Internet provider options what would you do?

[wander2039]

About to get electric setup at the property so would like to get better internet in place. OTA channels and the commercials are awful. Right now have Straight Talk hotspot running off the solar. Good enough for the one camera and occasional on call work. Have Google fiber up here so a bit spoiled. Have 3 options but really considering 2. Consolidated communications, TMobile or Starlink.

Probably should go with Consolidated communications fiber which is 60 for 250/250 or 70 for 1Gbps/1Gbps, higher after the first year. Problem is I still have water, gas and the septic to get put in. High probability could be dug up or in the way. The fiber is underground across the street but might have them come by to confirm.

We currently have TMobile so we could get their 5G for 35/45 and haven't had any issues with our phones there. Reviews seem to be hit and miss.. but the same with Consolidated. With Starlink from what I've read TMobile has better reviews. It'll be 2-3 years before we get a house setup but will have fiber setup at least then but TMobile could work till then. A bit conflicted.. Does anyone have experience with one of these three? Probably never have it as good as Google Fiber.

 

[dishdude]

I have 5G and it's great, but if I could get fiber for $60/mo that's what I'd have.

 

[mk378]

Fiber beats everything else. Just make sure to have the fiber line marked before any other digging on the property.

 

[Creekside]

In very rural Missouri Starlink provides by far the best internet we have ever had. When I set up my office and shop later on I will getting a second setup for it. Total lifesaver out here.

 

[wwillson]

If you have the option of fiber, it will far out perform cellular and Starlink. Why? because the Passive Optical Network (PON) that provides data over fiber to your house is a 10Gb/s connection with very low latency. Your subscription won't be 10Gb/s and the 10Gb/s is shared, but PON will out perform satellite and cellular any day.

Oh how I wish I could get fiber.

 

[tburke]

I genuinely don't know why people choose to go with a cellular hotspot, if they have reasonably priced fiber available.

In my case, I have three fiber operators and two coax operators available in my neighborhood... yet I often see neighbors with default TMOBILE or ATT SSIDs (AT&T is not our ILEC, so it's 100% 5G cellular). Our ILEC (Frontier now known as Verizon) offers 500mbps for $30/month, which is more than enough for most homes, and typically more performant than cellular.

 

[dishdude]

I genuinely don't know why people choose to go with a cellular hotspot, if they have reasonably priced fiber available.

In my case, I have three fiber operators and two coax operators available in my neighborhood... yet I often see neighbors with default TMOBILE or ATT SSIDs (AT&T is not our ILEC, so it's 100% 5G cellular). Our ILEC (Frontier now known as Verizon) offers 500mbps for $30/month, which is more than enough for most homes, and typically more performant than cellular.

I have 3 households on 5G from Verizon and T-Mo. All streaming TV, Teams meetings, web browsing. No issues with speed or reliability. It's actually been more reliable than cable. Unfortunately fiber isn't an option for any of the 3, but tbh it's not missed.

 

[JavierH19]

I got att 100 mb fiber just 3 months ago at my home and it's zippy. Video and voice calls on wifi seem a little better more fluid than before and posts on here with tons of pictures load up instantly as I scroll down instead of the pictures loading or phasing in but those didn't take that long on the slow dsl of before just a few seconds which I think was called internet 20.

I see no reason to get the more expensive att fiber plans the cheapest one is nasa grade to me. I have no clue what people are doing with those 1000 2000 or even 8000 mb plans that ezee and others offer. It ain't a ai data center it's just a home. Probably just upselling to the gullible that believe anything the salesman says.

 

[dishdude]

I see no reason to get the more expensive att fiber plans the cheapest one is nasa grade to me. I have no clue what people are doing with those 1000 2000 or even 8000 mb plans that ezee and others offer. It ain't a ai data center it's just a home. Probably just upselling to the gullible that believe anything the salesman says.

Yep 250/250 is plenty fast unless you have multiple people in the house streaming and gaming at the same time.

 

[TnT_M]

We have had fiber here in eastern Iowa for ~10 years. It's awesome. We stream several firesticks, phones, tablets and a PC with no issues. I hope to never go back to anything else.

 

[wwillson]

In my case, I have three fiber operators and two coax operators available in my neighborhood.

Showoff

 

[wwillson]

We have had fiber here in eastern Iowa for ~10 years. It's awesome. We stream several firesticks, phones, tablets and a PC with no issues. I hope to never go back to anything else.

My parents have had fiber for ~20 years in the rural Iowa area where they live.

 

[Hermann]

If you have the option of fiber, it will far out perform cellular and Starlink. Why? because the Passive Optical Network (PON) that provides data over fiber to your house is a 10Gb/s connection with very low latency. Your subscription won't be 10Gb/s and the 10Gb/s is shared, but PON will out perform satellite and cellular any day.

Oh how I wish I could get fiber.

Recently went from ATT fiber to T-Mobile 5g. My speeds from the Wi-Fi box are almost identical. Most of the time it is hard to distinguish between them. Had ATT till recently. They are a horror to deal with. The other option is Google Fiber. No experience but is double what I am paying T-Mobile. My old ATT wi-fi box only delivered 220-250 mbps. here is a pic of my speeds a few minutes ago. 08:30pm during primetime.

 

[wander2039]

Looks like it's unanimous I should check out the fiber . I would just get the 250/250, we have the 1G here and it gets a workout with two teenage boys with multiple monitors and both TV's upstairs on Youtube at the same time.Down there it'll mostly be just me and her. This property is quite as rural as my parents, they barely have cell phone coverage being next to the national guard.

 

[wwillson]

I have no clue what people are doing with those 1000 2000 or even 8000 mb plans

1Gb/s I can see, but 2Gb/s and higher just makes me giggle. How many people have 10Gb/s switches, WiFi access points running 802.11ax, or even know how to set ax up to get even 1 Gb/s WiFi throughput?

Then you get into application performance. It's part of what I did for 30 years. Very few internet users need 1Gb/s throughput and if they do it's always for moving large files. I saw businesses with 100Gb/s internet and would congest it from time to time, but they had tens of thousands of sessions and were doing SAN replication.

It's just a myth that if you get blazing fiber internet speeds, that your gaming will perform better. However, confirmation bias is a powerful tool to justify > 1Gb/s speeds.

 

[Dyusik]

8MB down, 0.5 up, 70 per month. CenturyLink can eat rocks. I'd like 5G but I don't know how well it'll bounce off the hills I live in.

 

[wwillson]

Recently went from ATT fiber to T-Mobile 5g. My speeds from the Wi-Fi box are almost identical. Most of the time it is hard to distinguish between them. Had ATT till recently. They are a horror to deal with. The other option is Google Fiber. No experience but is double what I am paying T-Mobile. My old ATT wi-fi box only delivered 220-250 mbps. here is a pic of my speeds a few minutes ago. 08:30pm during primetime.

Yes, you have pretty good throughput and with the application you use, you probably can't tell the difference in performance between fiber and cellular. The cellular will have higher latency, but likely you won't be able to tell. If T-Mo removes some bandwidth from the RAN or the endpoints use more bandwidth, you'll be able to tell.

 

[Hermann]

Yes, you have pretty good throughput and with the application you use, you probably can't tell the difference in performance between fiber and cellular. The cellular will have higher latency, but likely you won't be able to tell. If T-Mo removes some bandwidth from the RAN or the endpoints use more bandwidth, you'll be able to tell.

When I did this switch I was expecting periods of throttling and outages. In 6 months things have been freakishly stable. I have had to reset the box 3 times. Probably a power flicker which I noticed on my digital alarm clock, it was flashing each time. No one is more shocked than me, heard horror stories and many people praising the service. A member here said this, you're 5g experience will be either wonderful or horrible depending on location, location, location. There must be a tower nearby, as the I am in the wonderful camp. That was when I decided to give it a shot.

 

[wwillson]

When I did this switch I was expecting periods of throttling and outages. In 6 months things have been freakishly stable. I have had to reset the box 3 times. Probably a power flicker which I noticed on my digital alarm clock, it was flashing each time. No one is more shocked than me, heard horror stories and many people praising the service. A member here said this, you're 5g experience will be either wonderful or horrible depending on location, location, location. There must be a tower nearby, as the I am in the wonderful camp. That was when I decided to give it a shot.

You definitely are close to a tower that has lots of C-Band or midband bandwidth.

 

[GaryMX5]

My comment is limited to installation. I recently switched from comcast/xfinity cable to metronet/t-mobile fiber. The service line came from a box 2 lots away. The fiber optic line was buried less then 3 to 4" if that. They simply used a straight tip shovel blade to pry the sod open in my and my neighbors yards (but within utility easements) and laid the line in this shallow trench (if you want to call it that). I'm sure a garden rototiller would easily rip it up if someone did not know it was there. Compared to coax cable, fiber optic service line is like a thin piece of plastic tape. It was about 7/16" wide and maybe a little more than 1/16" in depth (kind of like old flat antenna wire for those of you who remember that). It was kind of comical as the install crews left it laying on the ground for a couple of days before the burial crew comes. Neighbors dog thought it was a play thing and shredded it and pulled on it hard enough that he pulled it out of the ground on a neighbors lot where it was "supposedly" buried. They came back and replaced it, but were smart enough this time to hang it on the fence out of the dogs reach.