And the tiny text that reads "*30mpbs downlink speed, 5mpbs uplink speed. Studies from the 90s have shown morons like you don't need useful upload speeds lmao"
Not in my area. Our local ISPs are great, I have 2 options for fiber at affordable prices, with no data caps. Fuck comcast and AT&T - it's the biggest ISPs that push bullshit like that on the public.
“Today’s nationwide launch of the Broadband Consumer Labels means internet service providers are now required to display consumer-friendly labels at the point of sale,” the Federal Communications Commission said. “Labels are required for all standalone home or fixed Internet service or mobile broadband plans. Providers must display the label—not simply an icon or link to the label—in close proximity to an associated plan’s advertisement.”
The labels are required now for providers with at least 100,000 subscribers, while ISPs with fewer customers have until October 10, 2024, to comply. “If a provider is not displaying their labels or has posted inaccurate information about its fees or service plans, consumers can file a complaint with the FCC Consumer Complaint Center,” an agency webpage says.
The democrats just got majority of the FCC in October. They passed this, and are almost ready to reenact Net Neutrality, despite Carr’s stalling tactics.
Comcast raised my rate my 30% a few weeks ago and I went on a rage filled search for a replacement. The only other providers are either barely usable or starlink.
Call up, say you want to cancel, because you found a deal with another internet provider for whatever low price you paying originally. After they confirm you're "sure you want to leave" they'll offer you the reduced rate in return for you staying on with them. I've done it a couple times now, cuts my internet bill in half for like a year
Did you accept a "free" upgrade a while back? That's what happened to me and at some point they made my bill reflect the speed they were giving me. I then immediately downgraded back to what I originally had.
I was in a neighborhood where we had FOUR competitors, all giving reasonable pricing. I immediately went to customer service and told them I'm switching, and they magically found a way to keep me happy.
I am now in a neighborhood with only Comcast cable and Verizon DSL. The pricing is $40 vs $120 for basic speed. The competition when there's only two carriers is a lie.
At the very least, Rocket Money has a service where they call your cable company and get you a reduced rate in exchange for a cut of what you save. It's a lot more convenient and effective than doing it yourself. I hate that the system has come to this, but it's better than paying full price for a service you are basically forced to use.
This is some bullshit if this is in compliance. I had to enter my address for the quote, still doesn't show what the fucking taxes are, or real price.
Edit: Not in compliance "The labels must include any additional monthly charges, one-time fees, early termination fees, and taxes." filed fcc complaint. Fuck Comcast.
I was stuck on Xfinity for years, followed the progress of the local up and coming fiber ISPs construction efforts like a hawk and my house finally went live on Monday!
I switched everything over and nearly ripped out the stupid Xfinity modem/router and it was returned same day. I made sure I was loud (plenty of people in store) when they asked me why I was cancelling that I was "SWITCHING TO [local fiber ISP] BECAUSE THE SERVICE IS SO MUCH BETTER"
Balancing, customer needs, limitation of hardware/infrastructure. Copper doesn't handle symmetrical download and upload as well (this is where fiber comes in). There can be too much noise resulting in degraded consistency. Its prone to interference and leaks. To improve reliability, you get asymmetrical plans. Most people just want download. Which has historically been the cheaper choice. An example local to my area, a home plan will be 800 down and 20 up. A business plan will be 500 down and 300 up. The business plan costs more.
Yeah, but nowadays with self hosting, cloud synced apps, peer to peer game matchmaking, and working from home... Cable is practically useless, yet still the only option in some places.
I switched to 5G. Get the same download and was more upload for less money. Latency is a little lame sometimes. It's not terrific for online gaming. But it's better for everything else.
Because most people don't need it. They can, and do, totally offer better upload speeds; but you'll be paying out the ass for it because businesses have a much bigger demand for upload speeds, so you'll be paying business prices.
Almost all of our performance issues for work from home users at my office, are on cable ISPs and directly related to limited upload speed.
For our users, that's usually because of system incremental backups (and users creating large files, or files that don't incrementally backup up very well and need to be fully replaced), and poor video call performance.
You see, a lot of web applications (and even our old VPN itself) uses TCP for communication. This means that every so many packets (which could be as little as 64kb of data), the server needs you to acknowledge that you had received the data before it sends more. If your upload is congested, those acknowledgements get queued behind all the other packets in line. This, in turn, ends up impacting download performance.
A lot of times it gets exacerbated by a partner/child coming home and instantly uploading a full days worth of videos and photos to iCloud/Google as soon as they get on the wifi.
Back in the 90s this was true. Internet at home was largely a one-way street. Nowadays with work from home, cloud-syncing apps, self-hosting, and peer-to-peer matchmaking games, among other things...the 6Mbps upload max that most cable ISPs offer is ridiculouslu limiting.
Saying things like "up to 25 Mbps" is well and good, but it doesn't fix the problem that ISPs don't invest in ensuring the availability of sufficient network bandwidth for speeds to actually be what is promised, and doesn't fix the problem that the definition of bandwidth should be well beyond 25 Mbps by this point, with a minimum upload speed of far beyond the laughable 3 Mbps minimum.
Yeah, definitions need to be updated to reflect modern standards. As it is currently, “broadband” is a very outdated term, with 100/20 DSL still included under the broadband umbrella. But many people would agree that 100Mbps DSL is far too slow to count as modern broadband, and companies shouldn’t be able to market it as such.
There are also big issues with companies marketing “fiber” service, but it’s really just a fiber trunk line to the neighborhood, with copper for the last quarter mile to each individual home. It means customers don’t get a true fiber experience, (like symmetrical up/down speeds) because they’re still bottlenecked by the copper run. It also means they still have issues with things like massive throttling during peak hours, because the aging copper infrastructure can’t support modern needs.
Didn't realize the minimum broadband definition was finally increased last month, though I agree that even 100 Mbps, and especially 20 Mbps upload, is keeping standards a decade behind what they should be. With how essential internet access is in the modern economy, particularly for low-income and rural areas that internet providers won't voluntarily serve to the best of their abilities, it should really be regulated at the same level as other utilities.
They had to give you a price and a speed, but often that price gets jacked way up with hidden fees, and the speeds they provide are usually just speeds you could get during off peak hours.
Google has its issues as a company, but I’m pretty happy with symmetrical gigabit for $70.70 a month. I’m pretty sure 2 gigabit, and possibly 5, are also available at my location, but I’d have to upgrade all my network stuff to use that.
Cable companies need to be forced to provide alternative last mile providers, just like DSL is for telcos. There's no reason PPPoE can not work in cable network infrastructure.
Checking the details of my plan revealed they stopped giving me a paperless discount months ago. I guess I know what I'll be doing for the next four hours...
Also confirmed I still get sub 25Mbs upload unless I stick to their most expensive plan... at which point I get sub 40Mbs. I hate to say this, but I miss having an area served by Verizon FiOS.