The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
Hot damn we have internet options
Quid
Definitely not a bananaRegistered User regular
Definitely not a bananaRegistered User regular
So we're in Maryland, we're signing the lease for our house soon, and now we have to deal with utilities heating/electricity/etc we're fine on, but this is the first time we've really had a choice with internet providers. Specifically Comcast and Verizon. I'm really interested in Verizon's fiber optic service and whether it's actually worth it as well as if Comcast's Streampix is worthwhile. We're not getting cable TV so internet will be our main source for entertainment, news, etc.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
I, sadly, do not and have not had either, but I plan to be moving to somewhere with this exact same choice and I will be getting FiOS.
I am super happy with comcast because I have one of their package deals that is locked in for 2 years, so I get cable, internet and phone for roughly $140/mo, but my plan also has a few other bells and whistles added to it
I would, however, verify that they carry service to your new house. You can do that here.
I mean, heaven help you if anything breaks, but the good news is that 99.9% of the time it doesn't.
That said, if the price point was comparable it would be FiOS all the way.
Also, I generally go for the highest tier I am certain I afford, since it likely won't get less expensive in the future and you're likely locking in a price.. Since you're using it as your primary source for media, even more likely I'd choose the higher tier.
You made the right choice.
Usually their lowest tier is comparable to the highest tier of the neighborhood cable service. We're talking 20 down/10 up starting wise.
You should be able to stream from netflix, play some CoD on your xbox, and pick your nose while you torrent stuff all at the same time.
What we can afford is different from what we want to pay for. We're doing our best not to waste too much money on luxuries til we pay off our new car so if we wouldn't get a noticeable difference we'd rather not pay for it.
Heh, I guess to me "what I can afford" is the amount I have budgeted towards it. But you're right, it means something else.
Note that as your area gets speed upgrades (and it will), every tier gets an upgrade. Including the lowest, cheapest one. Don't buy more than you need.
From what I'm reading here, the basic FiOS plan is 15mbps down and 5 mbps up.
15mbps down is going to be enough to do basically any one thing on the Internet just fine. 1080p streaming, fine, Youtube 1080p, just fine, download speed, etc etc.
It will also be fine if you want to, say, watch HD Netflix while your wife streams Youtube. Downloads will also be at a reasonable speed - 15mbps works out to approximately 1.8MB/s in theoretical max download speed. Bought a 5GB game on Steam? That'll take you about 45 minutes to download.
Where the advantages of their higher speed tiers come in is when you want to do a LOT of things at once, or when you want to really have basically instantaneous access to anything on the Internet.
If we took an extreme example like their top tier speed, 300mbps down and 65mbps up.
At that kind of speed, our 5GB game, rather than taking 45 minutes to download, now takes two minutes. That might be totally unnecessary for you, and if I'm honest, it'd be totally unnecessary for me. But I've had superfast Internet once before in my life, for a few months, I had 100mbps internet. If I lived in an area where I could get speeds like that again, I'd pay whatever it cost, because it totally changes the way you can use the Internet. Your new game you've been excited to play on release day? Well, instead of buying it and waiting for an hour for it to download (or in my current case, 4-5 hours), you start the download, grab a drink of water and hit the toilet then sit down to play.
Need a patch for a game? It downloads in a second.
You want to run several downloads in the background while your wife watches Netflix, you have a Youtube video running, and you're playing an online game? No lag, no latency jumps.
I guess I'm sounding like an advertisement for Verizon here, but honestly, the Internet, for me, changed. It's like a different place on 100mbps internet, compared to the 2mbps that I have currently.
So I was paying $25 a month for ... an extra 5Mbps upload. That I wasn't really using. Did I even have it? The website said 35/10 was the only speed listed for that tier.
To save money, I later dropped the phone line, and discovered that moving from a "double play" to a "single play" resulted in a "you don't have anything except Internet service" surcharge that kept my bill... exactly where it was. Oh, and I couldn't downgrade to a lesser Internet plan in order to pay less because there was no cheaper plan... everyone got the free upgrade to 35/10, and that was effectively my current tier.
The experience of paying $25 more for Internet service than my neighbors for two years for basically no reason is what generated my earlier post. Oh, and since I changed options (dropped the phone line), I ended up entering a (new) contract for service, so I couldn't even cancel my service and start over. Well, not without paying a massive cancellation fee. It was almost like I was dealing with a cell phone plan.
Also if you haven't signed up yet, I recommend finding a verizon salesperson to set up your account through rather than calling verizon directly. The Verizon guy I talked to was able to give me a small discount when I signed up (I guess that Verizon gives a commission to sign people up or something).
So if we move a few blocks down the road a year from now we can just relocate the service? This is my only other concern since we're looking to possibly buy or at least find a nicer place to rent.
From people's advice we're just going to go with the lowest plan and upgrade if necessary.