Broadband Conundrum (East Bay/Oakland)

fightinfilipino

Sonic.net DSL
AT&T U-Verse
...
...
...
Comcast

i have to choose one of these for broadband internet. we've already tried Sonic.net's DSL service, but it turns out we're too far from the TELCO Central Office to get anything above 5Mbps. too bad too, since Sonic has really really good customer service.

i need to do some telecommuting work via a VPN and enjoy online gaming. my fiancee and i like to stream videos via Netflix, Hulu, and other sources, too. i'm looking hard at U-Verse now because they apparently offer 18Mbps/1.5 up in our area. i'm worried about how bad the latency can get however.

i do NOT want to go with Comcast if i can help it. i do NOT want to help pay for them to establish a supermonopoly just on principle alone.

anyone have experience with U-Verse recently? how's online gaming for you? and the quality of the internet connection overall?

akajaybay

We use U-Verse in the East Bay and the internet connection quality has been fine. I've had some terrible customer service times with them, but at the same time I don't doubt it'd be a pretty similar experience through Comcast.
Haven't had internet issues so far but are on like our third DVR (which they do just send you a new one but you have to suffer through the long phone wait and long scripted talk). Also getting the initial setup taken care of can take some time to get an appointment. So in general probably about the same general product you're gonna get from Comcast and same suck in other areas.

zepherin

If you can get U-Verse or FIOS get it at least until google broadband becomes the norm. Comcast is good, but I've found the other 2 to be better.

Daenris

Was the 5Mb service not sufficient? I have at least superficially a similar usage pattern (some work at home through VPN, streaming video, online gaming) on "8Mb" that is usually really only 3-5Mb and don't have many issues.

fightinfilipino

a single HD stream is appx 6Mbps. and it definitely eats up the whole pipe. anything in addition to that slows to a crawl

often enough my fiancee will be watching something while I am working or gaming...

Feral

I have Comcast in Oakland. They've been good to me, so far. I pay $50/mo for 20Mb.

I, too, was disappointed that Sonic was not available in my area.

zepherin: FIOS is not available in this area.

i do NOT want to help pay for them to establish a supermonopoly just on principle alone.

Our choices are AT&T or Comcast, either way we're giving our money to a massive anticompetitive corporate oligarchy.

Feral

fightinfilipino wrote: »

a single HD stream is appx 6Mbps. and it definitely eats up the whole pipe. anything in addition to that slows to a crawl

often enough my fiancee will be watching something while I am working or gaming...

Get a router that supports QoS, and prioritize your work/gaming computer

I'm not using the junk that Comcast wanted to lease me. I bought my own cable modem (Cisco DPC3008) and router (Linksys WRT54GL w/ DD-WRT) and this is what I do.

kaliyama

so many oaklanders. we need another meetup when you show up, filipino. @Melkster‌, @Inquisitor77‌

FF

I've got U-Verse and it's been pretty good, however their wireless hardware can be pretty shitty sometimes. They recently switched ours out with a new gateway and it's been better, but it took a lot of convincing and finally a trip to one of the AT&T stores.

fightinfilipino

kaliyama wrote: »

so many oaklanders. we need another meetup when you show up, filipino. @Melkster‌, @Inquisitor77‌

let me know when. i am def in.

gonna try U-verse, but i am being told by them that having current DSL service is a bit of a hiccup! figures.

schuss

Are you living in a modern building? Check if they have Webpass. $50 and my speeds when I had it were ~100mbps up and down, spiking to 150+.

http://www.webpass.net/

fightinfilipino

schuss wrote: »

Are you living in a modern building? Check if they have Webpass. $50 and my speeds when I had it were ~100mbps up and down, spiking to 150+.

http://www.webpass.net/

some of my coworkers have told me about Webpass. unfortunately, we're in a duplex far, far away from downtown SF, so there's little chance of them even coming out here.

Feral

fightinfilipino wrote: »

schuss wrote: »

Are you living in a modern building? Check if they have Webpass. $50 and my speeds when I had it were ~100mbps up and down, spiking to 150+.

http://www.webpass.net/

some of my coworkers have told me about Webpass. unfortunately, we're in a duplex far, far away from downtown SF, so there's little chance of them even coming out here.

Webpass is in Oakland, but AFAIK only in either very newly constructed condos, or in industrial live/work lofts.

That said, I used to support clients on Webpass in SF and... well, they do some really funky stuff with their network. Like multiple layers of NAT funky. It works great for web browsing and streaming video, but as soon as you do anything that is more complicated than that (VOIP, Skype, gaming, etc) it gets unreliable. We migrated a number of businesses way from Webpass over to Sonic DSL or Monkeybrains wireless because of issues getting (Vonage) VOIP to work.

schuss

Feral wrote: »

fightinfilipino wrote: »

schuss wrote: »

Are you living in a modern building? Check if they have Webpass. $50 and my speeds when I had it were ~100mbps up and down, spiking to 150+.

http://www.webpass.net/

some of my coworkers have told me about Webpass. unfortunately, we're in a duplex far, far away from downtown SF, so there's little chance of them even coming out here.

Webpass is in Oakland, but AFAIK only in either very newly constructed condos, or in industrial live/work lofts.

That said, I used to support clients on Webpass in SF and... well, they do some really funky stuff with their network. Like multiple layers of NAT funky. It works great for web browsing and streaming video, but as soon as you do anything that is more complicated than that (VOIP, Skype, gaming, etc) it gets unreliable. We migrated a number of businesses way from Webpass over to Sonic DSL or Monkeybrains wireless because of issues getting (Vonage) VOIP to work.

I had the opposite experience while I had it. It was rock-solid for gaming, streaming and other stuff.