[Ryou-kun]

What is a good internet company that I should upgrade to or stay with my current one?

My current internet is Clear using Internet Basic however I was thinking to upgrade it to 4G Internet Plan, but I don't know. What do you guys think?

What is a good internet that can support multiple devices at the same time? Such as my gaming PC, my little bro PC, my mom's laptop, my PS3, my school's iPad and three of our phones.
I want it where it is in an affordable price and can give me a decent pings to play games, stream, and surfing/emails at the same time.

Does anyone know?

 

[ripsaw]

Thats going to depend on your location and what infrastructure is available. Cable ,fibre optic or dsl is going to be faster than wireless coverage. I get my phone, basic cable with hd channels and 50megabit per second internet from cable company for 99/month.

 

[JrWhopper]

there is only 3 big name companies, the rest are local or small companies

comcast
at&t
verizon fios

the only way youll get decent internet is going to cost you $60+ a month

obviously not all youre devices aren't going to be running at the same time so you could maybe cheap out and get the lowest package, if price isnt an issue then get internet thats more than 30mbit down 10mbit up.

download is nothing, upload is whats going to give you fast browsing, gaming, and everything in between

 

[Ryou-kun]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JrWhopper

there is only 3 big name companies, the rest are local or small companies

comcast
at&t
verizon fios

the only way youll get decent internet is going to cost you $60+ a month

obviously not all youre devices aren't going to be running at the same time so you could maybe cheap out and get the lowest package, if price isnt an issue then get internet thats more than 30mbit down 10mbit up.

download is nothing, upload is whats going to give you fast browsing, gaming, and everything in between

Most of the device is.

 

[Plan9]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JrWhopper

download is nothing, upload is whats going to give you fast browsing, gaming, and everything in between

upload speed isn't going to make much difference for web browsing as HTTP request headers are pretty small. Web surfing is definitely more dominated by download speeds.

To use this site as an example: when you click a link, the page request (ie the data you upload) is only going to be ~50b at most (note I said bytes. Not KB, MB, just bytes!). The contents of a page request is along the lines of:

Code:

GET /index.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com

The data that will be received is quite significantly bigger:

Code:

$ curl http://www.overclock.net/ > ocn.html
$ ls -lh ocn
-rw-r--r-- 1 **** sysadmin 226K Feb 25 17:43 ocn.html

(In case you're not familiar with the output there, what's happening is I'm requesting overclock.net's home page then dumping the HTML output and looking at the file size, which is 226KB)

That's more than four and a half THOUSAND times bigger (4628.48 to be exact). So for every byte you upload to OCN, there's over 4500 bytes being received. And that's JUST the raw HTML page. OCN has stylesheets, javascript includes, a bounty of images and so on. Each of these have massively higher demands on your download bandwidth than upload (particularly with images and other binary content).

While it's true that browsers do cache a lot of data, we're increasingly moving over to SSL (and for good reason), but SSL content is only cached by session. So any HTTPS sites you visit, you'll have to re-download ALL of that content again when you close and re-open your browser.

 

[Vagrant Storm]

Really the only time upload comes into play is when you are hosting something...or perhaps if you had a group of people over gaming and using Skype. Though I've had as many as seven people and had no issues on a 1Mbs upload...and I think on a 876kb upload, but that was a while ago.

 

[Ryou-kun]

So what is a good Internet company that can provide all those stuff without spending ton of money.
I would say 60 bucks or less.

 

[Vagrant Storm]

All depends on your location...like in my location I can only get service from two companies and neither one is all that great.

...and the quality of service from companies will change from region to region as well. I have Charter for an ISP and I hate them, but they are the best I can get. I hate them so much I am actually considering droping back down to a 7Mbs/876KB DSL from Century Link. However, I know people in other areas that actually have choices and pick Charter because they have better service.

 

[Ryou-kun]

I live in Arlington, TX.
There is AT&T, TimeWarnerCable, Clear, probably few others that I forgot its name.

 

[Vagrant Storm]

If I could pick one of those...I think I'd go with the AT&T DSL provided you can get the faster speeds. I don't think I've heard any one say anything good about TimeWarner.

 

[Kainn]

My family has mediacom and we get 20 down 1 up, when the speed is there it's nice, 6 people in my family, usually all on an electronic device. It's more on the expensive side, and their customer support is terrible when the internet goes down(once a day for a coupleminutes it seems, usually when im playing csgo matches >.<)

 

[KhaoticKomputing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ryou-kun

I live in Arlington, TX.
There is AT&T, TimeWarnerCable, Clear, probably few others that I forgot its name.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vagrant Storm

If I could pick one of those...I think I'd go with the AT&T DSL provided you can get the faster speeds. I don't think I've heard any one say anything good about TimeWarner.

@Vagrant Storm TWC is the lesser of evils in OP's situation in my opinion, I would go with out internet before paying for AT&T service...
7
@ Ryou-Kun, Hey, In my area I went with TWC. I get a pay $45 for an advertised speed of 30down/5up. Most of the time I have 35-40down/6-7up. its more than enough for gaming, browsing and most everything else. The only time my connection bog's down is when I have 2-3 people playing BF3 multiplayer, traffic on my minecraftserver, and the wife is watching netflix.

Best advice is to call and hear their price for advertised speeds, Also try to ask how your local friends and such feel about the service they have. Its hard to pick internet service based on what people who live in other parts of the country have to say.

 

[Ryou-kun]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KhaoticKomputing

@Vagrant Storm TWC is the lesser of evils in OP's situation in my opinion, I would go with out internet before paying for AT&T service...
7
@ Ryou-Kun, Hey, In my area I went with TWC. I get a pay $45 for an advertised speed of 30down/5up. Most of the time I have 35-40down/6-7up. its more than enough for gaming, browsing and most everything else. The only time my connection bog's down is when I have 2-3 people playing BF3 multiplayer, traffic on my minecraftserver, and the wife is watching netflix.

Best advice is to call and hear their price for advertised speeds, Also try to ask how your local friends and such feel about the service they have. Its hard to pick internet service based on what people who live in other parts of the country have to say.

Say what does this pay $$ for 12 months? Does it mean the price will increase once the 12 months are over? On TWG.

Well, I guess I'll take a look at AT&T and TWG and compare and contrast their customer support, price, and Internet speed.

 

[Vagrant Storm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KhaoticKomputing

@Vagrant Storm TWC is the lesser of evils in OP's situation in my opinion, I would go with out internet before paying for AT&T service...
7
@ Ryou-Kun, Hey, In my area I went with TWC. I get a pay $45 for an advertised speed of 30down/5up. Most of the time I have 35-40down/6-7up. its more than enough for gaming, browsing and most everything else. The only time my connection bog's down is when I have 2-3 people playing BF3 multiplayer, traffic on my minecraftserver, and the wife is watching netflix.

Best advice is to call and hear their price for advertised speeds, Also try to ask how your local friends and such feel about the service they have. Its hard to pick internet service based on what people who live in other parts of the country have to say.

You see, it changes from region to region. I personally think AT&T is one of the best companies out there. I was actually sad when travel I had to do for work made me have to drop them on my mobile phone service carrier due to service coverage. I've never had better Customer Service from a company...ever. Not even small local businesses. Even in the cases where issues were my fault they helped me out. Like when my two year old some how upgraded my data package...they took it off my bill and refunded me all the charges. When my wife didn't reply Stop to a spam text message and we got a $15 charge on our account they wiped it off like it never happened...though I am quite sure AT&T probably had to pay $15 to whatever scum bag sent out that text.

The only bad thing I've heard about AT&T DSL is their data caps and occasional service outages...but you hear those complaints about every ISP.

Yeah, you got to be careful on the intro rates...make sure you know what it will jump to. They might also have longer lock in prices...like a price you can lock for five years. Also, ask about any strings attached to the first 30 days. Like I am planning to try going to a slower DSL and see if meets my needs, but I get 30 days free to try it and shut it off with no charges.

 

[KhaoticKomputing]

@OP: I am not on an introductory rate, my bill will remain the same until google fiber moves into town

 

[Tadaen Sylvermane]

Make sure the ones you listed are even available where you live. Most places that I'm aware of don't have any options. Where I live I have 1 option, most of my city is the same way. It's all monopolies in most cities as I've seen. You may not be able to switch at all. Any hardline will be better than wireless though that much is certain. If you do have a choice I would pick Fios > Cable > Dsl in that order.

 

[Ryou-kun]

Well, it looks like TWG is the best way to go.
I mean, TWG Standard Plan for 46 dollar have 15 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload and TWG Turbo is 56 for 20 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload. While AT&T is 56 for 18 Mbps and 1 upload, well, I think TWG offer better speed for cheaper price while AT&T is vice versa.

It's funny how one of the TWG is still asking my dad to go back being a TWG customer.

 

[B!0HaZard]

I game on a 10/1 Mb/s connection, the fastest I can get outside the city. Uploads are crucial for hosting things like servers or voice comms (Skype), but 1 Mb/s upload will never bog you down in an FPS game with Skype or similar in the background. My 10 Mb/s down are also more than enough for gaming, BUT! Once multiple people use my connection, it'll bog down quite easily. Things like HD Youtube videos are off limits when my friends are over for some gaming. I can't download something while listening to music online. When Steam updates a game, I can't watch a 720p Youtube video. The download is more important than the upload unless you host servers. If you don't, get a 20/2 Mb/s connection or something. The download will REALLY help when streaming video on one device and doing something else on another device.

 

[Plan9]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ryou-kun

Well, it looks like TWG is the best way to go.
I mean, TWG Standard Plan for 46 dollar have 15 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload and TWG Turbo is 56 for 20 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload. While AT&T is 56 for 18 Mbps and 1 upload, well, I think TWG offer better speed for cheaper price while AT&T is vice versa.

It's funny how one of the TWG is still asking my dad to go back being a TWG customer.

I can't believe how expensive decent internet connections are in America. I pay £35 and get 80/20Mb. Though I guess that's still ~$50 when converted.

 

[xxbassplayerxx]

Cleaned. Please try to keep things civil.