Is gig worth it at home?

tangoseal

[H]F Junkie
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I wanted to get the opinion of someone that actually has gig internet in their home.

All I can get at my home right now is Comcrap @ 1gig for $110/month w/ 1 year contract.

I have a 250 right now and it seems to get the job done.

My real question is ... do you feel that 1gig regardless of what you pay is worth it overall?

How much of it do you really use? Are you constantly hammering your 1gig connection? Or just the ocassional download here and there making it hard to justify?

I wished we had fiber to the home out here but I live more out in the country hence my limitation to copper cable to the house.
 
Would a gig be worth it for me? No. I have the base package from comcast and it suits me fine.

However, that's meaningless, as I'm not you. Everyone has a different usage profile and different metrics for "worth it".
 
Would a gig be worth it for me? No. I have the base package from comcast and it suits me fine.

However, that's meaningless, as I'm not you. Everyone has a different usage profile and different metrics for "worth it".

You are right. I guess I was hoping someone would post a scenario that would be similar to mine and offer a good point of view.

I didnt give my usage scenario but In reading replies I assumed maybe one would match mine and I'd be like Ah ha! They made a great point.
 
I have FiOS Gigabit. Completely unnecessary but O so hilarious when you can actually take advantage of it.

Only reason I have it is I called to cancel the TV portion of my Double Play package with 50/50 internet that I was paying something like $110/m for. They were happy to do so but offered the Gigabit upgrade. Removing TV and going Gigabit brought my total to ~$80m so it was a win all around.

The first day it was installed and I ran a speed test that said 940D, 860U I laughed so hard. Best part is, some things like torrents and Steam almost max it out which is amazing. Huge Steam games download in 5 minutes and torrents.. yeah you can imagine.

Still, totally NOT worth it for me at least.
 
Question is, "is there a 1tb/mo data cap"? And is it 1g up and down, or their typical 35m on the upside.

Personally, i have 200mbit at home comcast. It started out at 75 and they kept doing free upgrades. Unless you frequently do big downloads you probably won't see a difference
 
I have the Comcast Gigabit Internet at home.
For me, I can justify the download capacity. Wish the upload was faster. But I can generally saturate most of my clients' connections anyhow.
My setup and requirements are rather abnormal though. I don't constantly hammer my connection. But, there are times I need to have something NOW. Not in 30 minutes. Not in 2 hours. NOW. And GigE EXCELS for slurping shit down as fast as whoever's site can push it.
For a regular user, 250 mbit should be perfectly fine.

Also, I'm partially reimbursed by my job for my connection.
If I had to pay for it all on my lonesome, I'd have settled for a slower setup.
Currently my bill is $150/month.
 
Question is, "is there a 1tb/mo data cap"? And is it 1g up and down, or their typical 35m on the upside.

Personally, i have 200mbit at home comcast. It started out at 75 and they kept doing free upgrades. Unless you frequently do big downloads you probably won't see a difference


Comcast still gives you a 1TB cap with $10/50GB, up to a maximum of $200 (I think that's total bill).
So, if you stay under the cap, it's your base price of $100-150/month.
And your bill only ever climbs to $200, so you have effectively unlimited bandwidth beyond that.

HOWEVER, if you truly are such a heavy user, regular abuse of this will likely get you booted off the service.

And the connection's supposed to be 1Tbit/40Mbit.

Most of the time I get 900-970Mbit/42-45Mbit
 
you do get 2 months out of 12 consecutive that you can go over without penalty, but yeah, you could potentially have a "fast car" and still only get to travel so many miles. those miles just burn up a lot faster.
 
Yeah there are 1tb cap. Which is stupid. Hey let us sell you a 1gbps conn2ction but hey 1tb a month is all get.
 
I have the option of getting 1 gig to my home, but my base package is 250/100 fiber that I pay like $42/mo. It works perfectly fine for me and I don't see a reason for me to upgrade to gigabit for my family's uses.
 
I have the option of getting 1 gig to my home, but my base package is 250/100 fiber that I pay like $42/mo. It works perfectly fine for me and I don't see a reason for me to upgrade to gigabit for my family's uses.

Yeah, a package like that should be perfect unless your usage is totally insane. Economical as hell too.
 
I have the option of getting 1 gig to my home, but my base package is 250/100 fiber that I pay like $42/mo. It works perfectly fine for me and I don't see a reason for me to upgrade to gigabit for my family's uses.

man i am so jelly. my cost just went up to $109 up from $69 for 200/25 i believe + basic tv, since i am now out of the promotion period. That's how you reward customers who always pay their bills on time and don't cause problems.
 
They have GoogleFiber downtown here .. When I move in the next few months, that WILL be a priority, heh. $70/mo for 1G/1G symmetrical, no caps, basically a no brainer right there...


EDIT: They do 100/100 for $50 or 1000/1000 for $70 .. seems silly to spend $50 and not $70, heh.
 
Yeah, a package like that should be perfect unless your usage is totally insane. Economical as hell too.

Agreed. With this internet connectivity + Netflix (considering cancelling) + Prime + Hulu, I've got whatever content I'd need or want and then some at my fingertips with plenty of bandwidth to support it and near or below $100/mo.
 
I too want to cancel Netshits.

But I choose to live away from the city for peace and solitude so I miss out on all the fiber stuff for 80/mon. Down in Atlanta I know you can get fiber but I am 40 miles north of that maze of mayhem. But at least I have the option of 1gig and probably 35 up or however its provisioned.

I also can get a 1g/1g fiber from comcast for 299.99 month but that requires a ditch crew and a long run of fiber and a 2 year agreement. And is prohibitively expensive.
 
Comcast still gives you a 1TB cap with $10/50GB

I'm fortunate to live in a Comcast area that doesn't have a data cap, and I'm paying $79/month (I bought my own modem), no contract.

The downside is, I live HALF A BLOCK from Fios, and I work for a rival cable company. If I lived the next town over, I'd get every channel and Gigabit (when released) for $20/mo. My company is also planning to do 10GB service for under $100. No idea why, but whatever.
 
I pay $80 a month for gigabit FiOS. I don't have a TV package so all of my media comes from the internet in some form or another. I could be downloading something at 90MB/s and still know I have plenty of bandwidth left to stream youtube/twitch/netflix or whatever. I don't hammer on it 24/7, but it's worth it to me for when I do. Especially at $80 a month.

Personally I think $110 a month is getting on the pricey side. It depends on how much you pay now. Since you said 250Mb is getting the job done I would think it probably isn't worth it for you. If you run into situations where you're running out of bandwidth to do stuff, or you want to download something and you want it instantly then I'd consider it. Or if you have a hobby of data hoarding like I do...
 
I pay $80 a month for gigabit FiOS. I don't have a TV package so all of my media comes from the internet in some form or another. I could be downloading something at 90MB/s and still know I have plenty of bandwidth left to stream youtube/twitch/netflix or whatever. I don't hammer on it 24/7, but it's worth it to me for when I do. Especially at $80 a month.

Personally I think $110 a month is getting on the pricey side. It depends on how much you pay now. Since you said 250Mb is getting the job done I would think it probably isn't worth it for you. If you run into situations where you're running out of bandwidth to do stuff, or you want to download something and you want it instantly then I'd consider it. Or if you have a hobby of data hoarding like I do...

Yeah I have decided to hold off on paying more. 250 is getting the job done and based on the prices you guys have shared it really is too much money.
 
I have a 1gbps connection and it is worth it for what I pay. I got a deal with FIOS to join and get the 1gbps for less than what I was paying for 150mbps with Comcast. As for if I feel the difference? Not on an everyday note, but occasionally when I have a few different things streaming or downloading at the same time. I get better streaming service to some places than I did before, and I download much faster from some destinations than I did before. However, depending on what it costs you to upgrade, I don't necessarily see it as worth it.
 
I have 1gb down 60up unlimited with rogers here in canada and now that i have used it i would have a hard time going to anything slower, its $84/month with is great value.

As far as usage theres always at least 2 streams of netflix going for the kids and my GF will either be downloading something or streaming 4k into the living room Tv, we see no slow downs even with my “river” connection taking 500mb
 
I'm with 1g/1g FTTH, although not in the USA, still I think the question wasn't about ISPs but 1Gig at home and is it worth it.
I'd say it is completely dependent on the price you'd pay for it. E.g. megabit per dollar. If it's reasonably priced (as was in my case, that's why I switched to this ISP) then YES, it is (can be) worth it.
I can feel downlads from more and more sites go up to 70-80MB/s and files of 500-1000MB feel like they download instantly. Maybe local CDNs. Most cloud storages I tested permit 200mbit/s download/uploads.
I won't touch the torrents topic, it's obvious.
I use IPTV service but that is not that dependent on plan's speed, even a 100 mbit would suffice.
All in all, I'd be perfectly fine with 200 mbit. With the frequency I download anything from the internet, I'd be fine with 100 even, it all depends on the price difference between the two. Everyone should decide for themselves based on prices available on their end and ISPs, and of course how often something more than 100 mbit would be beneficial for them.
 
I have FIOS 1GB service and for me it was totally worth it because of the price. I could be perfectly happy with 250/250, as my everyday usage is not that heavy. BUT when i do need that speed it's great to have it available. Like the before mentioned Steam downloads and other huge files... no problem at all handling those massive game installs. Done in a matter of minutes. bottom line, i would not pay an outrageous price for it, but would definitely get it if the price was right.
 
If its capped its pointless IMO. Now unlimited then yeah id say its worth it. I have uncapped 650mbps and not many sites will max it out but when they do its pretty nice.
 
I had at&t fiber at 1G up/down before I moved. It would usually test at 700M down, and 800M up. Fairly often, my desktop would get confused and connect to my switch at 100M instead of 1G, it would usually take me a week or two to notice. It really depends on how much you download from sites that are well connected to your provider's network, and if you care about upstream, what your current bandwidth is.

All that said, I moved and now have 80 M down / 10 M up, and I didn't like die or anything. :)
 
If its capped its pointless IMO. Now unlimited then yeah id say its worth it. I have uncapped 650mbps and not many sites will max it out but when they do its pretty nice.
Depends on how it's used. I rarely top 300gigs in a month, myself. I'm just not doing anything that data intensive.
 
It's hard to get excited about 1Gbit if it's not symmetrical- Spectrum wants to charge >US$120/month for 940/35, when I have 200/20, and I just don't see the need.

Now, if they gave me symmetrical and a few more public IPs to play around with, well...
 
I love having gigabit but overall the only time its really utilized is for Steam/Origin/or Other game downloads. Otherwise I just pay for really nice internet.
 
They put in at&t fiber in the next subdivision and my friend got it. He can get 900MB dl and 100MB uploads. Dont know exactly what you do with all the upload.
He is happy as hell, when I asked what he dl that needed that much bandwidth. UHHHHHHH
he did say some game downloads and stuff was great but he didn't need it.


well I hear that at&t is putting fiber in my neighborhood. They said $40 a month for 100 Mb...now its up to $50 and I still don't have it.
I watch very little tv so my comcast is 250Mb and digital service for $110..
This service started out as 75 but ran at 90Mb,,,,then they upped it to 150 which gave me 200 now it maxes out at 250Mb with no price increase. Have I jumped for joy sure but do I ever use it or would notice which speed I have NO.

Get the speed you want for the price you are willing to pay..and watchout for CONTRACTS

I wanted to drop the cable and they told me just internet is $89. BS I will go at&t and ota.
IF they ever get it installed...they dug a trench last week and now there are 3 or 4 grey polls in the ground with orange at&t tape on top
 
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I have 1000/1000 from bell. Big uploads to google drive, youtube, ftp are way faster. I have a vpn server at home for when i'm on the road. I can download linux ISOs in seconds. I stream my kodi library while i'm at hotels and it's like im at home. I got a great deal on mine $99 for internet, 4k TV and home phone.
 
I have 1000/1000 from bell. Big uploads to google drive, youtube, ftp are way faster. I have a vpn server at home for when i'm on the road. I can download linux ISOs in seconds. I stream my kodi library while i'm at hotels and it's like im at home. I got a great deal on mine $99 for internet, 4k TV and home phone.
BELL just ran the fiber hardlines past my house, we have been told it will be july before installs can happen, looking forward to 2 way gig, no interest in tv or phone services tho
 
BELL just ran the fiber hardlines past my house, we have been told it will be july before installs can happen, looking forward to 2 way gig, no interest in tv or phone services tho

Double check the pricing before you sign up. Gigabit was $149 and the package i got was $99 which includes gigabit. I don't have much interest in TV and the home phone is not even hooked up. Better to save the $50 though. I will say that the Bell box is MUCH better than the Rogers cable box.
 
There is fiber cabling installed underground that runs almost halfway to my property, a mile up the road from me. I have no idea who owns it and for what its there for but it seems to just end with no more white pipes with orange caps present anymore.

I wonder if this is just a future run for eventual implementation? It could be for land line telephone installations but I do not believe so because no one is getting land lines anymore it seems. I mean of course it could fiber for calls but more than like some future data implementation for the internet.

I hope they run fiber out to us soon for gig options because I refuse 5g with all my being when it goes mainstream.
 
True fiber is worth it.. full 1gb up and down is overkill for 99.9% of people. That being said just got my 150/150 and will never go back to cable again if I can help it. Love the extra upload and completely consistent speeds.
 
Double check the pricing before you sign up. Gigabit was $149 and the package i got was $99 which includes gigabit. I don't have much interest in TV and the home phone is not even hooked up. Better to save the $50 though. I will say that the Bell box is MUCH better than the Rogers cable box.
Ill look into it once iv got a drop coming to the house, Do u have the homehub? My buddy does and has had problems trying to use his AP’s
 
I used to have Gigabit service with AT&T U-Verse when I lived in another town. It cost around $110 a month. It was amazing. Where I'm at now, I'm stuck to a maximum of 500Mbps and that speed costs $300 a month with Frontier FIOS. I have the 300Mbps package which costs about what my Gigabit U-Verse did. For the most part, I don't notice the difference in speed outside of when I download something massive like a game. The speeds I have now aren't bad, but I do miss being able to download 50GB games in less than 20 minutes.
 
So I traced that fiber by my house. Its runs into a cell tower so nope not for me. Unless the conduit is shared with other services.
 
Ill look into it once iv got a drop coming to the house, Do u have the homehub? My buddy does and has had problems trying to use his AP’s

I have the homehub 3000. Apparently you can bypass it by taking out the sfp and installing it in a router. Haven't really looked into it yet though.
 
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Depends on how it's used. I rarely top 300gigs in a month, myself. I'm just not doing anything that data intensive.

Agreed. Heavy user here overall and I usually hit about 800-900GB on 75Mbps.

I'm a full time IT guy and dont see the need personally for anything higher except for faster ISO downloads occasionally lol..
 
One thing to keep in mind with higher speeds and a data cap is streaming quality auto detection. On of our customer's started hitting his datacap after a "free" Comcast speed upgrade and we traced the issue to all of his family's devices automagically streaming at higher quality.
 
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