Cutting Ties
If you are old like me, you remember the days of dial up Internet. The long waits for just about anything Internet related as well as all the headaches that came along with it. Looking back now, it was kind of a cool time, but also pretty amazing that we were able to function on such slow speeds. Like I said, if you are old like me, you will likely remember how big of a deal it was when 56K modems came out. That's right, "K" as in Kilobytes. Where Gigabit Internet is the defacto standard these days, that might be hard for some of you to wrap your heads around.
I'm also reminded of how big of a deal it was when cable Internet came on the scene. I grew up out in the country, so despite the fact that my dad was always into technology and we had a dedicated phone line, the idea of high speed Internet was reserved for the city folks. For a while, I was working for a company that was contracted out by the cable company Charter (now Spectrum) to install cable modems in people's homes. The cable guy would go to a residence and run the lines, then I would come in with the modem and get it set up on their computers.
This was well before wireless, so it was usually just a simple device. Though, computers didn't automatically come with network cards back then, so we had to install one and then get them connected. That usually came with its own array of problems.
I remember one of the main reasons I moved out of my parents house was so I could live in town where I could get high speed Internet. I also remember via my connections with the cable company being absolutely frustrated that people across the street from my parents could get cable Internet service, but they could not. They have it now, but it was probably a year or two later than they should have gotten it.
Spectrum is one of those companies that people love to hate. Given the way the Internet has been categorized over the years, the cable companies and phone companies were basically able to hold a monopoly on the service. Even after some of that got broken up by the FCC, there still was basically only one choice in our given area when it came to fast reliable Internet service. As much as you wanted to tell Spectrum to take a hike, you had no other option than to shell out money to them each month. Hopefully, that has now changed.
A while ago, I saw an advertisement for a company called OmniFiber. I went online to see if they were in my area, only to find out they did not service my part of the world. I put in my address and asked that I be contacted if they ever expanded out into our neighborhood. Then I kind of forgot about it.
Fast forward about six months and OmniFiber came back on my radar again. I went to check to see if they had expanded to our area yet only to find they still didn't offer service. I once again put my address in, and asked that I be contacted if they ever did expand my way. Believe it or not, it wasn't two weeks later that I saw OmniFiber trucks doing directional boring just outside of our neighborhood. I was a bit worried they were going to skip over our small dead end street, but a couple weeks later, I was pleasantly surprised to find them laying fiber down our road.
Finally, this past weekend, the sales person came to our door, and within a few minutes, we were signed up for OmniFiber fiber to our home. It's going to be about $30 cheaper per month than what we were paying for Spectrum, and we get a 1GB dedicated asynchronous connection. In just a couple weeks the installers will be coming to get the fiber into our home. I'm honestly kind of nervous. Being such a new company to our area, I am sure there will be a few hookups, but my research on reviews seems to be hit or miss. At the very least, we will still have the wiring in our house for cable Internet, so if we have to switch back, we might even get a better price.
It used to be you could contact Spectrum once a year and haggle with them to lower your rate, but they stopped doing that a long time ago. Like the cellular companies, they reserve all their deals now for new customers, and the people who have been keeping them afloat for decades get shafted.
I'm really excited to take a step forward with this new service, and I really hope it ends up being everything I hoped it would be!
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STOPBest of luck! We have Spectrum too. Haven't had many problems. But like you they continue to slowly creep the price up every year. We do have some options AT&T (terrible rep here) and T-Mobile (new to the area). Not looking to switch anytime soon.
Cell service in our neighborhood is horrible, so that wouldn't really be an option. We might have AT&T, but I think that would be more of a lateral move. We will see how this goes!
Fiber is so much better than DSL or cable. I think you'll probably be fine.
I hope so! I'm looking forward to the shift. I'm so used to it at work, it will be nice to have it at home. Plus the lower bill is always nice too!
@bozz You have evolved from prehistoric times to this era of cutting-edge, highly advanced technology. It is a great experience. I loved reading your post; thanks for sharing.
Thank you!
You are ever welcome!
Good luck with the new provider! My Mom hates Spectrum. Where she lives (Johnstown, OH), the service is constantly dropping out. I had her test her connection on Fast.com and it was consistently dropping to 5-15Mbps. We have Xfinity here where we are and it's expensive but we average anywhere between 300-500Mbps. We've seriously considered either the 200Mbps or the 400Mbps Starlink package. Either of the two would be cheaper than what we're paying for Xfinity.
That's horrible! I know my brother in law and sister in law just switched from AT&T to Buckeye fiber or something like that. They have been really happy with them. Our service with Spectrum has been fine for the most part. I just don't like the whole monopoly aspect of it.
It's so frustrating for her because she streams music on the Homepod Mini and whenever her WiFi cuts out she has to reconnect it. It's definitely good to have choices. I think Spectrum has a monopoly in here area.
Ugh, that's horrible!
I've been through everything since 14k4 dialup. I think my first broadband was 512k. That company was taken over by Virgin and I stayed with them for years. The price kept going up, along with the speed, but I could sometimes get a deal. I've now moved to another company that gives me gigabit at half the price. They had to run a telephone cable to the house from the nearest pole as we didn't have one. We had cable internet when we built the house. There are lots of options here as companies can offer their service over the phone network.
That's awesome. We don't really get that sort of thing here. Like I said, it's still a bit of a monopoly even though they try to pretend it isn't. When you only reliable choice is the most expensive one, you are kind of screwed.
!BBH
I have no idea what we have at home, hubs is the nerd and my IT/Comms support, he does it all including recommending what computer and phone I should buy. I'm not too fussed with all that, particularly mobile, as long as it takes good pictures, has plenty of storage and isn't too bulky. So far he's done a good job.
Hopefully your new connection will make a lot of difference to you
I have a feeling the most difference it will make is on my budget, but if that is the case, I don't really mind at all! Technically, it should be much more reliable for a cheaper price, but we will see.
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STOPBzzz, from 56K dial-up to finally cutting ties with Spectrum for fiber — what a journey! 🐝 This bee relates to that monopoly frustration: not much choice when there's only one hive for miles either. Glad OmniFiber finally found your street!
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I'm lucky in this regard. I've been with the provider for 30 years or so and it's the best. Services are cheap, reliable, whatever problem I have they are at the scene in 30 minutes, max 1 hour and I can count on one hand how many times I had a problem.
I think I'd be pulling my hair to have a bad provider and no alternative.
That would be life in the US. Only now it is starting to get a bit better. I am hoping this move will be a good one for us.
Fingers crossed that it's going to be better 🤞