Considering dumping CenturyLink and Revising Home Network

[handymanshandle]

So there's a chance, we might dump CenturyLink for Comcast. I know that this forum will bash Comcast for a variety of reasons but I acknowledge that they might not be any better but it's either them or CenturyLink for TV and Internet. Dish and DirecTV offer internet I believe but that's even worse I'm guessing and at least for about what we're paying for CenturyLink and Sling TV, we'd get more channels and faster Internet.

 

We currently pay around $70/mo for 12mbps down/7mbps up but we get more like 17mbps down/0.80mbps up

 

Now in switching to comcast, I'd consider not going with their 2 in 1 combo and getting a $57 Netgear Modem and a $30 TP-Link Router

 

(Modem): CM500-1AZNAS

(Router): TL-WR940N

$77 vs $120 for 1 year of equipment lease. It's only a $43 savings but that's better than nothing, and if Comcast got too expensive after the second year, could just start over again with a more basic plan or something like that.

 

I'm just curious about your opinions of that modem and router combo

[LHJKO]

direct tv uses at&t and they actually have some decent speeds 

[handymanshandle]

1 minute ago, Vernw3 said:

direct tv uses at&t and they actually have some decent speeds 

But as far as I'm aware AT&T internet doesn't actually service Minnesota or at least my area.

 

Also my mom doesn't wanna go back to Satellite for the fact being that it cuts out during storms like Antennas

[brwainer]

There's no shame in going from DSL to Cable, and none of the non-trolls on this forum would bash you for it. There's plenty of places where you only have a choice between a single telephone provider and a single cable provider for internet.

 

For your modem choice, I'd recommend spending a little bit more for an ARRIS SURFboard SB6183 ($69 on Amazon) or step down to the ARRIS SURFboard SB6141 for $50 because Arris has a lot more experience making modems than Netgear. Generally I recommend getting a modem that is rated for twice the speed you are actually paying for (so the 6141 would be go for up to 150Mbps down)

For your router choice, that one is fine, I like TP-Link routers for entry level. At that low price point, there isn't really a lot of difference between the brands, they all have basically the same hardware inside with no significant feature differences.

[handymanshandle]

9 hours ago, brwainer said:

There's no shame in going from DSL to Cable, and none of the non-trolls on this forum would bash you for it. There's plenty of places where you only have a choice between a single telephone provider and a single cable provider for internet.

 

For your modem choice, I'd recommend spending a little bit more for an ARRIS SURFboard SB6183 ($69 on Amazon) or step down to the ARRIS SURFboard SB6141 for $50 because Arris has a lot more experience making modems than Netgear. Generally I recommend getting a modem that is rated for twice the speed you are actually paying for (so the 6141 would be go for up to 150Mbps down)

For your router choice, that one is fine, I like TP-Link routers for entry level. At that low price point, there isn't really a lot of difference between the brands, they all have basically the same hardware inside with no significant feature differences.

Yeah lol I don't spend too much time around talks of ISPs and shit but I've seen plenty of people have some dismay for Comcast lol and I mean it's understandable.

 

As far as modem choice I went with the Netgear one knowing that I wanted something way more than what my advertised speeds were going to be. As to not over saturate it or w/e but most of the modem choices I've seen are starting around 686mbps

 

Yeah and that was another choice in router, was that Wireless-N is plenty for 150mbps down

[Donut417]

12 hours ago, wcreek said:

So there's a chance, we might dump CenturyLink for Comcast. I know that this forum will bash Comcast for a variety of reasons but I acknowledge that they might not be any better but it's either them or CenturyLink for TV and Internet. Dish and DirecTV offer internet I believe but that's even worse I'm guessing and at least for about what we're paying for CenturyLink and Sling TV, we'd get more channels and faster Internet.

 

We currently pay around $70/mo for 12mbps down/7mbps up but we get more like 17mbps down/0.80mbps up

 

Now in switching to comcast, I'd consider not going with their 2 in 1 combo and getting a $57 Netgear Modem and a $30 TP-Link Router

 

(Modem): CM500-1AZNAS

(Router): TL-WR940N

$77 vs $120 for 1 year of equipment lease. It's only a $43 savings but that's better than nothing, and if Comcast got too expensive after the second year, could just start over again with a more basic plan or something like that.

 

I'm just curious about your opinions of that modem and router combo

Im a Comcast sub. They are ASS HOLES. But they have a good network. We pay $46 a month for their streaming service and 100 Mbps Internet. 

 

Netgear makes good modems from what I heard. Ive thought about upgrading to a CM600 myself. As far as the router goes, is a $30 router. That makes it dirt cheap. "You get what you pay for". I would suggest spending more on the router. Maybe the Archer C7. While its going to be more, you will still have this paid off with in 2 years. 

 

Comcast will get more expensive. They raise prices twice a year usually. Many times on the below the line fees. But their network is a shit load better than providers like AT&T (Excluding their fiber), or Century Link. Also while we have 100/10 service with Comcast, we generally get 120/12, they over provision service by 20% in many areas. 

 

Forgot to add. Comcast has a 1TB cap. Its $10 for every 50Gigs over the cap. Or you pay $50 a month extra for unlimited. With a Family of 3 using OTA and streaming we use like 700 Gigs most months. Your mileage may vary. 

[handymanshandle]

8 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Im a Comcast sub. They are ASS HOLES. But they have a good network. We pay $46 a month for their streaming service and 100 Mbps Internet. 

Yeah like I've said I've heard good and bad things about them but truth be told, all ISPs aren't great

8 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Netgear makes good modems from what I heard. Ive thought about upgrading to a CM600 myself. As far as the router goes, is a $30 router. That makes it dirt cheap. "You get what you pay for". I would suggest spending more on the router. Maybe the Archer C7. While its going to be more, you will still have this paid off with in 2 years. 

Yeah I figure Netgear makes decent routers it seems so I imagine they make decent modems. Amazon has a $7 off coupon for the modem @brwainer recommended. I figure going for a cheap router for now is fine as it'd be easy enough to just get a new router later. But I figured for their "X1 Saver Double Play" plan 802.11n would be plenty for those speeds and at most 2-4 devices would be using wifi and my desktop would be using an Ethernet port. The modem/router combo we have from CenturyLink is an Actiontec PK5000 which is 802.11b/g but I have it to only broadcast 802.11g lol

But I understand the recommendation for an 802.11ac router; Being able to broadcast over 5GHz which at least my S8+ and my mom's iPhone 8 would benefit from

Not sure about our laptops. Mine is a HP 15-ba079dx and my mom's is some Lenovo from like 2014 (series G50) actually before posting this I just opened it up and looked for date codes, yeah it's a 2014 lenovo lol looks like the wifi adapter's PN is 20-200570 which looks to be a b/g adapter?

 

8 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Comcast will get more expensive. They raise prices twice a year usually. Many times on the below the line fees. But their network is a shit load better than providers like AT&T (Excluding their fiber), or Century Link. Also while we have 100/10 service with Comcast, we generally get 120/12, they over provision service by 20% in many areas. 

Yeah, my boyfriend just got AT&T fiber and from his speedtest results and how quickly he was able to upload a 300-400mb file makes me wished Minnesota had a larger fiber network lol.
As far as I'm aware back in like 2015 CenturyLink was building a fiber network in Minneapolis but I haven't heard much about it and it's not in my north metro suburb yet.

8 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Forgot to add. Comcast has a 1TB cap. Its $10 for every 50Gigs over the cap. Or you pay $50 a month extra for unlimited. With a Family of 3 using OTA and streaming we use like 700 Gigs most months. Your mileage may vary. 

Yeah according to Windows, I've used 144GB in the last month. My mom doesn't use that much I don't imagine, even if she did use that much still would be well under 1TB.

[flibberdipper]

13 hours ago, Vernw3 said:

direct tv uses at&t and they actually have some decent speeds 

*shudder*

AT&T leaves a cancerous taste in my mouth with how they treat my grandma. She pays for 20/5 or something stupid like that, which is supposedly the best plan in the area, and yet actual speeds are down around 3/1 most of the time because they fucked up the installation so badly.

[handymanshandle]

1 minute ago, tmcclelland455 said:

*shudder*

AT&T leaves a cancerous taste in my mouth with how they treat my grandma. She pays for 20/5 or something stupid like that, which is supposedly the best plan in the area, and yet actual speeds are down around 3/1 most of the time because they fucked up the installation so badly.

Yeah, no if AT&T were to bring their service to Minnesota, I'd only want them to bring their Fiber optic service. Alas I only hope to stay in Minnesota for another year.

[Mornincupofhate]

1 hour ago, tmcclelland455 said:

*shudder*

AT&T leaves a cancerous taste in my mouth with how they treat my grandma. She pays for 20/5 or something stupid like that, which is supposedly the best plan in the area, and yet actual speeds are down around 3/1 most of the time because they fucked up the installation so badly.

In order to have someone from AT&T come out to your house, you have to be on the phone with them for around 5 hours (atleast I did) with them telling you to unplug the ethernet, power, etc. After you tell them that nothing has changed, they "reset" the router on their end (still nothing ever happens. ever.) Not to mention they outsource all of their call center jobs to people in India, which are so hard to talk to and understand.

[flibberdipper]

1 hour ago, Mornincupofhate said:

In order to have someone from AT&T come out to your house, you have to be on the phone with them for around 5 hours (atleast I did) with them telling you to unplug the ethernet, power, etc. After you tell them that nothing has changed, they "reset" the router on their end (still nothing ever happens. ever.) Not to mention they outsource all of their call center jobs to people in India, which are so hard to talk to and understand.

God AT&T's support is laughable at best.