How do I buy a fast internet connection in Dallas / Fort Worth, TX?

February 5, 2013 10:27 AM

How do I buy a fast internet connection in Dallas / Fort Worth, TX?

I've been spoiled by living in university housing for several years (think pre-streaming anything). Ethernet jacks everywhere! Full 1080p all the time on all the computers (and phones and tablets)! And for free! (Well, subsidized because I'm an employee living in the company town, anyway).

How do I get back to that (what did I have, exactly?) and how much am I going to have to pay for it? OR How do I get fast service that will handle streaming video (and games and online backups via CrashPlan and...) on multiple devices without going broke?

I'm in Arlington, Texas for the time being -- but recommendations for the greater DFW would be appreciated.

posted by GPF to computers & internet (6 answers total)

In Fort Worth, we use AT&T U-verse and get what we pay for. We are also in a fairly newly built up area (the house was built in 2008), are less than 200 feet from the box that supplies the neighborhood, and our house is pre-wired for Ethernet. The only reason we don't subscribe to the higher plans is that we don't yet have a need for it: if I transition to working at home as well, we'd plump for the higher speeds as two VPN connections make a noticeable dent in our speeds. Our tech support goes well, but that's because my husband knows what he's talking about and can speak techie to the service guys.

To keep costs down, it's bundled in with cable and phone, and we subscribe to a smaller set of channels than the larger offerings. We've also made plans as to what to dump (i.e., the vast majority of available channels) if we need to lessen our expenses.

We looked at Verizon FIOS, but they haven't expanded to our area. We did not consider cable internet in any way, because you share that with your neighbors, and there's a very definite drop in speed as soon as everyone gets home from work and gets online.
posted by telophase at 11:03 AM on February 5 [1 favorite]

I should add that my husband telecommutes full-time using a VPN connection, is a heavy gamer with multiple consoles online, and we stream video from Netflix and a local server we maintain for most of our TV needs, and that goes well 99% of the time without even getting the highest speed U-verse offers. My husband would love to upgrade our speed Just Because, but he's pragmatic enough about the money we spend that he can't justify it yet. I think he would love for me to work from home full-time just to have the excuse to upgrade!

I work on-campus at a university and I notice very little difference between my access at work and at home. We used to live in a house built in the 1950s with crappy wiring, and while my husband could still work and game, and we could stream video, there was a noticeable difference in speed when we moved.
posted by telophase at 11:12 AM on February 5

Cable modems are still pretty fast. Not sure what your local cable company is; we have Charter. We have internet only, no cable TV through them.
posted by Doohickie at 11:24 AM on February 5

We also have internet-only through Charter (30 down, 4 up) for $48/mo, but we just got a letter saying they're hiking the price by $5... again.

We'd switch, but it appears the only other option in our area of Fort Worth is AT&T DSL (max 3 down). Neither U-Verse nor FiOS is available here.
posted by whitecedar at 11:34 AM on February 5

We have U-Verse in our 50 year old house in Atlanta and out internet is wicked fast!

Love the damn U-verse I think we get 12 Megs!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 1:06 PM on February 5

I'm not thread-sitting: I just got home and talked to my husband, who reminded me that his brother in Dallas is on Verizon FIOS and, paying some relatively small amount of money, is getting screamingly fast speeds, although he couldn't remember the exact amount.
posted by telophase at 3:20 PM on February 5