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April 6, 2012 5:58 PM Subscribe
NYC residents who use Time Warner Cable for their internet connection...does paying their extra fee for internet connection speeds "up to 30MBps" actually yield consistently higher connection speeds?
Can anyone provide any info on this, whether empirical or anecdotal? I'd be happy with internet connection speeds that are consistently 10MBps or higher. And I'm happy to pay more if that would actually get me higher speeds.
Thanks for any insight you can provide.
(Before anyone says "but it depends on the other site's traffic levels..." I've had consistently slow internet connections across a wide variety of sites. This has nothing to do with a particular site but rather my internet connection.)
Can anyone provide any info on this, whether empirical or anecdotal? I'd be happy with internet connection speeds that are consistently 10MBps or higher. And I'm happy to pay more if that would actually get me higher speeds.
Thanks for any insight you can provide.
(Before anyone says "but it depends on the other site's traffic levels..." I've had consistently slow internet connections across a wide variety of sites. This has nothing to do with a particular site but rather my internet connection.)
Just anecdotal ( and not entirely related to your speed question) but I was ready to upgrade to their Wideband service until I found out that in NYC TW severely limits your access to making changes to the modem that they provide (from what I understand, you cannot use your own modem.)
If you are into maintaining some control over your modem/router, you'll need to bridge your router using TWC's Wideband in NYC.
This may have changed, but when I looked into Wideband earlier this year, there were a lot of complaints about this issue.
I decided I didn't want the headache and I am still holding out for FIOS. (Which Verizon says is coming to my street in 6 months.... *crosses fingers*)
posted by carmenghia at 7:00 PM on April 6, 2012
If you are into maintaining some control over your modem/router, you'll need to bridge your router using TWC's Wideband in NYC.
This may have changed, but when I looked into Wideband earlier this year, there were a lot of complaints about this issue.
I decided I didn't want the headache and I am still holding out for FIOS. (Which Verizon says is coming to my street in 6 months.... *crosses fingers*)
posted by carmenghia at 7:00 PM on April 6, 2012
Response by poster: Then what are the practical options in NYC for getting a faster internet connection?
posted by dfriedman at 7:08 PM on April 6, 2012
posted by dfriedman at 7:08 PM on April 6, 2012
FYI speedtest.net is a great site to check what's kicking, exactly how fast your data is getting to you.
Amazing the difference between my Clear.com hotspot and my next-door neighbors Time Warner cable hookup; hers is blazing fast, sometimes mine is so slow, it seems like dial-up. (I can go to other parts of town that the hotspot gets fast as my neighbors cable stream, it's just slow here, too bad for me.)
Anyways, maybe you can tap a neighbors router and use speedtest.net to see what they've got -- Emily and I do favors for one another all the time, she's perfectly fine with me using her setup.
posted by dancestoblue at 7:11 PM on April 6, 2012
Amazing the difference between my Clear.com hotspot and my next-door neighbors Time Warner cable hookup; hers is blazing fast, sometimes mine is so slow, it seems like dial-up. (I can go to other parts of town that the hotspot gets fast as my neighbors cable stream, it's just slow here, too bad for me.)
Anyways, maybe you can tap a neighbors router and use speedtest.net to see what they've got -- Emily and I do favors for one another all the time, she's perfectly fine with me using her setup.
posted by dancestoblue at 7:11 PM on April 6, 2012
When I had TWC, I got 30 Mbps down consistently. This was before they changed their plans to what they have now though. I lived in Midtown East.
posted by aloysius on the mixing boards at 8:56 PM on April 6, 2012
posted by aloysius on the mixing boards at 8:56 PM on April 6, 2012
The only games in town for fast residential connections are Time Warner, Verizon FIOS, and Optimum. All are in limited areas only, with Optimum in the fewest places and Time Warner in the most.
I sometimes saw the increased speed (in Queens) with the Time Warner speed boost plan (+$10/month), but most of the time is about the same speed as the normal plan. I've upgraded to the 50/5 Wideband which delivers that bandwidth consistently and is now only $99/month. Contrary to the above you can use our own modem with Wideband, but you will have to escalate to level 3 support to get them to make the change. You can use your own router with Verizon FIOS only if you don't also use FIOS TV (which requires their router to function for guide and pay per view if I recall correctly), but convincing the Verizon support people that using your own modem is even possible is an exercise in futility.
FIOS has more upload, Time Warner more download with very respectable upload, and Time Warner's support is worlds ahead of Verizon's.
posted by ridogi at 11:18 PM on April 6, 2012
I sometimes saw the increased speed (in Queens) with the Time Warner speed boost plan (+$10/month), but most of the time is about the same speed as the normal plan. I've upgraded to the 50/5 Wideband which delivers that bandwidth consistently and is now only $99/month. Contrary to the above you can use our own modem with Wideband, but you will have to escalate to level 3 support to get them to make the change. You can use your own router with Verizon FIOS only if you don't also use FIOS TV (which requires their router to function for guide and pay per view if I recall correctly), but convincing the Verizon support people that using your own modem is even possible is an exercise in futility.
FIOS has more upload, Time Warner more download with very respectable upload, and Time Warner's support is worlds ahead of Verizon's.
posted by ridogi at 11:18 PM on April 6, 2012
Best answer: There are lots of metrics for the quality of your connection, so just saying "speed" is a bit ambiguous. 30 mbit/s is a description of bandwidth. If you are downloading something, your available bandwidth depends on a lot of things, but there is not going to be a hard throttle on your connection until it hits that 30mbit/s. External factors that can affect your bandwidth are things like packet loss (either RF or non-RF related), capacity, as well as available bandwidth on the server you're trying to pull your data from.
Now if you are saying that you want to pay for a "faster" connection so that you have a more responsive gaming experience, that "speed" is not a function of bandwidth but of latency. Latency is a measure not of How Much data you can send at one time, but How Long it takes one packet of data to get from the server's location to your location (think bandwidth = width of cable, latency = length of cable). There is not going to be much you can do to improve latency, and purchasing more bandwidth certainly won't affect anything except the amount they throttle your available bandwidth. Capacity issues, packet loss issues, and latency issues (among others) will not be affected.
posted by GooseOnTheLoose at 11:23 PM on April 6, 2012
Now if you are saying that you want to pay for a "faster" connection so that you have a more responsive gaming experience, that "speed" is not a function of bandwidth but of latency. Latency is a measure not of How Much data you can send at one time, but How Long it takes one packet of data to get from the server's location to your location (think bandwidth = width of cable, latency = length of cable). There is not going to be much you can do to improve latency, and purchasing more bandwidth certainly won't affect anything except the amount they throttle your available bandwidth. Capacity issues, packet loss issues, and latency issues (among others) will not be affected.
posted by GooseOnTheLoose at 11:23 PM on April 6, 2012
Best answer: Goose is right on. More bandwidth will mostly affect things like how fast you can download a very large file and what quality Netflix streaming will use (although latency plays into that as well).
It is also worth considering that your router is the cause of problems, not your internet connection. Plugging your computer directly into your modem and seeing if that makes a difference will be a good test. You may have a better experience with different DNS servers such as Google's 8.8.8.8 versus using the servers provided by your ISP.
posted by ridogi at 6:50 AM on April 7, 2012
It is also worth considering that your router is the cause of problems, not your internet connection. Plugging your computer directly into your modem and seeing if that makes a difference will be a good test. You may have a better experience with different DNS servers such as Google's 8.8.8.8 versus using the servers provided by your ISP.
posted by ridogi at 6:50 AM on April 7, 2012
I'm in Brooklyn. I recently upgraded to the lower-tier wideband and have seen a big difference in speeds. I'm getting 30 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up consistently. It took two tries for the service person to show up (though I asked - and got - $100 credit for their failure to show up) and he asked if I wanted to use the modem's router or wifi ("no" to both for me). It took about a week for them to come by for the install.
posted by sub-culture at 4:09 PM on April 7, 2012
posted by sub-culture at 4:09 PM on April 7, 2012
FWIW, I have wideband and consistently get the advertised speeds. It's true that you don't have much access to the modem, but you can ask a tier 3 tech at Time Warner to put the modem in bridge mode for you, and then use your own router, which is the typical arrangement at other companies, in my experience.
I've been pretty happy with the service. There wasn't a lot of the hassle to install it that some people are are reporting, so YMMV.
posted by !Jim at 11:41 PM on April 8, 2012
I've been pretty happy with the service. There wasn't a lot of the hassle to install it that some people are are reporting, so YMMV.
posted by !Jim at 11:41 PM on April 8, 2012
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posted by lovelygirl at 6:59 PM on April 6, 2012