james_bond

I live in rural South Dakota (don't recommend it) and my only option for internet is our local DSL company who charges out the ass ($65 for 25mbps is their cheapest option, their other plans are 50mbps for $85 and 100mbps for $105) and T-Mobile's Home Internet over their cellular network.
 
I signed up for T-Mobile's internet last year when it became available to us and I average around 50mbps and I'm paying $50 a month. I'm still using the LTE gateway as the 5G gateway is still having some issues.
 
For our uses, that's more then sufficient.
 

Mine has actually gone down a bit after they came and "fixed" the cable tv. I was at 117 down 16 up now I'm at 93 down 8.5 up but the cable tv works perfect now. LOL

I only see internet speed go up, but so does the price....

For me it got better, but not because of covid, my parents changed our ISP, it's same same Technology (VDSL) but before we had internet thru a cheaper reseller
which was really bad, like packetloss in the evening and instead of the advertised 50 Down, 10 Up it was more like 20 down 2-3 ip (the line was okay, it was the ISP)
Now it's 250 Down, 40 Up which is really 270 Down and 43 Up but my Dad throttled me to 200/39 😅 so it's fine ^^

So in short it really seems to depends on the ISP + the Region as i have friends using the same ISP in just different cities and it varies so much 😕

Where I used to live in Texas, we had a co-op Internet provider and was getting more than what we paid for. We paid for 50down/50up (Mbps) and were getting about 100 down/100up consistently. It never really got slower than that, even during the worst of the shutdown there; there just wasn't enough people around for that.
 
Where I live now, Pittsburgh, I pay for 400down/10up(Mbps) through a bundled deal with my apartment (Xfinity). For the most part it's fine, but there are times when it does dip down to like 30down/10up. But, I typically get faster than what I pay for. Currently it's at 482down/12up.

If your local ISP node has more customers who are working or playing from home more, then yeah congestion will occur until the network provider solves the bottle necks.

Our service is slower, but we still get what we pay for. From my understanding we have a lot of old people who live around me, so I would say not a lot of people are working from home on my node. So while there has been increased usage, its not that bad. Plus we have started opening back up and people are getting back to work, <removed by staff>. 

Things are the same on my side in Canada. Actually, it's slightly faster.
I should be getting 30Mbps. I'm getting 33Mbps.

 
I guess having proper regulations that are actively enforced helps a lot to prevent ISPs and other services provider from screwing their customers over. They also know they'd be sued if they just dropped the speed and claimed random excuses for it like the increased demand puts too much of a strain of the network or whatever other BS they're known to crap out of their PR mouthholes.

It has decreased where I live. I believe it has been throttled by our ISPs ever since the initial lockdowns because more people are still working from home. Im assuming they have done this to support the large number of users on their network.

Absolutely unusable for me, can't even open a website without waiting 20s minimum, paying for 50 down and 25 up, getting 5 down and 2 up with 80ms ping (servers in my city). It was perfect before the pandemic, my speed decreases a lot in the evening for some reason. 

Absolutely no variance whatsoever. Getting the same speeds as before the covid and time-of-day doesn't matter, either -- getting the same speeds 24/7/365.
 
Finland is a great place to live in for an Internet-addicted nerd.

I have noticed slowdowns at the and of the month. Also during Covid my speeds are Crap! Tho it is good egnough for 1080p Videos. 
*sry bad english*

Well, my dad upgraded our plan from 60 down 8 up to 100 down 10 up, though it acts like 140 down 13 up.
So I guess it increased?

i hold onto a phone as long as possible until it breaks to such a point that i can justify a new one instead of trying to find someone to repair it at a non-extortionist price

when they die, get mortally damaged, or slow down to a point where I have to wait for a web page or app to open.

About every 3 years. My telco offers a 36-month installment-plan, so I pay a small amount once a month for 36 months and get a brand-spanking new phone. It's not a hard rule, though: I am perfectly happy with my current phone, so I may or may not just stick to it for longer -- we'll see once the 36 months is gone.
 
I mostly care about the camera, since I take macro-shots of electronics with it for reverse-engineering and inspection, but I haven't seen any particularly meaningful developments in cameras lately, so upgrading isn't relevant at the moment.

I usually don't change phones until they stop working.  Knock on wood have never cracked a screen but I have have had plenty of POS phones that just physically quit working in 2 years or less.

I am not. I purchased this phone on 2013 & I am still using it. I use my phone for outgoing & incoming calls only. I don't even do web browsing on my phone. My phone have Opera Mini but frankly I prefer using my desktop for web browsing. All my friends keep buying new phones every 5-6 years. In my opinion this is complete waste of money. Personally instead of spending cash for a phone I will rather buy a good soundbar. I know this comparison between a smartphone & soundbar doesn't make any sense. I am just trying to explain what my priorities are.
 
How frequently do you change your phone ?

I dont change my phone often. Mind you I dont play a ton of mobile games so it doesnt really hit me as much as it might others

I think a lot of people do that.  I sometimes throw on music or a podcast while I shower.

I totally understand your habit, but it's something I avoid. It turns my 10-minute shower into a 30-minute shower.

Screams of pain do not count as singing, you know the rules.

Don't listen to music in the shower but I never go to sleep without ambient music on.

personally I like to use my airpods since they're decently water proof anyway, but I know a lot of people who use speakers to and just turn them up

I don't know anyone who DOESN'T listen to music/podcast while they shower