Internet Service Provider, whos got what/rant

[Drifte]

So Im currently in a battle with mediacom. This years service has been sketchy at best, rarely holding a good enough connection to stream videos. Checked my bill which..even more interesting is fluctuating.

My "contract" started in March 2013. It was a no contract offer of $49 a month. Heres my last billing statement:



Statement Date:
Feb 25, 2014


Statement Amount:
$79.92


Payment Due:
AUTOPAY



So I called, one guy said thats my payment for march 5 to April 5 or something. And that Im in a 2 year contract, second year is $79 a month, no way out except $120 termination fee. No other pricing options.

Other lady at mediacom says my first year rate of no contract ended, so the bill will go up as much as $25 a month every month until I cancel.

So clearly something is messed up, I intend to get it canceled and pay nothing immediately. But really, whats my other option? Im in CR, I see "ImOn" trucks around.

What does everyone else use, and hows the rates, service and speed/stability? I was on mediacoms prime 15mbp which is significantly slower than my 4g lte.

[JustinS]

Mediacom pulled that same shit with me. Said I was in a two year conract. Im riding it out right now until I can figure out who I want to go to.

My internet and cable goes out randomly and everytime I call they say idk whats wrong, nothing on our end.

[Drifte]

Ok so Im not the only one. Im certain my setup was no contract, because the day of hook up they kept reminding me that I could also cancel at anytime without a termination fee. Which made me curious a bit why they felt the need to pound that into my head.

[JustinS]

Yeah I signed nothing when the installer hooked up my service and he told me I had no contact. Then when I went to cancel they tried to charge me $200.

[86svo9L]

Hook up with ImOn. They have a solid crew over there.

I had Mediacom a few years ago and started logging every outage that I was aware of. They ended up reimbursing me for a couple months and then repaired the issues out to my area. After that our speeds were really good and no outages.

Switched over to ImOn when I bought my other house and have never had to go through those extents. Hardly ever ran into service outages.

[Drifte]

Heres the listed prices for ImOn. Not great IMO.



Freedom 5.0 - $52.00
5M download/768K upload




Freedom 15 - $62.00
15M download/1M upload




Freedom 25 - $72.00
25M download/2M upload




Freedom 65 - $92.00
65M download/3M upload




Freedom 110 (available in Fiber to the Home areas only) - $109.98
110M download / 10M upload

[Clinical]

So Im currently in a battle with mediacom. This years service has been sketchy at best, rarely holding a good enough connection to stream videos. Checked my bill which..even more interesting is fluctuating.

My "contract" started in March 2013. It was a no contract offer of $49 a month. Heres my last billing statement:



Statement Date:
Feb 25, 2014


Statement Amount:
$79.92


Payment Due:
AUTOPAY



So I called, one guy said thats my payment for march 5 to April 5 or something. And that Im in a 2 year contract, second year is $79 a month, no way out except $120 termination fee. No other pricing options.

Other lady at mediacom says my first year rate of no contract ended, so the bill will go up as much as $25 a month every month until I cancel.

So clearly something is messed up, I intend to get it canceled and pay nothing immediately. But really, whats my other option? Im in CR, I see "ImOn" trucks around.

What does everyone else use, and hows the rates, service and speed/stability? I was on mediacoms prime 15mbp which is significantly slower than my 4g lte.

Exact same fucking thing happened to me in Cedar Falls.
Considering we were getting 25d/2u - we just switched to CFU up here for 30d/15u for $62/mo. Obviously not an option for you down there, but just saying mediacom can suck a fat one.

[Scott]

I have IMON, after threatening to cancel AGAIN I got a deal with internet only "cuz fuck cable" and its dirt cheap around 30/month for middle of the road speed but it runs HD netflix and stuff. They CAN make it cheaper for you just whether or not they are willing to do it, otherwise you will be money ahead to just cancel, pay fee's and switch providers

[Drifte]

Hopefully I get it straightened out quickly, and whoever does setup my next internet service, gets rid of the 20' co-ax mediacom left hanging from the powerline in front of my house

[Sleepy]

For the Des Moines area I have had issues with Mediacom and Qwest/Century Link. Had mediacom, we had cable/internet no longer wanted cable and they would not lower my payment. So I cancelled. Now with qwest and they are piss slow dsl and are charging $50 a month. My verizon 4g is 10 times faster.

Any Des Moines guys use anyone other than qwest/mediacom?

[93stang5oh]

Feel fortunate you do not live in small town Iowa where your only two options are Windstream (formerly known as Iowatelecom) and Mediacom. Of course there's the option of satellite internet but that's really not an option. The upload speed from Windstream is plain @ss slow, the download speed (12mb) I can deal with.

[sLoWnStEaDy]

Mediacom is a JOKE!! almost as bad as US Cellular these days!

I just recently got Century Link, only had it for about 5-6 weeks but no issues yet. I'm paying $39.95/mo for 14M. That's a 12 month price, then I believe it goes up like $10/mo or something along those lines.

1710
http://s12.postimg.org/j0pby8wct/untitled.jpg (http://postimage.org/)

[AutoMods]

colton, is that $79 a month for internet and cable ? they like to suck ya in with artificially low rates. did that to us too but they told us rates were going to be higher the 2nd year and there was no cancellation fee. so we cancelled after the first year. but $79 for cable and internet seems like a normal price

you could look into cellular internet, the speeds are good but the data limits might be the deal breaker. my up and down 4g speed is great with us cellular

[Xboosted23X]

Here is a tip. When I moved to Des Moines from CR I tried to transfer my service with mediacom. Come to find out that they will not transfer service that far away. They disconnected me with no fee and was able to start up in Des Moines with what ever provider I wanted. You could try that and see if it works.

[slow ride]

F you guys I can only get century link 1.5mbps DSL in my area. Thinking about a 4glte hotspot, but the data limits and cost don't seem very good. Waiting (for the last 4 years) for fiber optic to be run for a dsl speed increase.

[Drifte]

My rate Ryan is internet only. I may have to try telling them I'm moving somewhere further away than they can transfer.

[SledgeWS6]

LOL, arguing about internet rates. There is a clause in just about every utility style contact that although you have a 'set price', all prices are subject to changed based on demand, infrastructure, and technology changes without recourse. I have yet to see one that doesn't.

If that pisses you off, there is a movement right now to have your home limited just like your cell phone with data usage. If the Comcast-TimeWarner merger goes through, it'll be sooner rather than later.

[Drifte]

LOL, arguing about internet rates. There is a clause in just about every utility style contact that although you have a 'set price', all prices are subject to changed based on demand, infrastructure, and technology changes without recourse. I have yet to see one that doesn't.

If that pisses you off, there is a movement right now to have your home limited just like your cell phone with data usage. If the Comcast-TimeWarner merger goes through, it'll be sooner rather than later.

Well sure I have to do something, I was in a no contract setup. But they claim Im in a contract. Now its a matter of finding who has the best rates. I dont want a data cap as Im constantly streaming something. No cable tv, just Netflix, youtube, hulu, pandora, slacker, itunes, xbox etc.

[AutoMods]

My rate Ryan is internet only. I may have to try telling them I'm moving somewhere further away than they can transfer.

that is pricey for internet only. i had mediacom for many years and it was mostly around $50 a month for the mid level plan which started off at 10Mbps but over the years creeped up to 20Mbps

fortunately, south slope installed fiber all over north liberty a couple years ago and maybe solon area too. $55 a month

fiber

http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j349/automodsllc/spead_test.jpg



what impressed me most was us cellular 4g is getting putting down some good numbers

http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j349/automodsllc/2014-02-28-08-59-27.png

[RedRocketZ28]

I dropped Mediacom in Des Moines because they are clueless and a bunch of morons. Service sucked, our HD cable never worked right either. Only good thing about dropping them is that we continued to get cable for another 6 months, lol. They just figured it out though and turned it off. Oh well, we are moving in a month.

I have Century Link for internet now. Pay $33 a month for the highest speed I can get in my area and it has worked flawlessly.

[93stang5oh]

F you guys I can only get century link 1.5mbps DSL in my area. Thinking about a 4glte hotspot, but the data limits and cost don't seem very good. Waiting (for the last 4 years) for fiber optic to be run for a dsl speed increase.

Like I said, welcome to small town Iowa..........ok, so now I won't complain so much about mine.




fortunately, south slope installed fiber all over north liberty a couple years ago and maybe solon area too. $55 a month

fiber

My cousin lives just north of coralville (solon address) and he has south slope and seems to like it. With those download/upload speeds for US Cellular that could be a good option. But once again as others have mentioned, I'd be nervous about the data cap.

[AutoMods]

just looked at my South Slope bill, $55 a month + tax. Used to be $61 with tax now it has crept up to $67. called them to ask why, they say its a usf tax you have to pay if you don't have a landline. they have to send that tax money out to the FCC usf fund for rural expansion.

[Drifte]

Now switching subjects a bit but I wanted to test my AT&T connection vs my internet. Im throttled bad on upload, you can watch the gauge drop as it manages the upload. However download, pegs the gauge. (Nokia Lumia 920 4g LTE)

In comparison my last speed test on my wifi was 18 down, 1.9 up.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k27/drifte/temporary_zps4750c9fe.png

[AutoMods]

wow thats fast colton. derek just tested his at&t here at 23 down, 5 up . probably slower due to his slow blackberrry phone

[Ricky]

I just ran a test in Cedar Falls and got 60.49 up and 12.35 down with Verizon.

[AutoMods]

I just ran a test in Cedar Falls and got 60.49 up and 12.35 down with Verizon.

wow, you and colton turned your phone wifi off when you did the phone test didn't you? i could see campus or business wifi pulling those numbers but i didn't know 4g could go that fast

[Xboosted23X]

I'm thinking about dumping UScellular and changing providers. Does anyone have any recommendations?

[derek072887]

I'm thinking about dumping UScellular and changing providers. Does anyone have any recommendations?

I'm considering T-mobile, unlimited 4G with 2.5GB of tethering included. At $70 a month I think it would be worth the switch and I think they have a promotion to pay cancellation fees going on right now but that may be just for families.

[sLoWnStEaDy]

-_- Fuck you all! Guess I'm now the slowest at another thing on here. Bet I'm the fastest through deep mud/water though. ^_^

WTF are you guys doing that you need those speeds for? my piddly ass 14M is more than sufficient for my use. mainly forums, netflix, and downloading music...

[Ricky]

wow, you and colton turned your phone wifi off when you did the phone test didn't you? i could see campus or business wifi pulling those numbers but i didn't know 4g could go that fast

Yeah just 4G. My WiFi is only 18Mbs I ran the test yesterday after colton did and got that number. The previous times I did a few months ago I was hitting mid 40Mbs.

[Ricky]

Just ran the test a minute ago and I attached a screen shot from my phone showing I'm on 4G too. My upload speed just blew my mind.

62.48 down and 32.42 up... Verizon ftw!

[sLoWnStEaDy]

US Cellular 4G http://s30.postimg.org/wvfo0ktld/Screenshot_2014_03_08_18_05_43.png (http://postimage.org/)
capture screen (http://postimage.org/app.php)

I just downloaded a full-length movie on my computer and it took 6 minutes. How long does it take you guys with your crazy internet speeds that are frikkin 4 times faster than mine? Just curious

[AutoMods]

that download speed is kinda weak, is that in palo?

I never download movies in their entirety, youtube or netflix just buffers up for a few seconds and your good from there.

[sLoWnStEaDy]

no, I live on the s.w. side of CR now, just a few blocks from Trevor and Jake actually. I get the same thing with Netflix, it might buffer for 2-3 seconds then play with no issues. never have issues with youtube or anything else either. I just can't believe how fast soe of you guys are, it's nuts!