this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 107 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Been hearing on the radio all kinds of Comcast ads like "we've raised our internet speeds for free!" I knew there was something else at play.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (7 children)

I'm loving my t mobile 5g gateway in my area. No packet loss, ping around 50, and my last game download held over 200Mbps the entire time for a flat rate of $30 a month. Works a lot better than the cable net I had.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (3 children)

What's the data cap?

For shit Comcast it is 1TB which is ridiculously low.

Then they also completely lie to your face about your metrics to make it look like you are always constantly almost at the 1TB cap.

My mom in America just had xfinity installed last fall at her house. She barely uses the internet besides web shopping, articles, and some Netflix. Every month she was somehow at 950-980GB. New WiFi password so there isn't an intrusion, her computer was fine, there is no way she is using that much. Comcast just lies to your face to higher data caps. Data caps for internet should be illegal as it is.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

There's not a "cap" but beyond 1.2TB you will get moved to low priority on your cell tower, so if there's any network congestion your internet will go to shit.

I've never ran into this issue since I live in a sweet spot thats close to a tower and doesn't have any high occupancy buildings or heavy road traffic that would cause congestion.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (4 children)

I’d argue that the main driver for all of this is the increased rollout of fiber. Companies like AT&T started broadly rolling out gigabit plans for what people were paying for sub 50 megabit cable plans. And the lines handled neighborhood network congestion better.

Comcast has to figure out how to be competitive, or they are going to get their asses handed to them.

AT&T and Comcast are both terrible companies with horrible customer service, but fiber is always going to be better than copper.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Nah, they’ve been doing that for years. In the two years since I first got my service at my house I went from 200gig to 800gig with no price increase. It’s p SOP these days when network upgrades take place in your area.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

800gig? Can I come live with you?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (4 children)

500kbs upload and 1gb cap -comcast

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Fuck that, instead of making them increase their imaginary "up to" numbers, make them advertise contractually guaranteed minimums. Id rather have a 25 mb minimum over a 100 mb maximum that usually sits around 8 mb.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago

When I bought internet services and colocated with major carriers every contract came with a Quality of Service rider that stipulated guaranteed quality and quantity of service. If my metrics fell below those minimums I had recourse. But, I could not extend that to my customers because they were using a shared resource I was providing. In general, though, I agree that there should be a QOS with every user connection.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 months ago

and 20Mbps for upload

What we actually care about.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago

100mbps symmetric should be minimum standard. 100mbps down with 10mbps up is worse than remote islands with mud huts. Seriously, I was on a Pacific island that looked like what an after hurricane photo op does, and they had direct access to the fiber cables. So gigabit symmetric internet ONTs glued to the side of huts for a few bucks a month.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago (15 children)

100Mb/s is still pretty abysmal.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

A 4x increase for download and a 7x increase requirment for upload.

That's a pretty solid improvement, honestly. They also have plans on whne to increase it to 1Gbps down/500Mbps up, so it seems like they are taking it seriously.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It’s long overdue and gigabit should be standard

[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

It is long overdue, as the last update was 2015, when a democrat was President. The GOP refused to do it, and it took some time to seat a new FCC head due to Republican obstruction.

Gigabyte is coming, just not yet. This is a fine incremental step.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

We should’ve had it when we paid for it, instead of telecom execs pocketing the money.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

lol I've never had anything over 12Mb/s. Currently have 8Mb/s, which costs roughly half than what I use to pay for 500kb/s

I would love to have 100Mb/s. Hell even half that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's interesting. I have a remote place (not where I live) in the least populated, podunkest county in the state (which is saying something). And we were still able to get fibre and 50Mbps out there (and it could be higher, but not really worth the extra money since it's rarely used).

Still within a couple hours of a big city, though. Guessing you're further away than that, or something?

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Cool, now make them use bytes as the system of measurement and we'll be on to something.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (7 children)

I fear that will only happen when storage manufacturers are forced to use 1024 bytes per KB like everyone else.

In fairness it's a very longstanding tradition that serial transfer devices measure the speed in bits per second rather than bytes. Bytes used to be variable size, although we settled on eight a long time ago.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

1024 bytes per KB

Technically, it's 1000 bytes per KB and 1024 bytes per KiB. Hard drive manufacturers are simply using a different unit.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Altice (Optimum) took this opportunity to cut upload speeds from 35mbps to 20 under the guise of the "free upgrade". You want your old upload speeds back? Oh that's their most expensive tier now.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

I'm dropping them, it was too unreliable for work from home. I pay twice as much now for fios

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (5 children)

I care more for stability and low latency, not so much speed.

Offering me a faster cellular or satellite connections doesn't interest me.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

There are features of IPv6 that would help there. I actually think pushing that to be rolled out widely is more important than 1Gbps connections.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

*cries in Australian*

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (2 children)

100Mbps is still very slow. Much better than 25Mbps, but still slow.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (16 children)

I have symmetric 1Gbps and do a LOT of data transfer (compared to 99.99% of people). And even then I rarely really would need or even notice more than 100Mbps.

For most people, in the real world, why is 100Mbps "very slow"?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's amazing how much our views change with time. My dad was definitely a super early adopter of cable when it became available in our area, if I recall it was 16 Mbps which was unreal to me in 2002. I made do with 5 Mbps in uni and it was totally usable.

But now, I've had 1Gbps for years and wow it's so different, changes your habits too. I don't hoard installed games as much, I can pull them down in minutes so why keep something installed if I'm not going to use it?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

My parents pay like 40 dollars per month for 1Mb down and like .2 Mb up

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

Shit, that should legitimately be illegal.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Do they also have to feed the pigeons carrying the data packets?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

I'd like to see a big government push to provide municipal services in every single metro area and extend it by whatever means into rural communities.

Xfinity keeps raising rates, I'm paying more now for just internet than the cost of basic cable, internet + digital voice was back in the 00s. While around 800 down, it's still only about 40 something up, and has been like that for years and years.

I think we desperately need competition and if the government were to provide it, that'd be just fine.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

Aww, that's cute.

-posted from my 768k $80/mo broadband.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

But only 20 ̶d̶o̶w̶n̶ up !!

!! :-(

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