TWC $15 internet...

[railer]

Anybody switch to TWC's 2/1 $14.99 plan? I'm on the internet quite a bit, but I really can't fathom how this would not work well for me? I do my fair share of torrent dling, and youtube watching, but even that seems completely possible at 2 Mbps down. My current cap is 15 Mpbs....but I just did a speedtest and only got around 5 Mbps. Even when I'm grabbing a torrent I'm usually pretty happy to see 1 Mbps...or maybe that's 1 MBps that makes me happy..? Anyway if anyone has checked this out please chime in.

 

[Acanthus]

If your 15mbps gives you 5mbps... your 2mbps might give you X.

See, algebra does work in the real world.

 

[Leros]

It's just how cable works. Your entire neighborhood has a maximum amount of bandwidth that the ISP can provide. That maximum amount is not enough for everybody to max out their modems at once. On nights and weekends when everybody is streaming videos, your speed will drop.

I suspect they try to throttle everybody evenly as a percentage of their maximum bandwidth.. Say you have 100 neighbors, each with 10Mbit plans, but TWC can only provide 500Mbit to the area, If everybody in the neighborhood tried to max out their connections at once, I'd guess that everybody would get 5Mbit. If one person had a 20Mbit plan, I'd suspect they would get 10Mbit because everybody is getting throttled to 50% max bandwidth.

I personally pay $40 a month for 25Mbit down with TWC. My connection usually drops to 15Mbit at night. Sometimes as low as 10Mbit.

 

[zCypher]

It's just how cable works. Your entire neighborhood has a maximum amount of bandwidth that the ISP can provide. That maximum amount is not enough for everybody to max out their modems at once. On nights and weekends when everybody is streaming videos, your speed will drop.

I suspect they try to throttle everybody evenly as a percentage of their maximum bandwidth.. Say you have 100 neighbors, each with 10Mbit plans, but TWC can only provide 500Mbit to the area, If everybody in the neighborhood tried to max out their connections at once, I'd guess that everybody would get 5Mbit. If one person had a 20Mbit plan, I'd suspect they would get 10Mbit because everybody is getting throttled to 50% max bandwidth.

I personally pay $40 a month for 25Mbit down with TWC. My connection usually drops to 15Mbit at night. Sometimes as low as 10Mbit.

in other words the area is oversold, which can also happen on DSL service by the way, the bottleneck just happens in a different way. I work for a DSL provider and have cable internet at home, which I have never seen slow down except for once during an outage 2+ years ago. Just sayin. It's not cause it's cable that it's inherently normal to have bad slowdowns. DSL service have a dedicated loop from the DSLAM port to the customer's modem, but that's completely useless if the back end OC3/OC12(etc) links are oversaturated due to the area having too many "dedicated" DSL subscribers sold in that area. any major ISP will have a known issues page posted with the affected areas (usually areas still on old ATM/DMT2 infrastructure, which they aren't exactly in a huge rush to upgrade for little towns).

i started with 8m/1m cable, upgraded to 30/10 and more recently to 60/10. never any issues with speed at any time of the day or night. this is not too far from downtown where there are definitely a huge number of subscribers for cable, but obviously not oversubscribed for its infrastructure. so saying "it's just how cable works" is a little bit misleading.

what's always fun is when a town in the middle of nowhere gets set up with fiber, interesting example: http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/#!/content/1.1382428

 

[Nebor]

I get 100/10 from TWC for $70 a month and it rarely underperforms. I can't go back to downloading Steam games at anything less than 10 megabytes per second.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

For years I was getting between 20-30, most of the time around 25 even though I am paying for 15. Within a few months now, its been right around 15-16, so they did something.

 

[jumpncrash]

bla bla bla, gobbledygook

Please stop spreading false rumors on public forums you telusdroid, I'm trying to sleep in my office and you are disturbing me.

Thank you


@OP

I don't see you getting much done on a 2mbps connection, especially if you only get 5mbps on your current plan

 

[Mutilator]

I think some people are looking at this wrong... if he currently is on a 15mb plan and is only getting 5mb due to bandwidth limitations in his neighborhood... why would you think if he was on the 2mb plan he wouldn't get 2mb? It's not proportional. IMO he'd be more likely to see his full 2mb all the time, even at peak times. If you're not getting what you're paying for now then why not pay less and actually get what you pay for?

And lol @ the you won't get much done on a 2mbps connection. It wasn't that long ago when we were doing everything on dial up and 1.5mbps cable/DSL connections were unbelievably fast. Boy times have changed, everybody needs everything NOW NOW NOW!

 

[TwiceOver]

I know a lot of people in our rural area that subscribe to a 2mb plan from a local WISP. It works, but I wouldn't rely on it for streaming services.

 

[zCypher]

Please stop spreading false rumors on public forums you telusdroid, I'm trying to sleep in my office and you are disturbing me.

Thank you


@OP

I don't see you getting much done on a 2mbps connection, especially if you only get 5mbps on your current plan

lol. how's dialup working out for you in the wilderness?

also 2mbps is plenty for most online activities except for streaming any higher def content or downloading huge files. google won't load any faster with a 200mbps connection for example. 2mbps with normal ping times will be exactly the same for everything except for very media rich content or huge files. having said that i probably wouldn't want under 8 or 10mbps these days, especially if you're using multiple devices.

 

[qtnguyen87]

I have TWCs 15MB and i get 16MB lol. The 2mb might work but the way i see it is....with a 2MB download you'll probably download at 200kbs a second...beuase with my 15 i download around 1.5mbs on Torrent

 

[TwiceOver]

I have TWCs 15MB and i get 16MB lol. The 2mb might work but the way i see it is....with a 2MB download you'll probably download at 200kbs a second...beuase with my 15 i download around 1.5mbs on Torrent

That's probably because your down speed is 15mb and your torrent software is showing your speed in MB instead. So you are burning nearly your entire pipe.

 

[qtnguyen87]

Thats ok as long as i download fast im fine. 1.5MBs per second is very good IMO

 

[AznAnarchy99]

I have it. It's terribly slow. However..I got a guy who knows a guy who's cousin friend got it to run "faster"

 

[Vdubchaos]

It's just how cable works. Your entire neighborhood has a maximum amount of bandwidth that the ISP can provide. That maximum amount is not enough for everybody to max out their modems at once. On nights and weekends when everybody is streaming videos, your speed will drop.

I suspect they try to throttle everybody evenly as a percentage of their maximum bandwidth.. Say you have 100 neighbors, each with 10Mbit plans, but TWC can only provide 500Mbit to the area, If everybody in the neighborhood tried to max out their connections at once, I'd guess that everybody would get 5Mbit. If one person had a 20Mbit plan, I'd suspect they would get 10Mbit because everybody is getting throttled to 50% max bandwidth.

I personally pay $40 a month for 25Mbit down with TWC. My connection usually drops to 15Mbit at night. Sometimes as low as 10Mbit.

Just to add to that, Cable companies actually LIMIT your speed. Your house is already getting full speed from the provider, they simply limit it and provide you with certain speed based on how much you pay.

 

[qtnguyen87]

my Verizons 4G unlimited Data plan gives me 45MB down and almost 20 up

 

[Vdubchaos]

my Verizons 4G unlimited Data plan gives me 45MB down and almost 20 up

Verizon also ties you up to a contract...and they have the same issues any cable company will have.

IT'S THE SAME SERVICE and NOTHING new.

Cablevision has been using Fiber optics for over a decade I believe...

 

[mikeford]

I don't believe the advertising claims of cable slowing down, they have massively overbuilt most of the backbone structure and throttle user connections.

Issue with torrents unless you are a leeching bum is the 100k bytes/sec upload limit. My practice was to always keep a 2.1 ratio, so it could take days or even weeks on some rarer items for the ratio to hit 2.1. Reason for the longer times on rare item is that I am throttled to 100k and some other person isn't they may do 90% of each upload, so a couple dozen people need to want an item I have before I hit 2.1.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I don't believe the advertising claims of cable slowing down, they have massively overbuilt most of the backbone structure and throttle user connections.

Issue with torrents unless you are a leeching bum is the 100k bytes/sec upload limit. My practice was to always keep a 2.1 ratio, so it could take days or even weeks on some rarer items for the ratio to hit 2.1. Reason for the longer times on rare item is that I am throttled to 100k and some other person isn't they may do 90% of each upload, so a couple dozen people need to want an item I have before I hit 2.1.

That's why most torrent sites have a bonus system that rewards you for uploading even if you can't maintain a good ratio. There are people with seedboxes who push files out so fast that anyone who starts downloading a file finishes downloading before you've had a chance to upload any significant amount of data. So instead they give you credits for simply leaving your client open and seeding, even if you can't upload much. Then you turn those credits in to improve your ratio. Plus there is always a lot of freeleech stuff available that doesn't count against your DL.

 

[railer]

I think if I could get the full 2 Mbps, that would work just fine. The question is, would I ever get the full 2 Mb, or would I get some fraction of that cap as I do now. I would think that if the infrastructure can support 5+ Mbps as it currently does, that I should get much closer to the 2 Mbps cap vs. what I'm currently getting, as I would be limited only by the TWC cap, and not by the network infrastructure. I guess there's only one way to find out for sure: Sign my parents up for it and see how I like it.

 

[boomhower]

I've got 30 from TWC and it pretty much runs 100% with very rare slowdowns. Tempted to go to the 50mb but resisting for now. Our household runs through an average a 500GB/month.

 

[qtnguyen87]

All I know is TWC has never failed.me on my 15mb. My bro has the 50 because of 4 devices on constant streaming sites. I used it once and didn't even feel a slow down or anything when he was gaming and others using it.

 

[poopaskoopa]

Seeing how their "30Mbps/5Mbps" plan performs for me, I'd look at it more like a "512K/256K" plan

 

[boomhower]

Seeing how their "30Mbps/5Mbps" plan performs for me, I'd look at it more like a "512K/256K" plan

Tried a service call? I've had them them in two states and more houses than I care to recount and it's always been solid. If it's that bad get it looked at.