2017-03-24

Higher Speed Internet

Looks like it's end of the road for AT&T U-verse.

Time-Warner Cable has renamed itself "Spectrum" and has carpet-bombed the 'Net, mail, and newspapers with promotional offers for fast, bundled services.

After an hour chat session and a five minute phone with "Rachel B" Tuesday morning March 21st, Spectrum scheduled installation Thursday afternoon 23 March.  "George" from Spectrum's local contracting team arrived at 5pm and was done by 6:30pm.  Up and running in about 2.5 days.

How fast is Spectrum's home service? First, U-verse speed test:



Next, Spectrum:



Tests were conducted on the same hardware. Only the network gateway changed. The 117.4 down / 11.4 up Mbps speeds shown above come through Spectrum modem <--> router's Gig-E <--> Intel NUC running Linux + Firefox.

Seems fast enough.

Let's talk price.

U-verse service cost crept up to about $62/month mid-2016.  Charges jumped from $51/month June 2016 to the current price August 2016.

This price buys the U-verse "18" plan: 18-20 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up, and a monthly data cap of 1 TB. The AT&T gateway serves wireline and wireless networks in-building, no phone service. A separate hard landline costs about $30 month, most of it state fees and telecom tariffs. The land line is a bare-bones service with no long-distance.

All-in, AT&T U-verse Internet and  phone line cost about $90/month.

Spectrum's promotional price is "$29.99/month for the first 12 months" for each bundled service. All-in for Internet + voice is $65/month for the first 12 months, charges to go up an additional "$20-$30 per month" thereafter, according to "Rachel B".  Voice includes long distance calling in North America and U.S. territories.

Spectrum's Internet price is BYOR - Bring Your Own Router.  The gateway offers services only one port. Spectrum wireless via the gateway is an additional charge. Happily, several wireless routers from various vendors are on-premise.

Even after the 12-month promotional price, Spectrum at $60/100 Mbps/month vs U-verse $60/20 Mpbs/month is 5x better.

Worth noting: AT&T will not budge on price.

Time to re-configure the network.


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