100mb internet question

[patseguin Global Moderator]

Been paying $129 a month for Time Warner 50mb internet in Buffalo, Ny for a long time. A couple days ago I got a mailer saying they are now Spectrum and showed internet speeds "starting at" 60mb. I called them and they said they would send me a new modem for the 60mb and my new charge would be $69 a month. I asked if they had 100 yet and she said they did, for a $199 activation fee.

 

My question is what could that activation fee possibly be for and is it worth it? I'm not sure I've ever had a download come close to 50mb. Sure, speed tests go right up there but I've never downloaded a game on steam or anything that came through at the 50mb.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

youre best off going w/ that $69/mo offer for 60Mbit. Keep in mind, though, that it's a 1yr price lock. I'm sure it's going to skyrocket after that first year.

 

do you have other options in your area? Last year i switched from our $90/mo TWC plan to WOW. not only did my bandwidth go from 30 to 60Mbit, but it's now only $45/mo.

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

My personal experience with TWC -> Spectrum. 

I own my own cable modem. I haven't check to see if 100 is available in my area.

 

With TWC, I can take my 50mb and divide by 10 to get my typically download speed.

With Spetrum 60, I'm seeing about 6-8 mb. The upload speed is noticeable better.

 

The only times I've seen it exceed this, is with steam downloads, gog.com download, and *some* xboxone downloads.

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

10 minutes ago, Jason S. said:

youre best off going w/ that $69/mo offer for 60Mbit. Keep in mind, though, that it's a 1yr price lock. I'm sure it's going to skyrocket after that first year.

 

do you have other options in your area? Last year i switched from our $90/mo TWC plan to WOW. not only did my bandwidth go from 30 to 60Mbit, but it's now only $45/mo.

It's about $40.00 for "new" users, and about $64 after that.

If your existing internet TWC, it's hard to get the "new" user rate.

 

(Edit) Side Note Spectrum doesn't have data caps due to the agreement with the FCC on the merger approval.

They could do data caps after 7 to 8 years. 

Edited March 24, 2017 by Eternal Tempest

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

2 minutes ago, Eternal Tempest said:

It's about $40.00 for "new" users, and about $64 after the first year.

If your existing internet TWC, it's hard to get the "new" user rate.

i hope youre right b/c i dont think that's too bad.

 

im baffled by that $199 activation fee for the 100Mbit. Does it require some tech to come out to your house to change something? It cant be anything more than a cash grab.

[Mando]

you lucky mofos......some of us cant get past 14.4Mbps  heck a friend of mine stuck on a rural farm gets 384kbits, whenever there is a big win patch or a game patch, its actually quicker for him to throw his desktop in the car and travel the 30 miles to my house to download them  

[patseguin Global Moderator]

25 minutes ago, Jason S. said:

i hope youre right b/c i dont think that's too bad.

 

im baffled by that $199 activation fee for the 100Mbit. Does it require some tech to come out to your house to change something? It cant be anything more than a cash grab.

I asked her and she couldn't me a straight answer. I asked if the $199 was for new equipment or something and she just gave me some line about it "stressing their infrastructure" and that they "allocate" bandwidth to me. Sounds like a crock but I couldn't get her to budge. I don't think a $199 activation fee is worth it unless I actually get 100mbit downloads. Like @Eternal Tempest said, I can divide my speed by 10 and that's what I usually download at. I guess maybe the 100 might help if I had a family using multiple devices all at once.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

1 minute ago, patseguin said:

I asked her and she couldn't me a straight answer. I asked if the $199 was for new equipment or something and she just gave me some line about it "stressing their infrastructure" and that they "allocate" bandwidth to me. Sounds like a crock but I couldn't get her to budge. I don't think a $199 activation fee is worth it unless I actually get 100mbit downloads. Like @Eternal Tempest said, I can divide my speed by 10 and that's what I usually download at. I guess maybe the 100 might help if I had a family using multiple devices all at once.

That charge sounds a little fuzzy to me

 

Also just to check you're not confusing Mbit and MB are you?

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

yeah.... so the $199 is a cash grab.

 

youre right, though. 100Mbit would help if you have a lot of wifi devices. You should easily be able to download at 100Mbit these days. i max out my 60Mbit connection easily in my area.

[patseguin Global Moderator]

19 minutes ago, Jason S. said:

yeah.... so the $199 is a cash grab.

 

youre right, though. 100Mbit would help if you have a lot of wifi devices. You should easily be able to download at 100Mbit these days. i max out my 60Mbit connection easily in my area.

Yeah I don't know about that. I've never even seen close to a 50Mbit download. Speedtest,net shows that speed but anything I've ever downloaded I've usually seen 5-6 maybe 10.

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

13 minutes ago, patseguin said:

Yeah I don't know about that. I've never even seen close to a 50Mbit download. Speedtest,net shows that speed but anything I've ever downloaded I've usually seen 5-6 maybe 10.

Speedtest.net will show your speed in Mbit whereas when you download with Windows the speed will show in MB

 

So for the 50MBit connection, downloading at 5/6MB/s is expected

[adrynalyne]

54 minutes ago, patseguin said:

Yeah I don't know about that. I've never even seen close to a 50Mbit download. Speedtest,net shows that speed but anything I've ever downloaded I've usually seen 5-6 maybe 10.

I can download at 300 (37.5 megabytes per second)  megabit from

msdn. It just depends on the server. 

[PGHammer]

3 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

I can download at 300 (37.5 megabytes per second)  megabit from

msdn. It just depends on the server. 

It depends on the server AND the server's connection.

 

Case in point - Valve has servers all over the United States; some (not all) are co-located at major points of presence (gigaPOPs) - naturally, a major one is in Ashburn, VA (Washington, DC suburbs), operated by Verizon Network Services (originally acquired as part of the acquisition of MCI Communications' UU.NET subsidiary).  Valve is decidedly NOT the only major company with servers at VNS Ashburn - EA is there.  Microsoft is there.  So are Apple, Amazon AWS, nVidia, AOL (AOL dates back to their beginning - they were there as Quantum Network Services with GEM as their UI), etc., etc.  While you can't choose your download server preferences with OTHER service clients, you certainly can in Steam - to be on the safe side, I check my preferences to make sure that Washington, DC (Ashburn, VA) stays the default - it has been known to move (due to client updates, etc.).

[+BudMan MVC]

When your doing your tests - are you wired or wireless?

 

And as mentioned if your paying for 50mbps - roughly if your seeing your download in MB.. it would be /8 of that or 6.5MBps would be theory max..

[xendrome]

There should be no $199 activation fee for existing customers... you need to call back again and get someone who knows what they are talking about.

[DevTech]

On 3/24/2017 at 11:41 AM, PGHammer said:

It depends on the server AND the server's connection.

 

Case in point - Valve has servers all over the United States; some (not all) are co-located at major points of presence (gigaPOPs) - naturally, a major one is in Ashburn, VA (Washington, DC suburbs), operated by Verizon Network Services (originally acquired as part of the acquisition of MCI Communications' UU.NET subsidiary).  Valve is decidedly NOT the only major company with servers at VNS Ashburn - EA is there.  Microsoft is there.  So are Apple, Amazon AWS, nVidia, AOL (AOL dates back to their beginning - they were there as Quantum Network Services with GEM as their UI), etc., etc.  While you can't choose your download server preferences with OTHER service clients, you certainly can in Steam - to be on the safe side, I check my preferences to make sure that Washington, DC (Ashburn, VA) stays the default - it has been known to move (due to client updates, etc.).

To be complete, there are even variations in these large centers and the closest geo-location may not be the fastest. For example, for reasons I never got around to investigating, Dallas/Ft Worth has a center with "Super Biggie Sized' pipes and and has bigly speed to almost anywhere.