Posted on 09/10/2023 1:36:57 PM PDT by TBP
Hi everyone. My home internet went down a week ago Friday (the 1st) late at night. My ISP promised ("committed") to having it up by 6:30 the next morning.
It finally came on this past Thursday around midday, only to go off again around 10:15 AM yesterday (Saturday) when I tried to log into a Zoom meeting.
They're claiming there's an "outage" and they keep sending me updated times when it will be fixed. In the meantime, I have to use the library's internet.
Who's your ISP? Are they reliable? Inexpensive? Can you get a bundle?
You should identify who you have now.
Verizon FiOs. My wife bought it becuase they had an inexpensive bundle. I told her I didn’t want it. I’ve had more problems with them than I had with all of my prior ISPs & TV providers put together.
Identify who you have now, and a nearby location (within a mile or so of your house), you can use a pubic address.
This allows us to know what’s available in your area.
Keep in mind, most areas have “monopolies” due to the local “government”
If you are rural, Elon Musk’s Starlink is an option.
I have starlink.
I live in a rural area.
It’s the best thing since sliced bread.
Very reliable, above average speed, no data caps and reasonably priced.
Go Elon!!!!!
I use Compuserve at the home and Prodigy at the office and have never had an issue with either, Prodigy even gave me a free 2400 baud modem.
I have Xfinity haven’t had an outage lately but it happens.
I’m going to look into Starlink based on comments here.
A million years ago Comcast/ Xfinity was good because you called and got a real person on the phone (they were even in America). Now it takes forever.
Can you do a temporary mobile hotspot off your phone? Until you’re up & running with a new provider. Most cellphone providers limit that availability.
I have xfiniti. I get 600mb down and pay $73 month. I’m supposed to get some TV crap, but I don’t use that. Uptime has been very good, bordering on excellent.
Only once I used my phone as a hot spot for a zoom meeting on my laptop. Verizon 5G and it worked fine
I’ve been very happy with T Mobile Home Internet. $60 a month and very reliable. Decent download speeds, but I’m not sure if the upload speed I get would be enough for Zoom. I don’t have a need to upload anything of any size.
Well of course we use toll lines. The per minute charges at Compuserve can be significant but those are just for certain services.
ATT Fiber Optic. Really depends on where you live as to what’s available.
You are so lucky... I'm still stuck at 1200...
Most places your choices will be ATT, Verizon or Comcast/Xfinity.
Of those ATT fiber will probably be the best.
In a pinch, you can use your cell phone as a wireless hotspot if you have decent signal strength.
When I got rid of Spectrum Cable last year, I checked to see if I could get rid of Spectrum internet at the same time. I live in central NY State, about an hour east of Syracuse. After looking around, we found that there is no other internet company that would provide the speeds that we need for streaming programs. Verizon Fios offered nowhere near the speeds that Spectrum did, so I ended up having to stick with Spectrum internet. They just raised their rate to $84.99 a month. And despite the fact that I hate Spectrum Cable, their internet service is very reliable, with very few interruptions to service. And even when there have been interruptions, they have been very short-lived.
Brightspeed fiber-optic line. Blows Mediascam (cable) out of the water.
I have Prodigy too.
Nice to know there is someone like me. I have a Packard Bell 486 computer running Windows 3.11.
The salesperson at Montgomery Ward tried to sell me another brand and I said no way.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.