Charter internet vs AT&T Fiber

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smokey982

smokey982

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Sep 7, 2005
2,050
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Cleveland, TN (Chattanooga Market)
I’ve had Charter internet for a couple years now and never really had any issues. But my price recently went from $45 to $65 per month for 100mbps. Yesterday I had an AT&T salesperson stop by and said that their fiber internet service just recently became available in my neighborhood. She’s offering the same speed for $50 per month (that price is based on payment by automatic withdrawal). The problem is I don’t know anyone else in my area that has internet through them so I have no way of knowing how reliable it is. I’m a little leary of signing a one year contract for an unknown service. Does anyone here have an opinion on the subject?


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The only opinion I can give you on this, is that if Charter/Spectrum only does one thing right, that one thing is internet. I have internet-only 100Mbps with them, and it's up and fine 99.9% of the time. It does however cost $65.99 a month. Which it just recently went up $1 from $64.99. I really wish it was in the $45 range, but I have no other options here.

As for AT&T, I wouldn't trust anything those weasels told me. I'd bet once you setup your automatic payments, you'll get 3 months at the $50~, and they'll suddenly jack the price up with no easy recourse to you.

On the other hand, that could work for you if that's what happens, because 1 month or so after you leave Charter/Spectrum, they'll be after you non-stop with all sorts of "new customer" offers, and will do nearly anything to get you back, including a cheaper price for a term.
 
I called Charter last night to question the price increase. Apparently I’ve been on a special rate for 3 years now and they can no longer offer that. I also told them about the AT&T offer thinking they might lower my rate to keep me, but they did not.


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smokey982 said:
I called Charter last night to question the price increase. Apparently I’ve been on a special rate for 3 years now and they can no longer offer that. I also told them about the AT&T offer thinking they might lower my rate to keep me, but they did not.


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Did you say " i cancel" ?

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smokey982 said:
No, I don’t want to cancel until the other is installed. But I did ask him if I needed to call back when I cancelled or just take my equipment back to our local charter office. He said either would be fine.


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Take it back directly to the local office, and turn it in there. Ask them for a printed receipt including the serial numbers of the returned equipment, AND including the CSR agents name on the receipt that's helping you right then. This is important! KEEP that receipt in a safe place, until you are sure they aren't going to try a phony charge-back claiming you never returned them.
 
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Although ATT's fiber may be good, their billing department sucks. I gave them a second chance a few years ago after not having then for a few years, and withing 3 months they had my bill screwed up and were overcharging me a bunch. Never again ATT. Spectrum gives me 200 megs for $59 bucks and it works fine.
 
The jury is still out on the new fiber internet. My wife and daughter both say it sucks compared to Charter. It’s weird because every time I run a speed test I’m getting over 100 megs. But I swear things we look at online seems slower to load. I’m not having any issues with streaming Netflix or on demand programming through Dish. But using our iPhones and iPads seems to be a little slow sometimes. Just trying to load a webpage or looking through Instagram photos (for my wife and daughter) just seems slow.
Sometimes I’ve been waiting on a webpage to load and I’ll start thinking maybe the internet is down. But I’ll flip over to a Speedtest and it shows 115 megs. It’s really weird.
 
smokey982 said:
The jury is still out on the new fiber internet. My wife and daughter both say it sucks compared to Charter. It’s weird because every time I run a speed test I’m getting over 100 megs. But I swear things we look at online seems slower to load. I’m not having any issues with streaming Netflix or on demand programming through Dish. But using our iPhones and iPads seems to be a little slow sometimes. Just trying to load a webpage or looking through Instagram photos (for my wife and daughter) just seems slow.
Sometimes I’ve been waiting on a webpage to load and I’ll start thinking maybe the internet is down. But I’ll flip over to a Speedtest and it shows 115 megs. It’s really weird.
Click to expand...

What does your PING times come out to? Not just speed...
 
primestar31 said:
What does your PING times come out to? Not just speed...
Click to expand...

I’ve never really noticed before. I just tested on my phone and got 16ms. Is that good?
778a18bf0ea1cdbc261e5d880a8111cf.jpg
 
16ms isn't too bad for ping. You want to keep Jitter down real low also.

You need to check multiple times during the day, and especially after kids in the neighborhood get home from school, and during Prime Time.

See if during those times it gets worse.
 
I’m a little bit of a tech dummy when it comes to this. If ping is the issue. What would make the fiber ping on a faster meg be slower than the Charter ping on a slower meg? And is there a fix or is this my future for the next 12 months?


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So you need to pay close attention to where you are testing to!! What AT&T will do is put a speed test server in the IAX you are connected to. Let me give you an example of how this works..

It would be like you and I making a bet who can run to WalMart the fastest.. My WalMart would be 100 blocks away and your WalMart would be only 1 block away.. Hell I might fall out from heat exhaustion if I attempted to all out run 100 blocks..

Another thing AT&T will do now that net neutrality is gone is provide any service that they have interest in priority over a competing service.. For example.. If you attempt to load a movie from Netfilix while your wife attempts to load a movie from DirecTV now.. Your content will buffer while hers does not!!
 
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primestar31 said:
16ms isn't too bad for ping. You want to keep Jitter down real low also.

You need to check multiple times during the day, and especially after kids in the neighborhood get home from school, and during Prime Time.

See if during those times it gets worse.
Click to expand...

What do you mean by “keep the jitter down”?


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