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Hey Teamliquid,
I need some help! I recently graduated college and moved back in to my mom's old house with my sister and my girlfriend. However, they managed to somehow deal with the shit service that is Qwest, and I won't stand for it any more!
For $40/month I get the following features:
Lag during streams - Even the low quality stream for the TSL today hit lag spikes and would have to catch up with itself. I would estimate a 10-20 second pause in the stream every 2 minutes. It was horrible.
Waiting for youtube videos to buffer - This annoys the crap out of me. My internet can't even load 320p youtube videos fast enough to have instant playback.
Horrible lag in games - I deal with about 400-600 ms ping in every game I play. At worst, I'll get the "Waiting for players" screen every couple minutes with only my name.
It's like Qwest hasn't made any innovations in their technology since 1999. What a fucking rip off this service is.
So I was just wondering what the best alternative ISP is in the midwest. I had Comcast when I was at college and it was decent but rather expensive. Plus, we don't need new TV/Phone service here, just internet.
What do you guys use?
Edit: Apparently there are limited options of ISPs based on your exact area. I live in Denver, Colorado. Seems like there should be at least a couple different options around here, right?
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I've heard nothing but bad stuff about Comcast. I wouldn't go there, either. I don't live out there, so I can't help you directly, though.
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haha i have qwest too. when i moved into my new house they plugged my internet line into my neighbors phone line. Every time they made a call my internet disconnected. I don't know what to tell you, there arent many isps in one area.
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Comcast for TV is terrible. Then again, that's probably true for all cable companies.
My comcast internet connection, however, is rock solid and I get speeds as advertised. No muss, no fuss. I recommend it.
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I hear from my friends that comcast and time warner are not too good. I use charter and it has seemed pretty good and solid.
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I use comcast cable for my internet and I'm fine :o
It was soooo much faster than DSL, that's for sure. I'm no expert, but I one thing to keep in mind is that if everyone around you also uses comcast and they're all streaming videos or whatnot, everyone will be affected because the users share the bandwidth, while DSL is individual though usually significantly slower.
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I've always had good internet with comcast, I highly recommend it.
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On May 09 2011 05:19 sutureself wrote:
Comcast for TV is terrible. Then again, that's probably true for all cable companies.
My comcast internet connection, however, is rock solid and I get speeds as advertised. No muss, no fuss. I recommend it.
can also speak for comcast! I don't know about cheaper services but for the price of 1.5MB download I get no noticeable latency and super stable service.
It just takes a few hours on the phone to set up a subscription lulz.
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United States33503 Posts
even if oyu know what ISP is better, it sucks that a lot of places in the USA will only offer one ISP anyway 
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I don't know if you are in an area that they cover, but I live in Kansas City, and Sunflower Broadband has been awesome for me. Their service is limited in area, but is always fast and stable.
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I have frontier and I've had nothing but good things with it. lulzaly they keep us all happy beacuse they want to be the only company out here in my part of minnisota but I do think it helps everyone.
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The best residential ISP in America imo is Verizon FiOS if it's available in your area. In my area, for about 120 a month, I get 35/35 internet, phone service (lol), and their best cable package and since I was switching over from a competitor, I also got premium channels for free for a certain period of time.
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It varies by area more so than ISP. Comcast might be good in one place, but will be garbage in another.
Comcast has a 250GB/month cap, AT&T apparently now has 150GB/month, Verizon doesn't have a cap, and then there are other, smaller ISPs that are only available in certain locations.
The question isn't "which ISP is best," but rather "which ISP is best for XYZ town."
FWIW, my Comcast is usually good, but the cap is ridiculous given multiple heavy users.
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In the Midwest (Wisconsin) for me there is really only Comcast, Road Runner, or ATT, but I find that Road Runner has the fastest/most reliable internet around here. In some places Charter is also available and I am pretty sure Charter is the best of the four, but sadly it is not available for me.
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Embarq has to compete for being one of the worst broadband ISPs. I've been with them due to proximity since the company was EarthLink, now they're in deals with Qwest supposedly.
Paying too much for what plan I pay for, only get half of the download I should be, outages aren't uncommon, their 2wire modems they like to ship you have burnt out on me several times (which takes 3 weeks to replace through the mail), and terrible customer service.
It was amazing when I swapped from my 3kbs down AOL, but it really seems they're just preying on the elderly of South Florida that don't understand we're all being ripped off.
My e-friend of nearly 7 years has had Qwest in Idaho and is pulling 1meg down consistently and has mentioned a problem literally 1 time ever, which was this past week and was a big deal.
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On May 09 2011 05:56 Waxangel wrote:even if oyu know what ISP is better, it sucks that a lot of places in the USA will only offer one ISP anyway
ISP in the US are listed as utilities so they mapped out the country and gave some areas to some companies in the same way you cant really pick you water or power company you have very few options when it comes to ISP providers it sucks
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If you can get on with cox, I would advise you to. I pay $40 a month for a "10Mbit/1Mbit". But I receive much more usually around 25/3.
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On May 09 2011 06:05 AbstractVoid wrote:
In the Midwest (Wisconsin) for me there is really only Comcast, Road Runner, or ATT, but I find that Road Runner has the fastest/most reliable internet around here. In some places Charter is also available and I am pretty sure Charter is the best of the four, but sadly it is not available for me.
I had Charter for 4 years in Wisconsin and came to believe that they were the worst company ever for more than 3 of them. Mysterious charges, poor/slow/rude service, unreliable bandwidth, you name it (the TV commercials.. ah god the commercials were the WORST). Then right before I moved, the bandwidth magically got more reliable, so now I'm not sure what to think. I spent sooo long hating them, it just feels right to keep doing it 
I have Roadrunner now and most of the time it works amazingly.
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I use cox, I stream 1080p without buffering. My roomates stream too and I still get no lag. 5mb up 1 mb down
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Meta you probably need to specify better where exactly you are as the available ISPs differ greatly.
It's really to bad the US has some of the worst internet service of any industrialized country though
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On May 09 2011 06:11 Noev wrote:Show nested quote +On May 09 2011 05:56 Waxangel wrote:even if oyu know what ISP is better, it sucks that a lot of places in the USA will only offer one ISP anyway ISP in the US are listed as utilities so they mapped out the country and gave some areas to some companies in the same way you cant really pick you water or power company you have very few options when it comes to ISP providers it sucks
Yeah, I really hate this. It doesn't seem right at all that they are able to give certain companies monopoly over an area.
My only option here is Qwest; my already not great 7MB down often slows to 1MB at night or on weekends. All we can do is hope that they will eventually bring their fiber optic service to the area : /
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I hear a lot of people complaining about Comcast, but from my experience with the service in Colorado it was incredibly reliable and fast. I'm not sure if the rates differ in Denver, but from what I've heard Comcast was also cheaper that Qwest in my area.
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I never liked comcast but once I upgrade it to "xfinity"(comcast) I had no problems and awesome service. Right now I have AT&T and love it.
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chances are you don't have more than 2 choices anyway. Where I live which is right outside NYC, I have Verizon Fios which is pretty expensive around 40-50 a month for internet alone but the service is really good, especially if you seed torrents. The connection was always the advertised speeds at about 16 down 16 up. Which was awesome. The alternative around here is Cablevision which is what I currently use. It is 30$ for 15/2 and 45$ for 25/5. However the speeds are shaky and the television service sucks.
The older infrastructure generally sucks, if you have fios as an option its a much better deal. I think only verizon fios and AT&T u-verse offers it though.
Soon though, google will crush them all with gigabit speeds. God, I hope they start in NYC.
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I doubt they can do it in NYC, Verizon and all the terrible cable companies here will kick them out. Theres no direct competition between cable ISPs here, only Fios can really compare. That or you're stuck with DSL.
BUT, there is no bandwidth cap here but the throttling is insane.
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My experience with comcast depends on where you are provided the service - my service on a college campus town (Urbana, IL) has been pretty horrible, but my service at my home in the suburbs near chicago has been awesome (Orland Park, IL)
Edit:
Lol, forgot I was saving my 2k post for a blog...
Ermmmmm
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switching to comcast from at&t. paying for 6mbps and getting less then 1mbps is dumb
![[image loading]](http://www.speedtest.net/result/1287575942.png)
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Comcast > AT&T
had comcast for 1 year, have had at&t for 9 months. I wish I had never switched.
Other than restarting the modem every 3 days or so to make it go faster (idk how, but it worked) I never had any complaints about comcast internet.
AT&T on the other hand charges just about the same, gave me a shitty as DSL router, my internet connection is interrupted everytime someone calls my homephone (WTF is that?) and finally, I can't forward ports, which I did just fine with comcast. Now I can't host games on BW. -__-"
![[image loading]](http://www.speedtest.net/result/1287582302.png)
connection seems fine right now, but more often than not my internet is even slower than Jaw's.
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Yeah this question is more about availability and location. In some areas Comcast will be better and in others DSL is the way to go. Best thing to do is ask around, get friends with different ISPs to run a speedtest etc... If it helps in my area Comcast is by far the best.
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google, just move to kansas city and be patient. otherwise, verizon fios, otherwise time warner cable (biased)
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I have cox cable internet and tv and it's always been great for me
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Input your address here and it will give you a list of ISPs in your area. It's service provided by the government.
http://broadbandmap.gov/
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On May 09 2011 14:42 Primadog wrote:Input your address here and it will give you a list of ISPs in your area. It's service provided by the government. http://broadbandmap.gov/
i like the idea of the site, but it's very buggy and out of date
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I've been using "Bellsouth" which is now AT&T (not sure about improvements or decrease in service) for roughly 8 years now, and it's been excellent.
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Like other posters have said, it will all depend on where you are.
Comcast where I live is slow as hell, but other locations I've heard are better. They're just awful in the sense of customer service, though. It's really beyond words, and if you can avoid having to ever deal with them, I would recommend it.
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EPT
