Internet speed

[Whittibo]

I just moved from CA to TN. In CA I had dial up for the most part, I did get Hughesnet for a few months, but their service was horrible. You had limits on your usage, and if you went over, which we always did, we were shut down to 8-10kbps for 24 hours.

Here in TN I have Comcast which I love. I have 4 meg download. But my special $19.99 a month offer will be up as of December 25th, at that time I will be paying $42.95 a month for it.

They do have "economy speed" which they say is "less then 1 meg" and it's $24.95 per month. Still more then what I am paying now, but less then it will be in a couple months.

My question is, is 1 meg still fast, fast enough for emails, web browsing etc. My kid sometimes will download music and I do watch a few T.V. shows a week, but wouldn't 1 meg still be fast enough? Or should I just try to cut finances somewhere else and keep my fast connection?!

 

[etaf]

i use 1MB line (although about to be upgraded to 2MB for £5 less a month) and we have 2 - 3 laptops on line - email and surfing no problem, my son often downloads, and I may watch the odd video here and there - no problem ...

I also have a Roku music wireless connection - which plays internet radio through my hi-fi and thats streaming music quite often too.

 

[Old Rich]

Cients tell me if you call Comcast to cancel, they will extend the intro rate for another 6 mos. . .

 

[Whittibo]

I called Comcast today and told her I needed to lower my bill and she offered me $10 off my classic cable for 6 months, but that's it.

I have been getting $22.95 off my internet for 4 months, have 2 more left, maybe once that is over I'll call again and if they don't offer anything else, I'll move to something cheaper.

Right now I am paying $45.99 for my cable and $22.99 for my internet. That's $75.05 a month with taxes on both and in 2 months it will go up to about $99 for just T.V and interent!

My mom gets a basic plan for her T.V. with all the local channels and some cable channels for $9.99 per month. But here they only offer local channels for $18.95 a month. What a rip off!

 

[pedroguy]

Would dsl be a possibility for you?
Generally it is cheaper than cable,but there are some possible "gotchas" that you would have to investigate before signing up.(distance to the main telco office,quality of lines coming into your area and quality of lines coming into your home,etc).
I have cable here(10mbps),and dsl at my vacation home(3mbps),and I notice very little difference in my web experience.I don't game or stream,just basic like you.

 

[Whittibo]

Does DSL come over your phone lines? I don't have a land line hooked up in the house, the house is wired for it, but I got the Comcast cable and use Vonage for my home phone. Embarq is DSL, and yesterday I checked the prices and it's $29.99 for "up to" 768k.

What I don't like is how much the slower cable is. For $25 I get slow, or for $42 I get fast. If they won't give me any other discounts in January I guess I'll try the economy and see how it works. It will probably be fine. I know with my Hughesnet I was getting about 400k-700k (when I wasn't FAPed), DSL would be $29.99 for 768k and Comcast, 1 meg would be 1100 kbps right? So it should be faster then the Hughesnet/DSL but far slower then what I have now.

 

[Whittibo]

Oh, here's another thing, I can't use Vonage with DSL, and I have a 12 month contract with Vonage. *sigh*

Now here's a question along those lines, would the economy Comcast be fast enough to use my Vonage???

 

[pedroguy]

DSL,at least asw I know it,requires a phone line.

regarding bandwidth,here is a Johnwill post

Well, if you have QoS and a VoIP service, it will affect bandwidth. The VoIP traffic, being UDP packets and real-time are given priority over other traffic. That's not to say that the other traffic will suddenly cease, just that if there is VoIP traffic and other traffic queued to be sent, the VoIP traffic will go first.

Vonage VoIP uses about 90kbit/sec bandwidth, so it will only take 10-15% of your upstream throughput, and a small fraction of your downstream throughput on a typical Comcast 6000/768 account. If you don't mind lower voice quality, you can cut the Vonage bandwidth usage to as low as 30kbit/sec in your configuration.
__________________

I have taken a look at some of the vonage ads,but I have not seen any system requirements regarding broadband minimum requirements.

 

[Whittibo]

Vonage recommends an upload speed of 90kbps or greater. An upload speed less than 90kbps could affect the quality of your calls.

Right now, my download speed is 6.96mbps and upload 2.23mbps.

How many kbps are in 1 meg? Isn't that the 1140 or something?

I know even on my Comcast I have some very bad connections with Vonage, but I rarely use my phone, so it usually doesn't matter that much. Sometimes it's just like a poor cell connection. But for the $33 I pay a month for unlimited calls and unlimited long distance, it's worth it to put up with a poor connection occasionally.

I am thinking about asking my neighbor if she wants to share a line. We both have wireless connection and I know hers is strong for me, so mine should be strong for her. If I just split the cost with her, we would both be getting a discount?!

 

[pedroguy]

It appears that both your download and upload speed are more than adequate.
1000 kbps =1m

 

[Whittibo]

Well they are on this plan, but if I switch to the Comcast Economy plan, I bet it would make my phone connection worse then it is. :s

What is weird is, Embarq *oops, hit the wrong button*

Embarq says their service gets 758k or something like that, and that it is NOT fast enough for VoIP.

I guess I'll just stick to Comcast and try to save money elsewhere.