSTREAM) to help alleviate the problem.

 

Again, your mileage can and will vary. These notes are from a few years spent fixing a lot of what was built poorly and I know for a fact a lot of that stuff is still out there, in cities and counties all over the globe.

 

JD

[LocalLegend615]

So you think cable is the worst for gaming even over old dsl?

[Slipknot31286sic6]

Dsl is dedicated line. No sharing. Buy u sacrifice speed so yes dsl is better for gaming but ur netduma should fix it if u have cable... That's why we buy the router.

[Dillinger]

So you think cable is the worst for gaming even over old dsl?

 

This statement needs a couple of qualifiers to be correct.

 

Current Cable TV configurations, unless you have a brand new build down your street or you live in a node that has a very low subscriber count, does not use the best infrastructure for gaming.  The combining of signals, both your 1's and 0's for gaming and the 1's and 0's from everything else your neighbor's are doing, are being handed by cheaper, field serviceable equipment.  Because of this, small problems in a cable TV infrastructure compound themselves and CAN BECOME seriously problematic.  It's just the nature of the architecture.

 

DSL/ADSL use different tech where the combining of signals is done by more expensive, harder to replace, and more bench quality equipment.  Technical line items like "Port to Port isolation" and "Noise Amplification through Unit" become less and less of a factor because the gear is of better (more expensive and thus now field rated) QUALITY.

 

FTTC/FTTH use equipment that is superior to both, and the infrastructure powering it also offers greater isolation from what your neighbor's are doing at the moment you are trying to game.

 

It comes down to what is being processed, I.E. - your 1's and 0's for gunfights in this case, and what equipment is handling the work.

 

For gaming I would think most of us realize that a Local Area Network (LAN) is the ideal application for head to head gaming.

 

A LAN environment is "basically" a self contained node where each console has a dedicated gaming line to the console or "server" that is the host.  Each line is used EXCLUSIVELY for the 1's and 0's of that game and there is no other traffic on that line.

 

Think of Cable as that LAN environment, but for EACH PLAYER you see in the booth, there are 50-100 other people using their line to stream Netflix, Pr0n and rant on forums about how bad other players are during the event.  

[fuzzy clam]

I have cable for the rest of the house and ADSL for a dedicated gaming line and the difference is night and day according to ping plotter.

 

The ADSL line is so much more stable but you do sacrifice speed on some but again AT&T has ADSL packages of 75 / 7 so it's just a matter of finding something that fits you and your family's needs, weather that be fiber, cable or ADSL,VDSL.

[Dillinger]

I have cable for the rest of the house and ADSL for a dedicated gaming line and the difference is night and day according to ping plotter.

 

The ADSL line is so much more stable but you do sacrifice speed on some but again AT&T has ADSL packages of 75 / 7 so it's just a matter of finding something that fits you and your family's needs, weather that be fiber, cable or ADSL,VDSL.

 

I have the same set up at my house and I am inclined to agree with my powerful Wookie cohort.  ADSL, in a neighborhood where everyone else has cable internet, is just the solution I needed to help with my packet loss and jitter problem.

 

YMMV,

 

JD