Automan2164 Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Well, long story short, I've let myself loose touch with computers, internet... I know enough to get by, but need help with details. I am about to pickup a cable service, and I might as well bundle internet with it. I have the cable figured out, but as for internet... Right now I have DSL. It works for me. I don't do much on the internet besides Comanche Club, eBay, and some youtube every now and again. It was just me and the little lady, but now that here brother is here with his added computer, sometimes it seems to get a bit taxed. Youtube can't keep up, and other videos are somewhat slow. I don't think her brother does much more on his laptop than I do. Time for an upgrade, but I know nothing about the speed, or what I might need. 'Tis as always, I defer judgement to the CC whiz crew. Here are the choices in speeds: 1MBPS, 12MBPS, 18MBPS, 25MBPS, 60MBPS. All these are advertised as "Up To". Based on what I use it for, what would you guys recommend for internet speed? I hope to have it ordered and switched over before I have the week off for Thanksgiving. Rob :cheers: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 What is your DSL "supposed" to be? I'm paying for 3Mbps down/500kbps up for my DSL, and it usually runs about 2.5Mbps down/400 kbps up. It's good enough to play Halo online with almost no lag. Go here http://www.speedtest.net/ and see what you're currently operating at. My brother has charter cable, and I believe he's paying for 5 Mbps, but last time I was there, I ran the test and it peaked at 29 Mbps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Automan2164 Posted November 14, 2011 Author Share Posted November 14, 2011 That's a pretty sweet site Correy. I don't know what I am paying for on my DSL, but the site you referenced shows I'm running at 2.89MBPS download and .43 up. I have ATT DSL right now. If Charter wasn't the only one that does cable, I would stick with the ATT. Great service, reasonable price... But they don't have cable tv or internet available to me yet. Also, if I get their cable internet, do I have to use their box, or could I just buy one of my own? The WIFI enabled router they have is $10 extra a month. Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 That's a pretty sweet site Correy. I don't know what I am paying for on my DSL, but the site you referenced shows I'm running at 2.89MBPS download and .43 up. I have ATT DSL right now. If Charter wasn't the only one that does cable, I would stick with the ATT. Great service, reasonable price... But they don't have cable tv or internet available to me yet. Also, if I get their cable internet, do I have to use their box, or could I just buy one of my own? The WIFI enabled router they have is $10 extra a month. Rob You should be able to buy your own cable modem. Personally, I think the whole modem/router combination is BS. I'll never catch myself using one of those things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mvusse Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 There is nothing between 1 mbps and 12 mbps? 1 will probably not be satisfying, but 12 will be overkill. 3mbps will probably do you fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Automan2164 Posted November 14, 2011 Author Share Posted November 14, 2011 There is nothing between 1 mbps and 12 mbps? 1 will probably not be satisfying, but 12 will be overkill. 3mbps will probably do you fine. Nope, they go right from their internet "Lite" to the "Express"... Looks like Digital Cable, with HD channels, DVR, and 12 MBPS internet, and the WIFI works out to be right around $100 bones a month. Doesn't seem too horrible. I imagine that will go up with taxes and such also. Thanks again fellas. Rob :cheers: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrawombat Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 You should be able to buy your own cable modem. Personally, I think the whole modem/router combination is BS. I'll never catch myself using one of those things. Then you've never used the Verizon FiOS modem/router combo. By far the best consumer wireless router I've used, hands down. I have the thing sitting in my bedroom window at my place in NJ and I can pick up the wireless signal with a run-of-the-mill wireless bridge at my shop 1/4 of a mile away, while going through trees and brush and it never skips a beat, not even in wet weather. However, there is never a reason to pay the ISP anything additional to use a wireless router - that's a marketing ploy to get uneducated peeps to fork over more money...and it works really well. For example, Comcast tried to charge my GF an extra $10/month for wireless service. The service guy even told her that she wouldn't be able to get wireless without it. I told her I'd give her one of my old wireless routers and she insisted that it would work because "the service guy said so!" I told her she owed me dinner if I could get it to work. So I go down to her apartment with a spare router and I'm looking at her cable modem...it's a damn combo unit and all I had to do was go into the configuration and turn the wireless router from OFF to ON. And they were going to charge her $10/month to do that... As for your internet speeds, Rob, I would KILL for almost 3Mb down/.5Mb up where I'm currently living. With the internet usage that you stated, that should be more than enough for you. Are you sure your brother doesn't have large downloads running in the background (i.e. Torrents) that are killing your speeds? The crappy starter service internet I'm on now is about 1-1.5Mb down/.5MB up on a good day and we have no issues with three people using it just doing some standard web browsing. It was NOT easy to adjust to this coming off of my 25Mb/15Mb FiOS back in NJ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpnjim Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 That's a pretty sweet site Correy. I don't know what I am paying for on my DSL, but the site you referenced shows I'm running at 2.89MBPS download and .43 up. I have ATT DSL right now. Also on DSL getting 2.50Mbps down .61Mbps up I checked because it's seemed slow lately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue88Comanche Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 I have DSL through Century Link where i Live and have 12 MBps. i would at least get the 12 MBps, because it can get bogged down to 3 MBps with heavy use. my grandmother has 3MBps it sucks for everything. But if mediacom would have hooked my house up with cable i would have gotten their 20 MBps plan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fezzik Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 I'm on Time Warners standard cable and I just got 5mbps download and .5mbps upload, but this time of night it is usually a little worse. I'm pretty sure that is what I pay for, but during the day when no one is home I'll get better, usually around 8-10 mbps download That's one of the issues with cable is the more people around you that are using it the slower you will go, where with dsl your speed is your speed, it doesn't matter who else is on it around you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 where with dsl your speed is your speed, it doesn't matter who else is on it around you. Heeelllll no. I have DSL now, and the last place I lived. It was always slower at night and on weekends. The speed stays the same most of the time, but it can drop a good 30-50% during those times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fezzik Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 where with dsl your speed is your speed, it doesn't matter who else is on it around you. Heeelllll no. I have DSL now, and the last place I lived. It was always slower at night and on weekends. The speed stays the same most of the time, but it can drop a good 30-50% during those times. huh, It's been a while since I had dsl, but I do remember them advertising that back then :dunno: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
87Warrior Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 I just ran the speedtest; 1.99Mbps down, 0.40Mbps up. We are using internet through Clearwire, it is a 4g service (what some smart phones are using now) but we have a modem sitting here in the living room connected to my old router. Even with these slower speeds, we are able to watch TV shows, youtube, etc online with little to no buffering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glundblad Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 To give you a frame of reference, speedtest shows me 5.07 mbps down and .62mbps up. I am running high speed internet over copper through our local phone company. I am pretty happy with it most of the time. Every internet connection is a party line to some extent. No one is the only node on the network (unless it is 1969 :brows: ). But a lot depends on when you arrive on a main trunk and how many people are there with you on the journey. But once you get there, your good. But your final speed is only as fast as the slowest link. My understanding with residential internet connections is that in most cases, they are shared much like the old fashioned cable connection into a housing addition. You and your neighbors are all connected to basically one switch port. Depending upon how busy that "Party Line" is dictates how much throughput you get. That is probably why they offer the 12mbps which on the surface seems obnoxiously high. I recall that at work, I was seeing much better response times from our T1's than I got at home. A T1 is rated at measly 1.54mpbs IIRC. I would encourage you to do the 12 if you can. I bet there is a reason they don't offer anything between 1 & 12. Oh and regarding the router, in my case, I needed the telco's equipment. It wasnt an option. But they didnt charge me for it. I don't know how easy or difficult it would be to hook up with one from best buy but I would imagine they have a list of approved devices. If you don't get your own, you will be paying $10 per month for a $75 piece of crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Sam Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 I'd recommend buying your own modem and router if they are trying to charge monthly for them. Linksys doesn't appear to make a modem anymore but here is one I have had in the past that is relatively cheap and worked fine for me: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6825122011 And I would also recommend you buy your own router if they are trying to charge, I would recommend the WRT54GL as you can load dd-wrt or any other open source firmware on it which allows you to do other things, like upping the antenna transmit power and such. Plus the WRT54GL is just a rock solid router thats been around for a long time and it just works(kinda like our 4Ls). The downside is that its not 802.11n, but it sounds like thats not going to make a difference to you anyways. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... pk=wrt54gl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smithe1811 Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 If you live in a comcast system we have 6 and 8 mbps packages. we also give you a free router weather you rent a modem or buy your own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue88Comanche Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 comcast :ack: have them at work (Anytime Fitness, Gym/Health club) we have a business account with them the internet is great 15+ MBps but their tv service sucks.. they require a digital box for all our tvs (19 total) and expect us to pay rent on all the boxes :no: . all of the tvs are digital ready.. they could just not encrypt the channels and we would be a happy customer. We have mediacom at our other location and internet is about the same but we are not required to have digital boxes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carnuck Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 If you live in a comcast system we have 6 and 8 mbps packages. we also give you a free router weather you rent a modem or buy your own. They wanted $10 a month here in WA for the router. I bought a router, but it's not working fast with SUSE Linux 11.3, but it's smoking fast with XP. No idea why? (A LOT of SUSE guys are running into that) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Automan2164 Posted November 19, 2011 Author Share Posted November 19, 2011 Service was installed today. Ended up with Charter Digital TV with HD-DVR, and the 12 MBPS internet for $89 for 12, then $99 for the last year. They did include a modem, so all I have to do now is pick up a router. The modem is actually the Motorola Surfboard SB5101N. They gave me a huge list of "accepted" routers. He got me setup with a hardline to get his end of the internet programmed, and it's a world faster than my DSL. Youtube is much much faster. I'll have to swing out and pick a router up tomorrow so I can cancel my AT&T. The digital TV is taking some getting used to... I've always just had basic, so all these menu's, recordings, and fun stuff is new. Once I get the internet up and running in it's WIFI form, I'll run a speed test, and see what I am throwing down. Rob :cheers: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 They gave me a huge list of "accepted" routers. That's because, for some reason, Charter's service will only talk to a certain pool of router MAC addresses. Not sure why, since they're not even providing you a router, and you don't have to use their modems - you can buy your own. There are ways to use routers that aren't on their list, but probably shouldn't be an issue for you... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smithe1811 Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 If you live in a comcast system we have 6 and 8 mbps packages. we also give you a free router weather you rent a modem or buy your own. They wanted $10 a month here in WA for the router. I bought a router, but it's not working fast with SUSE Linux 11.3, but it's smoking fast with XP. No idea why? (A LOT of SUSE guys are running into that) Wow, we give out free routers here.$10 bucks to ship it, but no monthly fees on them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Automan2164 Posted November 19, 2011 Author Share Posted November 19, 2011 ...And I would also recommend you buy your own router if they are trying to charge, I would recommend the WRT54GL as you can load dd-wrt or any other open source firmware on it which allows you to do other things, like upping the antenna transmit power and such... Just ordered this up. Can't wait to be fully operational. For basic functions like I'm after, it should be pretty much plug and play right? Rob :dunno: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrawombat Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 Just ordered this up. Can't wait to be fully operational. For basic functions like I'm after, it should be pretty much plug and play right? Rob :dunno: Usually, yes. I think the first time you fire up the Linksys router, it will take you through a setup wizard where you'll setup your wireless network SSID (the name of the network) and the password. When you first get the router, hook up an ethernet cable from your laptop to any one of the ports on the back. The router will automatically assign your PC an IP address. Open your internet browser window and type in 192.168.1.1 in the spot where you'd type a website address. That should take you to the summary page of the router. If it asks you for a password to get in, the default is username: root password: admin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geonovast Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 username: rootpassword: admin Every Linksys router I've ever had was username: admin password: admin (or blank) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrawombat Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 I think any username will get you in as long as the password is 'admin'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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