Dish or DirecTV

[D_Eclipse9916]

Pulled the trigger. Gigabit Internet for $59 a month, and directv now basic for $35. Comparing without taxes/fees to $128 a month means an extra $33 a month back in the pocket. I will take that!

[Apoc]

Welp, we're paying ~ $220/month for TV and internet so I decided to take a look. I check it every year or so, but I've had this unreasonable attachment to a handful of channels that prevented us from paying less. When I looked again just now, I realized we're basically paying $30/month for NFL Network, NHL Network, and Travel Channel. I finally decided that was a waste and dropped two tiers on old fashioned DirecTV with a dish (Now isn't a great option for us). We bailed on Comcast 150/10 at $80/month to go fiber 1000/1000 for $85/month (internet is expensive here), so now we're down below $200/month. Hooray? 

[JustinG]

Your Internet isn't too far off. Gig here is $75.

[WRXtranceformed]

I could pay like 15 or 20 bucks more for gig/gig but we're like 650/600 right now or something and with a good router it's plenty fast for the house. Still rolling with Sling for like $25 / month. Only things we're missing are the local NBC and CBS channels which is annoying because a lot of sports are on both of those (especially golf) but I can't get good OTA signal where our house is situated unless I climb up in the attic and install an antenna / run cables through the house from there. Not really worth my time to be honest, there are only a handful of shows we watch on TV anymore

[Evan]

Yeah gig is pointless, especially if you know how the internet works. 100 is plenty, and I was happy with 50.

Lee just switch to DTV Now for $10/mo more. I did a trial of sling and the channel selection was awful. Much happier on DTVN

[Apoc]

Yeah gig is pointless,  especially if you know how the internet works.  

Incorrect. Latency matters and mine was reduced by 80% when I switched. I understand one doesn't need a gig to improve latency, but providers in this area didn't offer a lower speed, low latency option.

[Evan]

Yeah gig is pointless,  especially if you know how the internet works.  

Incorrect. Latency matters and mine was reduced by 80% when I switched.

Latency has nothing to do with bandwidth.   Stick to excel charts.

[Apoc]

See the edit, because I know you would be a bitch.

[Evan]

See the edit, because I know you would be a bitch.

Dont get your feelings hurt because you failed at your internet know-it-all shtick.

[Apoc]

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

[D_Eclipse9916]

Yeah gig is pointless,  especially if you know how the internet works.   100 is plenty,  and I was happy with 50.

Lee just switch to DTV Now for $10/mo more.   I did a trial of sling and the channel selection was awful.   Much happier on DTVN

Cool,  I dont, thanks for explaining more than "if you know". 

Our other provider we tried got "laggy" and was slow.  I have 0 knowledge of what is fast or not and for $10 a month I wanted to absolutely positively have a good connection since we both work. After asking our neighbors, all suggested the Gigabit after the experience with the other provider.  Luckily CAT5 is run through our house already so no PITA getting it setup. (want hardwire for Iracing/4k streaming in our movie room and living room).  I am sure a decent wireless will handle most our work needs but our offices do have the hard points.

[Apoc]

Friendly neighborhood internet know-it-all here...

DJ - You didn't see this because it was posted on Fb, but here are my comparisons from before and after our switch. Evan is right, a vast majority of people do not need speeds faster than 100 Mbps. I was fine with our speeds, but the problem we had was with latency (delay in data being sent) and jitter (variability with latency). As you can see below, our connection was pretty shit with a jitter of 40 ms. As you can see on the fiber, our latency went down considerably and our jitter is almost non-existent. The improvement from 2.4 to 5.0 is because of radio wave frequency. If you have the option, run your wireless devices on the 5.0 network.

Wireless devices run on one of two frequencies – 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz. The biggest differences between the two are the range, bandwidth, and amount of Interference. The 2.4GHz frequency has a higher range than the 5.0GHz frequency, but the 5.0GHz frequency lets more bandwidth pass. It makes sense that baby monitors run 2.4GHz because they need a long range to work properly. Laptops work better when more bandwidth can pass at a faster rate on the 5.0GHz frequency.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Friendly neighborhood internet know-it-all here...

DJ - You didn't see this because it was posted on Fb, but here are my comparisons from before and after our switch. Evan is right, a vast majority of people do not need speeds faster than 100 Mbps. I was fine with our speeds, but the problem we had was with latency (delay in data being sent) and jitter (variability with latency). As you can see below, our connection was pretty shit with a jitter of 40 ms. As you can see on the fiber, our latency went down considerably and our jitter is almost non-existent. The improvement from 2.4 to 5.0 is because of radio wave frequency. If you have the option, run your wireless devices on the 5.0 network.

Wireless devices run on one of two frequencies – 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz. The biggest differences between the two are the range, bandwidth, and amount of Interference. The 2.4GHz frequency has a higher range than the 5.0GHz frequency, but the 5.0GHz frequency lets more bandwidth pass. It makes sense that baby monitors run 2.4GHz because they need a long range to work properly. Laptops work better when more bandwidth can pass at a faster rate on the 5.0GHz frequency.

Thanks, would the 39-45ms latency/ping explain some of our current issues? Or is that like, why is my 300hp corvette slower than my 500hp when the 300hp is enough?

[Ken]

Friendly neighborhood internet know-it-all here...

DJ - You didn't see this because it was posted on Fb, but here are my comparisons from before and after our switch. Evan is right, a vast majority of people do not need speeds faster than 100 Mbps. I was fine with our speeds, but the problem we had was with latency (delay in data being sent) and jitter (variability with latency). As you can see below, our connection was pretty shit with a jitter of 40 ms. As you can see on the fiber, our latency went down considerably and our jitter is almost non-existent. The improvement from 2.4 to 5.0 is because of radio wave frequency. If you have the option, run your wireless devices on the 5.0 network.

Wireless devices run on one of two frequencies – 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz. The biggest differences between the two are the range, bandwidth, and amount of Interference. The 2.4GHz frequency has a higher range than the 5.0GHz frequency, but the 5.0GHz frequency lets more bandwidth pass. It makes sense that baby monitors run 2.4GHz because they need a long range to work properly. Laptops work better when more bandwidth can pass at a faster rate on the 5.0GHz frequency.

Thanks, would the 39-45ms latency/ping explain some of our current issues? Or is that like, why is my 300hp corvette slower than my 500hp when the 300hp is enough?

You'd really only notice jitter at that value on audio (think VOIP) and/or video. Normal internet browsing, etc would be unaffected. Honestly, even on video most protocols are more than good enough to adapt to that level of Jitter.

[Evan]

Yeah gig is pointless,  especially if you know how the internet works.   100 is plenty,  and I was happy with 50.

Lee just switch to DTV Now for $10/mo more.   I did a trial of sling and the channel selection was awful.   Much happier on DTVN

Cool,  I dont, thanks for explaining more than "if you know". 

Our other provider we tried got "laggy" and was slow.  I have 0 knowledge of what is fast or not and for $10 a month I wanted to absolutely positively have a good connection since we both work. After asking our neighbors, all suggested the Gigabit after the experience with the other provider.  Luckily CAT5 is run through our house already so no PITA getting it setup. (want hardwire for Iracing/4k streaming in our movie room and living room).  I am sure a decent wireless will handle most our work needs but our offices do have the hard points.

my comment was responding to Lee that you dont need to pay extra for gigabit.
in short, you dont need gigabit/s bandwidth because its more than you can use, and more than the other end of your connection will provide. For reference a 4k UHD Netflix stream is around 25 mb/s. (thats 25 out of 1000). So unless you're backing up the internet's library of scat pron, its just more than you will ever use. ( And there are LAN bottlenecks that keep you from using all of that gigabit too)

What chris is talking about, latency, is in fact very important to the 'snappy' feel of your internet, but this is fixed for your provider and not connected to bandwidth. The infrastructure (fiber, cable, dsl, etc) makes the most difference. Fiber is the best here, so its a great reason to go with fiber.

Personally Ive had fios since the day the turned it on in my area, and despite being a power user I always get the cheapest plan. I started on 10mb/s years ago and am now at 100mb/s. (with the same single digit latency)

So yeah, if you are paying extra for gigabit, Id recommend you save some money and drop it down a tier or two. And if fiber is available, go with that.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Friendly neighborhood internet know-it-all here...

DJ - You didn't see this because it was posted on Fb, but here are my comparisons from before and after our switch. Evan is right, a vast majority of people do not need speeds faster than 100 Mbps. I was fine with our speeds, but the problem we had was with latency (delay in data being sent) and jitter (variability with latency). As you can see below, our connection was pretty shit with a jitter of 40 ms. As you can see on the fiber, our latency went down considerably and our jitter is almost non-existent. The improvement from 2.4 to 5.0 is because of radio wave frequency. If you have the option, run your wireless devices on the 5.0 network.

Wireless devices run on one of two frequencies – 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz. The biggest differences between the two are the range, bandwidth, and amount of Interference. The 2.4GHz frequency has a higher range than the 5.0GHz frequency, but the 5.0GHz frequency lets more bandwidth pass. It makes sense that baby monitors run 2.4GHz because they need a long range to work properly. Laptops work better when more bandwidth can pass at a faster rate on the 5.0GHz frequency.

Thanks, would the 39-45ms latency/ping explain some of our current issues? Or is that like, why is my 300hp corvette slower than my 500hp when the 300hp is enough?

You'd really only notice jitter at that value on audio (think VOIP) and/or video. Normal internet browsing, etc would be unaffected. Honestly, even on video most protocols are more than good enough to adapt to that level of Jitter.

Unfortunately we do notice it.   Both the wife and I have significant amount of meetings either audio and/or video and sharing desktops.  This may explain why we get the issues.

[Apoc]

For me, the latency/jitter manifested as audio/video sync issues while streaming, "poor connection" warnings when video conferencing from home, and gaming lag when playing with friends on the east coast. I tried adjust the delay on my TV to compensate for the sync issue, but it wasn't consistent so I had to adjust it constantly if I wanted things to match. My video conference is over VPN, which generally adds latency to the network. I can't control having to use a VPN, so I had to try and minimize the baseline latency it was working off of. There was no practical solution for gaming because the game had to be hosted near me to improve my ping, thereby hosing the east coasters.

Evan is 100% correct in that you should target slower speeds on the provider with the best latency. The only way to improve all these things for us was to switch over to the fiber recently installed in our neighborhood. For us, they only offer one speed: gigabit. Everything else on that network was old fashioned copper phone wire and physics says light/fiber will be faster than signals sent over copper (which cable is too).

My mistake in my original rebuttal was I applied my own experience of having to get gig to get on the lower ping fiber. I forgot Verizon has different fiber tiers over that way.... although YMMV.

[WRXtranceformed]

Lee just switch to DTV Now for $10/mo more.   I did a trial of sling and the channel selection was awful.   Much happier on DTVN

I would man but I refuse to give those swindlers another cent of my money ever again.  They tried to sheist me to the very end when I pulled the plug after 10 years.  I took digital, time-stamped photos of me boxing up all of the hardware that I had to mail back knowing they would probably claim it never showed up and hit me with a $600+ bill.  Needless to say, that's exactly what happened.  They called to tell me that the hardware wasn't in the box when it was received and I told them they need to check with their warehouse workers then because I have photo proof they were in the box.  That was a quick and easy conversation and dropped bill 

[JustinG]

DJ, I assume you guys have to use some sort of VPN?

Have you tried choosing a different VPN connection through the VPN you guys use?

I know I was connected to our Denver based connection at first, since my PC was setup and team are based in Denver. But once switching to our Charlotte connection my issues subsided.