My Internet Sucks

[ano]

Good news Ano.
 
You got me looking at the DTV monthly invoice which I have not really paid attention to.  It is now a tad over $100 where as last time I looked and mentioned it above it was $60 a month.  May try the retention thing or go to DISH.  I do not want to sign or approve any contract for anything; just lower the monthly rate.
 
Only thing would be the WAF and her DVR.  IE: Tivo to DTV DVR was a traumatic experience here for my wife.  DTV is only for Wife here as I do not every watch or record anything these days from DTV.  Personally only stream these days. 

Service providers are very sneaky, but its also very costly for them to acquire new customers, especially satellite providers because the install is so costly for them.  A popular trick they do is give you a great price for 12 months, but make you sign a two year contract.   DirecTV plays another trick where your bill slowly rises, so hopefully you don't notice it and complain. 
 
You need to research what Dish and other competitors offer to new subscribers.  Then call DirecTV and tell them you want to cancel service. When they ask why, say "because the price is too high and you can get a better deal with XYZ."  Then they will give you a good deal.  When it runs out in a year or two, just repeat.

 

[pete_c]

Thanks Ano.
 
It's been a few years ago that I had tried DISH while keeping DTV on. 
 
Modded my oval DTV antenna to having 4 LNBs (2 for DISH at the time).  Kept DISH on for about two years.
 
 
 
At the time though still had the Direct Tivo box running and wife preferred that.
 
Next time afterwards went to checking DISH prices to do a comparison the "deal" was a 2 year contract with a 1 year deal plus an auto debit.
 
Will look again to see what prices there are for DISH today.  In 2003 was already using DTV with only receivers from legacy DTV and upped it to the DirectTivo VCR and recievers for some one year package at the time.  This is the original sub now that has increased to a tad over $100 a month. 
 
Noticed too that DISH offers a DSL internet package add using CenturyLink (which is using the current old AT&T copper).  Always noticed too that the video compression on satellite varies with the channels such that OTA HD reception and video looks way better.  This doesn't much matter to wife as she only cares about content and not really resolution.
 
Note the two packages consist of many barker channels, religious channels, shopping channels adding to the numbers.
IE: in Chicago there are 66 broadcast HD channels.  Only maybe 5 channels have any content that I want to see.
 
It is difficult to understand what it is you get but it looks like:
 
1 - base 120 channel DISH package for $49.99 plus one receiver with a 2 year contract.
2 - extra $15 per month for DVR
3 - extra $7 per month for another reciever
 
Then with the above they throw in a $100 GC plus added premium packages for 3 months with an auto billing  unless I cancel after 3 months.  I really do not like all of the methodology utilized for the billing. 
 
Not sure if there are any more fine print monthly charges with the above.  Looks to be a hard 2 year contract which the numbers remain the same for 2 years.  Not sure on the paper billing stuff but would prefer paper over auto billing.  I did bring this auto billing stuff up to Ooma a while ago.  (well now years ago).  It used to be a minimum of a 1 year new contract.  All of this stuff mostly relates to wife's "cooking shows" and really not much else.
 
Direct TV new packages look like:
 
1 - $50 per month for 150 channels
2 - Plus taxes. For 12 mos. w/24-mo. agmt. $90/mo. in months 13-24 (subject to change).
ALL DIRECTV OFFERS REQUIRE 24-MO TV AGREEMENT. EARLY TERMINATION FEE OF $20/MO. FOR EACH MONTH REMAINING ON AGMT., $35 ACTIVATION, EQUIPMENT, NON-RETURN, & ADD'L FEES APPLY. New approved residential customers only (equipment lease req'd). Credit card req'd (except MA & PA).
3 - DVR $15 per month
4 - al la carte adds of $7 per receiver.
5 - sports fee of around $8 per month here in the midwest.
6 - looks too to be an auto debit and no paper here.
 
Looking like after one year will be where I am at today or more maybe.
 
Ideally I would like to see is a prepay of a 1-2 year whole contract.  Thinking with satellite radio I used to be able to pay for a year or two in advance at a great deal (this was more for automobiles than the home) and today do not really use it much. 
 
What a joke this crap is.

 

[ano]

So the wireless Internet was installed today. It took them maybe 90 minutes total. The company is called Desert iNet and they have maybe 5 or 6 antennas around the area.  The antenna was a small dish antenna maybe 14" in diameter.  It was installed on the roof somewhere and its not even visible from the ground. The receiver is installed next to the dish and Ethernet is run into my house. 
 
I can actually see the antenna my antenna points to on a small mountain near my home, maybe 1.5 miles away. 
 
I got the 20Mbps/3Mbps plan which is in the middle for $60/month.  It was $100 to install it. So far it seems to be working great.

 

[pete_c]

Good news Ano.
 
Please post a DSL reports dot com speed test...I am curious what it looks like with your wireless stuff...

 

[George M]

Something interesting here (near Denver Co.)
I have DSL through CenturyLink. Currently paying $65 for 20meg/1meg service. They have been recently advertising about pricing for life which is less than what I am paying. I called them to get the new pricing expecting them to say it was only for new customers. However not only did they not argue that, they said they could get me 40/2 service for $55.
Now I live in the country (5 acre lots) so there is no cable or fiber. I did not think they could get me that speed but I figured I'd find out. So when the tech showed up he hooked up a new modem and there is was. 40meg up and 3 meg down. I asked him how he could do this when they haven't upgraded any infrastructure that I know of. What they do is bring in two DSL lines and bond them with the new modem they are using thereby doubling the speed.
I checked with DLSreports dot com and sure enough tested at 38/2.7. Even with a VNP running through Kansas City I get 33/2. 
Something you may want to ask about.

 

[ano]

That is real interesting, because I was planning to cancel Centurylink soon.  I am paying $35 for their "7M" service which measures as 5M.  Actually I could live with that, but the upload speed is 0.6M which I can't live with. My RING doorbell requires 2 UP.  I'm not really in a remote area, its just that they haven't updated things in 20 years.  I am over 1 mile from their connection box.
 
But I have something interesting also, for anyone who thinks its just about some speed. There is more to Internet than that.
 
So Pete asked about my speed with wireless. I'm on a 20/3 plan and after they installed it I measured it at about 21/3.4   This morning it measures about the same.  But as Steve Harvey once said, there is the "rest of the story." (They offer 40/7, so I'm guessing thee modem just slows things down if you have the lower rates.)
 
At least where I live, there is another important metric and that is "capacity."  When my "Internet journey" started I had COX (Cable) on their "Premier" plan that offered 150M/5M and during the day it measured very close to that.  I had it several years and it was like $65 so I was happy. What could be bad? 
 
Then I started watching Netflix and Amazon.  At 7pm to 11pm.  Then I have come to discover others do the same thing. In fact EVERYONE does. So even with 150M Netflix and Amazon where constantly buffering and the picture froze at least 6 to 10 times per hour.  I was paying for these and I couldn't watch them.  I did speed tests and the speed seemed OK at least for what Netflix needed but it clearly wasn't.  
 
I tried Centurylink with their mighty measured 5/0.6 speeds, started a movie in the evening, and guess what, it played fine. Only problem, now my RING doorbell wasn't working.  
 
So I tried my new wireless service last night. Worked great with Amazon and Netflix, but I did a speed test at about 10pm and got maybe 7M down, so definitely a slowdown  but it still seemed to work.  So far that is acceptable.
 
COX does have 1000M fiber to my house, BUT that costs $129/month  and in my opinion its not worth it.  Netflix says it takes 25M for 4K streaming. I don't have 4K yet, but that is good to keep in mind.
 
So before boasting speeds, make sure you measure the speed between 7pm and 11pm for a true picture. 

 

[Waynedb]

 My internet sucks too, I have wireless at $99 a month for10Mbps down and 1Mbps up, except it only hits those speeds for a couple hours a day or more correctly in the middle of the night. Want to watch Netflix in the evening, no problem, I mean no, problem, my internet speed falls below 1Mbps. I used to pay $60 a month for 8Mbps down and 750K up, it was always right close to those speeds but they are over subscribed now, I bumped up to the $99 business plan and it
still sucks.
 
 I have hope, in the next year or two we are scheduled to get fiber, $25 a month for 25Mbps or $60 a month for 1Gbps down and up, I live in a rural area so this was surprising news.

 

[ano]

 My internet sucks too, I have wireless at $99 a month for10Mbps down and 1Mbps up, except it only hits those speeds for a couple hours a day or more correctly in the middle of the night. Want to watch Netflix in the evening, no problem, I mean no, problem, my internet speed falls below 1Mbps. I used to pay $60 a month for 8Mbps down and 750K up, it was always right close to those speeds but they are over subscribed now, I bumped up to the $99 business plan and it
still sucks.
 
 I have hope, in the next year or two we are scheduled to get fiber, $25 a month for 25Mbps or $60 a month for 1Gbps down and up, I live in a rural area so this was surprising news.

Here I really wish they would offer fiber at different speeds here, but they don't. 1000M or nothing. Hopefully it will get cheaper over time.

 

[Waynedb]

I just hope they don't ruin the internet with tiers like cable and satellite have. I watch mostly stuff from the internet now so I could have lower bills if they keep the current rules. I use Playon to record stuff during the periods my internet actually works OK, PQ is better that I get from DTV even though playon only records a max of 720P.

 

[ano]

Tiers are just a way to extract the maximum income from a service.  Some will pay a lot and others are more resource limited. The real evil will be lifting Net Neutrality.  That will not be pretty. I already have to use a VPN to prevent my ISP from selling my browsing history to the highest bidder.

 

[pete_c]

Personally I am seeing ISP costs continuing to climb. 
 
My Comcast monthly invoice now shows usage and I am aware of data caps these days with overage charges.
 
I am still using same Internet account now for over 20 years.  Never have changed it. 
 
Looking around this last month or so do not see anything better.  New contracts are a joke these days. 
 
There are installation charges (even if you DIY your installation), hardware charges, support charges, cancellation charges, 2 year contracts, auto debits, et al. 
 
The nanny state here is so broke that they are adding subtle taxes for use of the Internet. 
 
Lobbying efforts here have convinced some (most) idiot politicians (it is all about money) to let CC monopolize Internet here which really is a joke.
 
 
I am still getting an invoice these days.  To get more money the ISP will probably do a $10 per month charge soon for paper. 
 
It is a win win for them considering the push to utilize the cloud these days for everything.

 

[Waynedb]

 I get a e-mail bill from my ISP, I don't want auto billing so I pay $5 more per month. My previous ISP was set up for auto billing, before they would come out and do a signal check to see if I could use their wireless service, I had to give them payment info. The first time they came out they told me I couldn't get a good enough signal for service so they did not install it, it took me six months to get them to stop auto billing my account every month, apparently not actually getting service from them was not a good enough argument to get them to stop charging me. I did get service with them a couple of years later because it was either them or dial up, the satellite internet services always got horrible reviews so I never considered them.
 
  I had cable when I lived in the city, as much as I hated the cable company, the city tacking on fees was just as bad. Where I lived they added a $5 fire fee for having cable, no one else had to pay it, their logic was that if you could afford cable you needed to be paying extra money for fire services. The joys of living in California never end, some day they will figure out a way to tax breathing.

 

[pete_c]

some day they will figure out a way to tax breathing.
 
I think that they have already.  It's not the right time to implement yet.
 

 

[ano]

Here I don't think prices are going up.  They are getting better.  Centurylink (who I just cancelled with because of slow speeds) has a "price for life" promise, no contract and no installation charge.  I paid $45 for the modem on Amazon.  I did the DIY install, but from what I could tell, the DSL wasn't even connected to my house. They sent a tech over who spent an hour connecting it.  Since I cancelled a month later, no doubt they lost money on the deal.  You could say its competition, because we do have cable, but just those two, other than a few areas like mine with a wireless option. (Satellite is a joke.) 
 
Thats Internet, but just look at cellular. Me and the wife just changed to a T-mobile plan where 2 iPhone lines of unlimited voice, text and data is $60/month and that even includes taxes and fees. (One person has to be 55 or older.)  This same plan with a whole lot slower speeds 10 years ago would be much more.  I'm looking at an offer from AT&T & Apple in 2007, the year the iPhone came out. For $99/month (1 line) you get unlimited data, 1350 minutes of voice and 200 SMS messages. ($36 activation fee.)  iPhones were $499 & $599 that year, so they have definitely gone UP.
 
Companies can be VERY sneaky, however.  Look at auto insurance.  You shop around and find one that can save you $200/year but with every renewal it slowly goes up even when you car gets older and is cheaper to cover.  You have to switch plans every year or two to keep the good prices. Most people don't bother.
 
On the autopay, NEVER use your checking account and ALWAYS use your credit card.  Not only do you get reward points, but YOU have full control over who gets paid and you can get past charges reversed.  Also ALWAYS use the credit card for Kickstarter and Indiegogo.  If it turns out to be a scam, which it has two times, the credit card WILL refund your money.  I have been using AmEx which has been FANTASTIC in reversing charges, even a year after the charge. With a bank, good luck getting your money back.  When you see those stories about the gym or Internet charging for years after services were cancelled, its always with a checking account, not with a credit card.

 

[pete_c]

Understood Ano,
 
Internet (cable) is twice as much as first time I used it.  Before that and concurrently utilized Sprint wireless  and DSL.