Internet options

[AhmedIlyas]

So, I just bought a house. Excited but scared at the same time.

My current rental has fiber. That rental is being given up in favor of the house.

 

Unfortunately the house has no fiber. 

I have been crying for days. Someone must be licking my salty tears.  

 

Unfortunately the internet options are terrible. Cable is the only thing and they charge a lot but underdeliver. I am going to miss fiber.

 

The cable provider (COX) say that because it's an HOA area, they cannot just drop the lines. I even said I am willing to pay thousands of USD for them to drop but... it's an HOA thing. 

 

I can pay $60/month for a T-Mobile that gives me unlimited data and I get more speed (up and down) than the offering from the cable provider in terms of the price range. 

T-Mobile: 300-350Mb down and around 290-310Mb up. (And yes, they can give me a static IP which is what I also need)

Cox: closest price range ($70/month), but still more than T-Mobile: 150Mb down and 5Mb up.

 

This is fine but I need faster speed. (I do A LOT of data transfers in and out, I work in the IT field).

 

The other rental I have in another state has fiber and it's great. Thankfully I won't be giving up that rental anytime soon. LOL.

 

So the question is for you folks, what do you do in this situation? What creative ways can one use to get better speeds (or even as far as getting fiber dropped - the way the property is, the back of the property almost faces the main street/road with anything blocking the property)

 

I don't want to pay $130/month (USD) for the COX cable company  that does not provide what they advertise and with a shitty upload cap of... 35Mb for the "Gigablast"!

I have been paying $65/month for FIBER, both up and down, month to month with CenturyLink without issues. See the difference already?! lol.

 

I have been mulling over this and at a loss honestly. Trying to make it work with what I have but perhaps there are options I have not considered that maybe you can chime in with.

[Electronics Wizardy]

See if there is a WISP in the area. They can be a good alternative.

 

Also look for buildings you have line of sight too, you can do a point to point wireless and then have them have fiber running to the building. 

 

You can also run fiber to your house, but thats gonna be a lot of permits and money. You likely need dedicated internet, so thats like 3k a month for gig.

 

See if you can convince the HOA to let another HOA run fiber in the neighborhood. 

 

 

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, AhmedIlyas said:

what do you do in this situation?

Its called work with what you have. In my area Comcast is the only wired internet provider. I thought about T Mobile as well, but Im not certain they can handle the load we would put on their network. 

 

At least you have options. My boss is stuck on Hughsnet and a 6 Gig a month Verizon jetpack. 

[AhmedIlyas]

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

See if there is a WISP in the area. They can be a good alternative.

 

Also look for buildings you have line of sight too, you can do a point to point wireless and then have them have fiber running to the building. 

 

You can also run fiber to your house, but thats gonna be a lot of permits and money. You likely need dedicated internet, so thats like 3k a month for gig.

 

See if you can convince the HOA to let another HOA run fiber in the neighborhood. 

 

 

 

Still waiting to get all the HOA paperwork but from sounds of it at least, they seem to be good at denying everything. (Good ol' HOA from what I hear).

[AhmedIlyas]

Makes me wonder if it is worth "bonding" a couple of Mobile data options? i.e if I pay $120/month for T-Mobile (2 lines) and bond them to get double the speed combined?

yup, it's more than $60 but at least I would not be stuck with the overly priced and under-delivered cable company.

 

I also wonder in such a situation, if you are bonding/aggregating the connections, what would the primary IP address be and would it change all the time?

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 hours ago, AhmedIlyas said:

Makes me wonder if it is worth "bonding" a couple of Mobile data options? i.e if I pay $120/month for T-Mobile (2 lines) and bond them to get double the speed combined?

yup, it's more than $60 but at least I would not be stuck with the overly priced and under-delivered cable company.

 

I also wonder in such a situation, if you are bonding/aggregating the connections, what would the primary IP address be and would it change all the time?

Yea you can bond them, but I guess those cellular ones are gonna be pretty limited data cap wise, you won't be able to hit those speeds for very long.

 

If your doing bonding with anouther server on the end, you see that servers ip, not the ones of either connection. Dual wan will limit you to the speed of one connection for any single tcp/udp connection.

[Alex Atkin UK]

4 hours ago, AhmedIlyas said:

Makes me wonder if it is worth "bonding" a couple of Mobile data options? i.e if I pay $120/month for T-Mobile (2 lines) and bond them to get double the speed combined?

yup, it's more than $60 but at least I would not be stuck with the overly priced and under-delivered cable company.

 

I also wonder in such a situation, if you are bonding/aggregating the connections, what would the primary IP address be and would it change all the time?

That's weird, is a single service capped?  As bonding two of the same providers should provide zero benefit unless you are pointing them at different cell towers, as you're sharing the same bandwidth pool.  I certainly know that's how it works in the UK as there is no speed cap, you just get whatever capacity is available.

[AhmedIlyas]

Thanks @Alex Atkin UK - I am from the UK also but now reside here in the US for the last 5 years

 

I can mix providers I guess.

[Alex Atkin UK]

4 hours ago, AhmedIlyas said:

Thanks @Alex Atkin UK - I am from the UK also but now reside here in the US for the last 5 years

 

I can mix providers I guess.

My condolences.

[Falcon1986]

6 hours ago, AhmedIlyas said:

Thanks @Alex Atkin UK - I am from the UK also but now reside here in the US for the last 5 years

 

I can mix providers I guess.

Starlink?

[Donut417]

28 minutes ago, Falcon1986 said:

Starlink?

Last I heard there was a sizable waiting list. Something about issues making the dish used or something to that effect. No to mention Bezos is trying hard to sabotage the system, because god forbid SpaceX is actually doing something cool and they are not, SpaceX is getting government contracts and they are not. SMH. 

[AhmedIlyas]

2+ year waiting list for Starlink. And it actually will be slower than the T-Mobile 5G internet. LOL. 

[mtz_federico]

Check if you can try the t-mobile home internet and see how it performs for you, if it doesn't work well for you, go for cox. Cox is more expensive but it is wired and might be more stable and have less ping.

 

I have heard bad things about the t-mobile home internet router (no port forwarding and the config resets) but also heard that they might be changing it.

[AhmedIlyas]

Problem with cox is... costly, poor upload speed, shoddy customer service and cannot justify it. 

TMobile internet seems to be ok (I am on the business plan) but need to check about the port forwarding/if it allows me to connect remotely into the home.

[Donut417]

37 minutes ago, AhmedIlyas said:

port forwarding/i

Reviews of their service suggest that your on CGNAT, so no port forwarding. They might give you a public IP for additional cost. Also the stock gateway they give you is pretty sparse when it comes to those kind of features. Officially you have to use their gateway. 

[mtz_federico]

20 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Reviews of their service suggest that your on CGNAT, so no port forwarding. They might give you a public IP for additional cost. Also the stock gateway they give you is pretty sparse when it comes to those kind of features. Officially you have to use their gateway. 

You might be able to use ipv6 to connect to your devices but you need to have ipv6 on the device outside your network. You could also use a VPN like tailscale or zerotier.

[Donut417]

2 hours ago, mtz_federico said:

You might be able to use ipv6 to connect to your devices but you need to have ipv6 on the device outside your network. You could also use a VPN like tailscale or zerotier.

Yeah but a VPN is an extra expense. As the free ones are slow generally. The best way would be to rent a VPS and VPN thru that server. Again there is a cost to that. 

[CustomEnchants]

17 hours ago, AhmedIlyas said:

2+ year waiting list for Starlink. And it actually will be slower than the T-Mobile 5G internet. LOL. 

I've ordered starlink on the 21st of october and received it on november 1st this year.
I can say it is a ton better then my old connection could even provide I'm in a area where DSL is the only option along with low 4G speeds.

[Donut417]

21 hours ago, AhmedIlyas said:

T-Mobile 5G internet.

Do us a favor. If you do the T Mobile route please provide us with a review. Id trust reviews of this community over others. We have considered going to T Mobile internet ourselves, or at least using it as a bargaining chip with Comcast, if they ever raised our rates, which surprisingly they haven't in 2 or 3 years, but we are only on Internet only plan so that could be why. 

[AhmedIlyas]

@Donut417 - no problem.

I am canceling Cox. They are very quick to bill after 3 days when they installed it (when they were "bothered" to come round after the 3rd attempt). The guy on the phone said he would waive the installation fee due to them messing up but guess what? They didn't. I'm canceling.

I do have T-Mobile 5G and will let you know the review in the next 2-3 weeks or less. I am between places at the moment with moving. Still trying to figure out the best option for me here.