California’s net neutrality rules good to go after judge boots Big Cable’s lawsuit

California’s net neutrality rules will kick in this year after a judge rejected an effort by the cable industry to stop it. On Tuesday, Judge John Mendez in Sacramento rejected a request by four industry associations for a preliminary injunction against SB-822 that was signed into law back in September 2018 and hit with the …

[MrReynolds2U]

A question about cost:value of access in the US

I'm curious and asking left-pondians... I pay 25 quid a month for 100Mb internet access through Virgin Media (in the UK you are effectively either on Virgin, BT (or an unbundled version with another supplier through OpenReach) or using a mobile broadband variant. VM has the benefit of being cable internet rather than contention-restrictive ADSL. It's _theoretically_ not throttled as well. How much would you pay for a similar service in the US?

[ecofeco]

Re: A question about cost:value of access in the US

Depending on where you live, and if you can get it at all, around +/- $100 per month.

[julian.smith]

The USA: defining the bottom of the barrel

Life at the bottom of the sewer

Are you tired of winning yet?

LMAO

[ecofeco]

Re: The USA: defining the bottom of the barrel

So MUCH winning!

[RM Myers]

Re: A question about cost:value of access in the US

As Ecofeco said, it varies a lot. I'm paying around $70 per month, but there are cheaper options available top me, but usually they are "introductory" prices that only last a year or two. Also, my internet speed is "up to", which means during the day I'm not going to get 100Mb.

After midnight, the speed is great!

[EricB123]

Re: A question about cost:value of access in the US

After midnight, the speed is great!

And your complaint is?

[My other car WAS an IAV Stryker]

Re: A question about cost:value of access in the US

About 40 USD for 25 Mb down, 5 Mb up. At opportune times [1], my Ookla Speedtest results consistently come in at 27 and 6, so at least I'm "getting what I paid for" [2].

1. Early morning such as before 8:00. In the fall when at-home school was starting we were having lots of issues and I was checking almost daily. But...

2. The real problem was the provider's crappy all-in-one modem/HPNA-over-coax/Ethernet/Wi-Fi "gateway", the Wi-Fi in particular. I resolved that with a $35 Netgear Nighthawk from Walmart to everyone's relief. Paying for service is only acceptable if your equipment can actually handle the traffic load: 3 kids with simultaneous Teams (full video, Wi-Fi) + me on Zoom (desktop share only, no video, wired) is our worst case when we all overlap 9:30-10:00 almost every day.

[Caver_Dave]

Re: A question about cost:value of access in the US

There is also Gigaclear or other similar providers in the rural areas of the UK.

I've had £45.00/m for 300Mbps, symmetrical and completely unfettered since 2015.

All the fibre runs natively at 1Gbps and you can have full speed enabled at £75.00/m (last time I looked)

[tip pc]

Re: A question about cost:value of access in the US

“ VM has the benefit of being cable internet rather than contention-restrictive ADSL. It's _theoretically_ not throttled as well. ”

Im on vm and get 200mbs and am paying £27, your laying too much.

You likely don’t remember the dsl vs docsis wars.

Vm can have worst contention.

Say your on BT FTTC, your contention is from the cab back to exchange & exchange to bt peering exchange etc. The main contention will be amongst the 30 - 50 others sharing the bandwidth to your dslam (or what ever it’s called) in the cab. Read BT’s view on contention.

https://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10829/~/what-is-the-contention-ratio-of-my-broadband-service%3F/c/5085/

Cable internet aggregates your street to a node, then many nodes together then uphauls to their pop. If it wasn’t for isolation procedures you and your neighbours would effectively be on a shared hub (yes hub not switch), able to see each other’s traffic. Cable uses far larger contention domains than dsl and suffers more from over subscription.

Subsequent docsis versions helped dramatically.

Technically cable is very primitive and was a privacy fail.

Dsl always was far more segregated with far lower contention closer to the subscribers home.

[MrReynolds2U]

Re: A question about cost:value of access in the US

Thanks for the info. I may be lucky but my speed tests are always really good. The WiFi from the hub however can be poor so I've daisy chained an older VM hub for WiFi via ethernet for upstairs.

Also VM seem to be having random disconnections for a few minutes that they never acknowledge, especially late at night.

[Boris the Cockroach]

Re: A question about cost:value of access in the US

Go buy a decent 3rd party router , and set the VM modem to 'cable only' mode.

Makes a world of difference, as the crummy belkin of doubtful vintage I use as a 3rd party router gives far better wi-fi coverage in the house that VM's inbuilt one... plus it does'nt do random drop outs every so often

[EricB123]

Re: A question about cost:value of access in the US

It amazes me how much better (and less expensive) internet service is in most Asian countries than in America.

America indeed needs to realize that since 1934 things have changed a bit

[DS999]

Re: A question about cost:value of access in the US

I'm paying $65/month for 40/5 service. I could get 100 Mb for that price from the cable company, but they have too many outages around here. My DSL almost never goes down. There's a small localish fiber company currently wiring my city, they were supposed to have service to my address last year but between the pandemic and a huge storm that swept through the area and caused them months in repair work it got pushed back to this year.

Looks like I'll be able to get 100 Mb service (not sure if it is symmetric or what the upload is) from them for the same $65, possibly less since I saw a promotional mailing if I sign up before the end of the month and commit for two years. They keep sending me these promotional flyers even though my address isn't eligible for the service yet just to frustrate me, I guess!

[BSSSM]

If you are lucky enough to live in an area serviced by Verizon FiOS, which is quite limited in footprint but has significant (and significantly White and mid-to-upper income) population--and currently not being expanded--you will pay $40/mo for 200Mb up/down service, no data limits and no *acknowledged* content-based throttling (but there are suspicions). $60/mo for 400Mb, $80/mo for Gigabit. Where I live there are no additional taxes or fees as long as you do not get "double" or "triple" plays with their VoIP or IP TV services, which are discounted but are taxed, and assessed local, state, federal, and sometimes content-provider (e. g., major league and collegiate sports networks) fees. There can be weird exceptions if you live in a multi-unit dwelling where your ability to get installed may be overruled; or if you live at the wrong site in an area with buried rather than overhead utilities, where you may be asked to bear the sometimes-prohibitive cost of excavation to extend service for installation. Otherwise, this is just about the best deal to be found, if you are in one of the golden locations.