Opinions please...

[fuzzy clam]

...got a knock on the door yesterday, it was a AT&T guy telling me they just ran fiber in my neighborhood and I am eligible for it, just have to bundle it with Dish network, which I hate satellite for TV as it's been known to go out at any given time.But they are offering  the premium TV package and internet 50 / 25 fiber is available right now.But really soon it'll be 100/100 but the package they are offering is cheap every channel you can think of and 50 / 25 fiber for 100 bucks a month,2 year contract and can renegotiate for the same price after the contract is up.

 

Here's the problem, you guys know I just had a dedicated gaming line with AT&T (DSL) for a year, the price was great.After that they tripled it and I said see ya.So there's a little mistrust there,I have Spectrum (charter) and it's cable, which sucks but the price hasn't changed in 7 years as were grandfathered in.

 

So I got an AT&T tech coming tomorrow so I can talk to him about where the hub is from my house,if I have to use their equipment and some more stuff I want to know before I commit.

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but from the hub, it will be cable run to my house as I know it's not fiber to the door.So what's considered a good distance to be from the hub ? As that will be a big factor also,I don't want to be 3 miles from the hub as that's a lot of cable.

[ColonicBoom]

The shorter the distance the better really.

I'm nearly a mile from mine and of the 80/20 I pay for, I only get about 25/6.

 

What kind of cable is it from the hub, the 'last mile'?

 

Mine is vdsl. Fibre to the hub, then copper phone cables (over the streets), and it doesn't suffer much jitter.

My previous isp had docsis3 (or whatever it's called) and that hub was at the end of my street, under 100 yards away, loads of bandwidth, but it was shite for jitter.

[bagsta69]

I have fibre to the cabinet, which is about 1/4 mile away and then copper to the house. 

The main exchange is about 3 miles away and this runs to the street cabinet via fibre.

I get 29 down and 6 up with a steady 12 ms ping and bugger all jitter.

[iAmMoDBoX]

...got a knock on the door yesterday, it was a AT&T guy telling me they just ran fiber in my neighborhood and I am eligible for it, just have to bundle it with Dish network, which I hate satellite for TV as it's been known to go out at any given time.But they are offering  the premium TV package and internet 50 / 25 fiber is available right now.But really soon it'll be 100/100 but the package they are offering is cheap every channel you can think of and 50 / 25 fiber for 100 bucks a month,2 year contract and can renegotiate for the same price after the contract is up.

 

Here's the problem, you guys know I just had a dedicated gaming line with AT&T (DSL) for a year, the price was great.After that they tripled it and I said see ya.So there's a little mistrust there,I have Spectrum (charter) and it's cable, which sucks but the price hasn't changed in 7 years as were grandfathered in.

 

So I got an AT&T tech coming tomorrow so I can talk to him about where the hub is from my house,if I have to use their equipment and some more stuff I want to know before I commit.

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but from the hub, it will be cable run to my house as I know it's not fiber to the door.So what's considered a good distance to be from the hub ? As that will be a big factor also,I don't want to be 3 miles from the hub as that's a lot of cable.

 

First, are you sure it's Dish? AT&T just bought direct tv so I'm pretty sure that's what they're bundling... If so, Direct tv is pretty good. As for it going out, I've only seen it going out recently if it's really really really bad weather in which case your power usually goes out too so tv isn't a concern.

 

As for the price changing, it will change. You will be locked into a 2 year agreement, the first 12 months will be the cheapest. The 12-24 month period will be more. Could be significantly more with the highest tv plan and all the fancy features. Plus that price usually is before tax, fees, and equipment so your $100 per month turns into $150 a month total.

 

One thing I will say about the equipment is make sure it IS NOT the wireless genie boxes. They are terrible! Constantly disconnects and freezes because it runs over their 2.4ghz wifi repeater.

 

[PharmDawgg]

...got a knock on the door yesterday, it was a AT&T guy telling me they just ran fiber in my neighborhood and I am eligible for it, just have to bundle it with Dish network, which I hate satellite for TV as it's been known to go out at any given time.But they are offering  the premium TV package and internet 50 / 25 fiber is available right now.But really soon it'll be 100/100 but the package they are offering is cheap every channel you can think of and 50 / 25 fiber for 100 bucks a month,2 year contract and can renegotiate for the same price after the contract is up.

 

Here's the problem, you guys know I just had a dedicated gaming line with AT&T (DSL) for a year, the price was great.After that they tripled it and I said see ya.So there's a little mistrust there,I have Spectrum (charter) and it's cable, which sucks but the price hasn't changed in 7 years as were grandfathered in.

 

So I got an AT&T tech coming tomorrow so I can talk to him about where the hub is from my house,if I have to use their equipment and some more stuff I want to know before I commit.

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but from the hub, it will be cable run to my house as I know it's not fiber to the door.So what's considered a good distance to be from the hub ? As that will be a big factor also,I don't want to be 3 miles from the hub as that's a lot of cable.

I can't really comment on this matter but I would like to ask a favor. If you decide to go with AT&T gigafiber let me know how it goes because they installed it in my neighborhood but I for some reason do not believe the grass is greener on the other side even though it may look that way.  I for some reason know if I switch there are going to be more issues that when I started. lol

[iAmMoDBoX]

I can't really comment on this matter but I would like to ask a favor. If you decide to go with AT&T gigafiber let me know how it goes because they installed it in my neighborhood but I for some reason do not believe the grass is greener on the other side even though it may look that way.  I for some reason know if I switch there are going to be more issues that when I started. lol

 

You should see if google fiber is available there

[PharmDawgg]

I only can wish IAmModbox. I am two far outside of the metro area. But I'm still hoping.

[fuzzy clam]

Yeah I'm still in the deciding period.I talked to JD as he knows that business very well and he mad a lot of good points and told me what to find out "technical" wise.

 

So it would be fiber to the hub and copper from there to my house, it's just shy of 1100 ft and there are 16 houses between the hub and me and all of those are Spectrum customers.They said no splitters, amps,extenders between the nub and my house when they did they over lay which is what their calling this type of system, they are gonna do it everywhere as it's cost effective and gives the benefits of fiber with out the cost of redoing the whole thing.

 

But like you PharmDawgg,I'm a little hesitant to jump into that pool.

 

And MoD yeah it's Direct TV which I've had before and liked it but also worried about getting hammered at the end of 2 year contract.

 

So I'm gonna think about it for a minute.But will keep you updated PharmDawgg if I get it.

[PharmDawgg]

Search reddit for AT&T gigafiber pros/cons you will find some interesting comments. I will just leave it at that.  They don't really make me want to switch. lol.

[ColonicBoom]

So it would be fiber to the hub and copper from there to my house, it's just shy of 1100 ft

 

Should be just like what I have then and it's a huge improvement of the docsis cable that I had with my previous isp.

I'm (a lot) further from the hub than you are too so you should get much higher bandwidth than me.

 

I don't know a thing about how Spectrum performs as an isp though.

[fuzzy clam]

Search reddit for AT&T gigafiber pros/cons you will find some interesting comments. I will just leave it at that.  They don't really make me want to switch. lol.

Yeah I almost wish they would stay at like 100 / 50 with the over lay as opposed to going to giga.I know that doesn't make sense but that's just my opinion on it and those speeds would be more than ideal for my situation.But as of yet I haven't switched from what I have and think I'm just gonna wait for awhile and see what happens with the other customers.

 

Should be just like what I have then and it's a huge improvement of the docsis cable that I had with my previous isp.

I'm (a lot) further from the hub than you are too so you should get much higher bandwidth than me.

 

I don't know a thing about how Spectrum performs as an isp though.

 

Well it was cable until the did the over lay, now it's fiber to the hub and you know the rest, like you said...what you have.But I think you guys in the UK have better ISP's than we do,I know you have bad one's but for the most it seems like most are pretty stable compared to what we have.

 

And with me knowing what I know about Spectrum,I'm gonna just wait and see what happens over the next couple of months as they are not the most reliable in the industry.

[RL317]

I have fibre to the cabinet, which is about 1/4 mile away and then copper to the house.

The main exchange is about 3 miles away and this runs to the street cabinet via fibre.

I get 29 down and 6 up with a steady 12 ms ping and bugger all jitter.

Do you know if different from the exchange or distance from the cabinet has a bigger impact on the performance you get? I believe the exchange is around three miles outside of my town, outside of a nearby small village, but the cabinet is on the corner of my road in view of my kitchen window, which I could reach with a well placed stone throw lol

 

I pay for Infinity 1, which I believe gives a theoretical max download of 52Mb, I'm estimated to get 50/10 and it's usually spot on. The lowest latency I've seen to any IP is the UK IW server, which was 6.2ms. Using the network diagnostics test on the Netduma I rarely exceed 7.5ms to 8.8.8.8, although some days it can increase by 2ms tops for both the minimum and maximum, with the same level of jitter. On Virgin Media 100/6 cable at the same address last year, my minimum latency was more like 13.5ms to 8.8.8.8, when it wasn't spiking up to 30-50ms... every 3 or 4 seconds without fail LOL

[ColonicBoom]

But I think you guys in the UK have better ISP's than we do, I know you have bad one's but for the most it seems like most are pretty stable compared to what we have.

 

We have fewer providers than you do in the states. There aren't many at all over here really. And most of them share the same infrastructure.

Even the big ISPs over here, Sky, BT, TalkTalk, and even the smaller fancy gaming ISPs, all use BT's infrastructure (I think) so they have similar levels of stability.

 

Then there's the lone cable provider, Virgin Media, they have their own infrastructure but they often have the jitter that it's known for.

A few places have proper FTTP but there's none at all where I am.

 

Where I live it's like that anyway, I don't know if there's much difference in other parts of the UK.

[Zennon]

We have fewer providers than you do in the states. There aren't many at all over here really.

We have 79 fibre ISP's, some are resellers of the big names some use backbones of the likes of Entanet etc but people tend to pick the big names.

[ColonicBoom]

We have 79 fibre ISP's, some are resellers of the big names some use backbones of the likes of Entanet etc but people tend to pick the big names.

 

Don't BT own all of the exchanges and most of the telephone lines though?

[fuzzy clam]

We have 79 fibre ISP's, some are resellers of the big names some use backbones of the likes of Entanet etc but people tend to pick the big names.

Damn that's a lot of companies that have fiber,I'm not an expert by any means but I would say that's more than we got by 50 percent.

 

I know that more isn't always better but I do believe in this case you guys do have a leg up on us, that is a lot of ISP's that have fiber,I'm seriously impressed.

[Zennon]

Damn that's a lot of companies that have fiber,I'm not an expert by any means but I would say that's more than we got by 50 percent.

 

I know that more isn't always better but I do believe in this case you guys do have a leg up on us, that is a lot of ISP's that have fiber,I'm seriously impressed.

Most just resell BT, TT, SKY, some resell lesser known backbones, but there is a big choice and most smaller ISP have UK support if that is something you would want to pay extra for.