Sonic is the only ISP I've ever had that hasn't sucked. They're terrific. Their techs actually know what they're talking about and, as I'm sure others on HN can relate to from dealing with other ISPs, they don't treat you like an idiot when you call up. It was a great decision by google to have sonic act as the ISP for the Stanford deployment. I hope they're able to roll fiber out quickly.
they don't treat you like an idiot when you call up
The main reason this happens on most ISPs that that there are so many stupid-about-technology people out there that call up ISPs. There are loads of people who think they know all about technology and computers, and it turns out that they don't really know more than a few buzzwords. Hence the tech support flowchart has to assume (no matter what the customer says) that the customer doesn't know anything and that they should (e.g.) restart their PC.
Part of this is probably due to Sonic's small size. The people answering the phone are actually engineers. With a big company like Comcast, the people answering the phone are trained to follow a specific (and often frustrating to the customer) algorithm to solve your problem.
Well, then they clearly have better support than service. The one apartment I've lived in that wasn't Comcast wired I suffered through a year of miserable latency, packet loss, and unimpressive speeds via Sonic DSL. Personally, I'll trade shit support for a decent connection any day.
I saw a news bit about how breakout ISPs in the UK are selling 100mbps(I believe I might be wrong on the speed) for as low as 6.99 quid. American utility bubble? I think so. At this point I am positive the Verizons and the Comcasts could offer free service to everyone of there existing customers and still make positive returns from just new contracts. Can somebody please tell me exactly what you are paying for with 100Mbps for 199.99? Are they using solid gold equipment? There can't possibly be that much overheard, someone please set me straight.
I completely agree, when I moved to the US from Germany about 7 years ago, a large majority of the people I got to know were still running dialup. In Germany the years prior to my move, I cannot remember a single person not having at least DSL. Then the next major shock I got was when looking at ISP and Cellphone carrier prices! at the moment I am paying 60$/mo for 12down 2up (in boston). My Brother in a small town in southern Germany gets 2 unlimited phone lines, cable TV and 50down 12up for 40euros/mo so about 60$/mo. Im not sure how this difference in price can be explained, Especially because in boston my internet goes down every few days since all the lines are run overground.
Here's the sad part (unless you bought into their shares early): You're paying for their dividends (i.e. payouts to shareholders). It's their fiduciary duty.
However, companies like them need to realize that there are more stakeholders (like the community) than just shareholders.
I've got 100Mbps fiber for less than $20. There is better plan: 300Mbps for $32. On the other hand my country is the leader in fiber-to-the-home. Benefits of being small.
I'm going to be moving back to Chicago soon, and I wonder if any fellow HNers have some advice as to who's the best ISP for quality, high-speed internet in the Chicagoland region for someone that lives their life online?
Comcast Business Class. Not the consumer stuff, the good stuff. 20 mbps sustained download and 14ms ping to google.com. There's a different (and much better) tech support tree for businesses too. Pricey but easily the best internet I've ever had. Beats the pants of my old AT&T DSL.
AT&T DSL here, pretty good for latency (low jitter, sub 60 ms, in WoW, SC2, TF2, and others while on wifi as well), not so good for throughput (only goes up to 6 mbps in my area, we have 3 mbps I think).
Speakeasy is probably the best ISP available. Unfortunately they are also expensive. AT&T U-verse is cheap, I have not had any problems so far (installed a couple months ago) and I have not heard any complaints from friends and coworkers who have it. Avoid Clear.
Honestly, I'm tired of the way companies try to market Internet to the masses. Too many people/articles focus on "1Gbps, blazing download speeds". Yeah, for a day, maybe. With bandwidth caps, you can't actually use your connection at full potential all of the time, so I question the way they market it as "1Gbps". Call me when it's confirmed that the 1Gbps package comes with no bandwidth cap, that would be something to write home about.
The average user (and even the average programmer) wants to use the internet for 1) entertainment, and 2) information. Those tasks don't require sustained, maximum bandwidth usage.
The only people who actually need that kind of bandwidth are either bittorrent... um.... addicts, for lack of a better word, or infected computers, and consist of about 1-2% of the customers.
Their usage patterns degrade the service for everyone else.
I wonder why they don't put the wires and fibers underground. It is much safer and less prone to strong winds and other natural hazards.
Is the cost of having underground wires that high?
Compared to putting them on poles, the cost of running new fiber underground (in an area without conduits already in place) is astronomical.
The time delay is also orders of magnitude larger in getting the fiber down, as you need many, many permits to dig up streets, etc.
The problem seems to be that no one thought ahead when they built the streets in the US. Back in Sweden, it's all underground. You won't find anything less than main HV transmission lines above ground. I don't know how they did it, but based on the lack of ever digging up the streets in the neighborhoods I lived in, they must have put in conduits when they build the streets. Why they don't do the same in the US baffles me. It makes absolutely no sense.
Imagine the cost of getting autorization for and digging a long hole through mile upon mile of in-city streets, and then repairing said hole - all while taking care of all the disruptions you cause to traffic and more. Unless you can find and use existing pipes in the right places with spare capacity (you're not going to, don't worry).
Yes. In my town there was an undergrounding project for a certain, high-end neighborhood. The residents voted to pay for the cost themselves. About half way into it, the project hit a snag--unexpected rock, which was difficult to drill through and increased costs quite a lot. The contract with the residents was poorly written and the city, it turns out, was on the hook for the overage. The city canceled the project, because they couldn't afford it and the residents wouldn't pay the extra amount. Lawsuits were flying and it took a couple of years to settle it. The city ended up losing 1/3 of the general fund to this mess.
Ive wondered the same thing many of times, especially in times when water/sewer pipes get replaced and the street is already ripped open. We have often joked we should make a website with pictures of the wiremess here vs pictures of the wiremess in some of indias slums
That's pretty good, the fastest I can get is 170Mbps/30Mbps for almost $300 plus taxes but capped at 250GB/month, $1 per GB going over 250GB, and torrents throttled.
So you can stop thinking about outdated things like the "local network" vs "the internet".
If you can store all your stuff remotely, and get it as quickly and easily as if it were on a local NAS suddenly things get a lot easier.
Ironically, it's the non-geeks who need this the most, because they can't setup a NAS. How many people do you see emailing images to themselves so they can get it on their other computer? Every person who does that needs 1Gbps internet so they can do that for their entire photo and film collection.
(And yes, I know Dropbox helps with this scenario, but even Dropbox is better with 1Gbps intenet...)
100 megabit service is available at consumer-oriented pricing in Japan and other places. One obvious use of very fast service is to substitute OTT TV for cable TV, or to provide server-based 3D gaming, or, for non-entertainment purposes, to provide high-definition video conferencing. I'm sure others can enumerate a long list of applications.
But, the real point is there has never been a shortage of uses for more bandwidth. Instead, it has always opened new possibilities and created new value.
The great risk in not having inexpensive, fast Internet service is that the next great value-creations on the Internet will happen more often outside the US, and therefore not help to restore economic growth in the US.
Why do we need to have all the RAM, Gigahertz, TBs of storage in our PCs currently? The hardware specs of modern computers would have been viewed as frivolous just a few short years ago. Now people enjoy desktop eye candy (perhaps not entirely necessary in some cases, but it can make things easier for non-techies), getting rid of CDs and DVDs and so on.
Similarly, by raising the limits on internet speed, new web apps that are inconceivable now will come on stream. For example, an infamous 'dot bomb', boo.com, would make more sense in the broadband era than the 56k modem era[1]. Similarly, there will be new ideas that aren't viable currently that will become viable with 1Gbps.
I have a family of 12. We live together in one house. Each family member requires their own 720p HD stream.
I also have 16 HD surveillance cameras, all of which are remotely monitored in realtime.
We also run our own live streaming video servers using Wowza.
Just kidding, I have no idea why a home user would need 1gbps, unless they are a huge family with many hulu/netflix watchers (maybe a frat/sorority) house or a home-based business with the server hardware onsite.
Nobody needs it right now, but once most people have the option of it, new ways of needing it will appear.
This would be great for cloud computing with family videos or games that you rent online which stream all the content directly from the servers.
With the rise of IPv6, it could also lead to the development of a more distributed web content model where people host a lot of their own content for others to access and browse using personal web servers instead of P2P clients, since pretty much everyone will have the extra processing power and bandwidth.
There's a lot of uses, and many of them could easily become the new "needs" of the future.
Also, this really sets the stage for having your own home 'cloud' device.
Instead of all these offsite services that stream 'licensed' versions of media, why not have it all stored at home on your 'cloud' appliance, and it can stream your music, videos, and photos to any of your devices wherever you are (country agnostic).
So, if you have a decent size family, they can watch their shows at home, in the car, at a friend's house, or wherever there is a suitable connection.
It's great for a large family or office where everybody is doing bandwidth intensive tasks. The percentage of households that need it is probably quite low but having it opens up new doors.
HD videos are not smooth now with DSL. Tele-presence is not possible due to bandwidth limitation. There will be services to use up the bandwidth once it's possible.
Everyone needs to make sure each candidate answers two questions during the upcoming election cycle:
1. Do you believe higher speed internet service will lead to a better jobs
economy?
2. What policies will you pursue to so that more Americans have internet access
comparable to our global counterparts? E.g. Germany where speeds are 10x's as
fast at 2/3 the price?
Pshaw, those questions wouldn't even make any halfway viable candidate blink. "Your concerns are very important to me. Those concerns are the concerns of all right-thinking Americans and vital to the continued success of America. My top priority in office will be to address your concerns by making sure to throw lots of money at your concerns in ways that no amount of further questions will get me to concretely pin down, because I've had decades of practice at dodging this sort of question. Who is the next person who needs some concern addressed with vague promises of papering over the problem with taxpayer money?" Since any politician will say the same thing, there's no information in the answer to those questions.
It's an uphill battle. Local governments in the US sign franchise agreements with cable companies and telecom providers. Many of those agreements give the cable company exclusive geographical rights to the area in return for hooking up the entire town.
So when another ISP shows up and wants to string cable all over the poles...guess what? They're turned away. Verizon FiOS found this out when trying to get into markets where AT&T had the telephone franchise.
Call it a monopoly, call it anti-competition. But America is huge. There's no other way to get a company to invest in so much infrastructure to cover all of the land.
I didn't see any mention of bandwidth caps. I hope they don't cap it. I'm not sure people see the flip side of having an extremely fast connection with the current model of pricing for most telecommunication providers. The speeds keep going up but the caps don't. I live in a building that has fiber provided by Telus, capped at 50MBps. I'm hitting 1TB down per month on average, I'd be screwed if they started capping my bandwidth. It's interesting how as soon as companies implement bandwidth caps we start seeing speeds go up.. just another money grab.
[+] [-] kinofcain|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmc|15 years ago|reply
The main reason this happens on most ISPs that that there are so many stupid-about-technology people out there that call up ISPs. There are loads of people who think they know all about technology and computers, and it turns out that they don't really know more than a few buzzwords. Hence the tech support flowchart has to assume (no matter what the customer says) that the customer doesn't know anything and that they should (e.g.) restart their PC.
[+] [-] grandalf|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acangiano|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ctide|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philthy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madmaze|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chopsueyar|15 years ago|reply
Maybe they run dedicated coax from the head-end to your home's groundblock?
Business Fios sustained 35Mbps up/35Mbps down w/ fixed IP is only $130/month.
[+] [-] orijing|15 years ago|reply
However, companies like them need to realize that there are more stakeholders (like the community) than just shareholders.
[+] [-] richcollins|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rimantas|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kierank|15 years ago|reply
If only.
[+] [-] ComputerGuru|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] durin42|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slyn|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] absconditus|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] click170|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] palish|15 years ago|reply
The average user (and even the average programmer) wants to use the internet for 1) entertainment, and 2) information. Those tasks don't require sustained, maximum bandwidth usage.
The only people who actually need that kind of bandwidth are either bittorrent... um.... addicts, for lack of a better word, or infected computers, and consist of about 1-2% of the customers.
Their usage patterns degrade the service for everyone else.
[+] [-] pedrokost|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] count|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lutorm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m_eiman|15 years ago|reply
Imagine the cost of getting autorization for and digging a long hole through mile upon mile of in-city streets, and then repairing said hole - all while taking care of all the disruptions you cause to traffic and more. Unless you can find and use existing pipes in the right places with spare capacity (you're not going to, don't worry).
[+] [-] e40|15 years ago|reply
So, yeah, undergrounding is a mess.
[+] [-] madmaze|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cowkingdeluxe|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dhughes|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hammock|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nl|15 years ago|reply
If you can store all your stuff remotely, and get it as quickly and easily as if it were on a local NAS suddenly things get a lot easier.
Ironically, it's the non-geeks who need this the most, because they can't setup a NAS. How many people do you see emailing images to themselves so they can get it on their other computer? Every person who does that needs 1Gbps internet so they can do that for their entire photo and film collection.
(And yes, I know Dropbox helps with this scenario, but even Dropbox is better with 1Gbps intenet...)
[+] [-] Zigurd|15 years ago|reply
But, the real point is there has never been a shortage of uses for more bandwidth. Instead, it has always opened new possibilities and created new value.
The great risk in not having inexpensive, fast Internet service is that the next great value-creations on the Internet will happen more often outside the US, and therefore not help to restore economic growth in the US.
[+] [-] jorgeortiz85|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patrickk|15 years ago|reply
Similarly, by raising the limits on internet speed, new web apps that are inconceivable now will come on stream. For example, an infamous 'dot bomb', boo.com, would make more sense in the broadband era than the 56k modem era[1]. Similarly, there will be new ideas that aren't viable currently that will become viable with 1Gbps.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com#Problems_with_the_user_...
[+] [-] chopsueyar|15 years ago|reply
I also have 16 HD surveillance cameras, all of which are remotely monitored in realtime.
We also run our own live streaming video servers using Wowza.
Just kidding, I have no idea why a home user would need 1gbps, unless they are a huge family with many hulu/netflix watchers (maybe a frat/sorority) house or a home-based business with the server hardware onsite.
I am assuming it is 1gbps up and down.
[+] [-] jodoherty|15 years ago|reply
This would be great for cloud computing with family videos or games that you rent online which stream all the content directly from the servers.
With the rise of IPv6, it could also lead to the development of a more distributed web content model where people host a lot of their own content for others to access and browse using personal web servers instead of P2P clients, since pretty much everyone will have the extra processing power and bandwidth.
There's a lot of uses, and many of them could easily become the new "needs" of the future.
[+] [-] chopsueyar|15 years ago|reply
Instead of all these offsite services that stream 'licensed' versions of media, why not have it all stored at home on your 'cloud' appliance, and it can stream your music, videos, and photos to any of your devices wherever you are (country agnostic).
So, if you have a decent size family, they can watch their shows at home, in the car, at a friend's house, or wherever there is a suitable connection.
[+] [-] jonknee|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanmccann|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinph|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ww520|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] joelhaus|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] webXL|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jerf|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] w1ntermute|15 years ago|reply
Don't get your hopes up just yet.
[+] [-] joezydeco|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fholm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chopsueyar|15 years ago|reply
Bring on the FTTH providers!
[+] [-] joezydeco|15 years ago|reply
So when another ISP shows up and wants to string cable all over the poles...guess what? They're turned away. Verizon FiOS found this out when trying to get into markets where AT&T had the telephone franchise.
Call it a monopoly, call it anti-competition. But America is huge. There's no other way to get a company to invest in so much infrastructure to cover all of the land.
[+] [-] taylr|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ww520|15 years ago|reply