How can I make the internet go faster at my house?

September 12, 2015 5:06 PM

Here's the deal: right now we have DSL via Earthlink for which I pay $25/month. We have a...is it a modem? A router? Whatever it is they gave us years ago when we signed up. And we have an Apple Airport Extreme to make it wi-fi. So we have DSL and it's basically fine, but my kid is into gaming and would like things to move faster (like that latest game update that took 4 days to download). What are our options?

Talk to me about this like I'm five years old. Assume I know nothing on this topic.

We do not have cable in this house and I have no interest in watching cable TV. ATT Uverse and Verizon Fios do not serve my neighborhood. Is there another service I'm supposed to check for?

Current DSL is slowish when surfing the internet, very slow in terms of my child's downloading game updates, but just fine for streaming Netflix.

Time Warner Cable serves this area...but I emphatically do not want cable TV. Also, I'm not sure if this house even has extant cables in place. (Backstory: when we bought the place 20 years ago, we moved in and the cable was just...on...with all bonus channels. One day a cable dude came to the door and said "Sign up and pay right now or I'm yanking the cables out" and we didn't pay and I assume he did because the cable stopped working at all. The end.)

Is it as simple as purchasing a more up-to-date router/modem thingy? Is any other service delivered via our home phone line going to be just as slow? Is any cable company going to come wire my house just so I can have internet, even if I don't want TV channels? Or...is there something newer and better I should know about?

Teach a non-technically-oriented gal everything she needs to know about this in 2015, please.

posted by BlahLaLa to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

We have Time Warner cable internet and do not have cable TV. You just have to call and tell them that's what you want, and they'll send a tech to your house to set everything up, modem and router (usually) included.
posted by okayokayigive at 5:16 PM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Cable is way better than DSL. I pay $45/mo for 100Mbit cable internet service and no cable TV (although this isn't with Time Warner). If I moved, I would look for no-TV cable internet as my first choice, assuming there wasn't Google fiber or similar around.
posted by ryanrs at 5:16 PM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You don't have to have cable television to have internet. Time Warner and Comcast have internet-only plans. Yes, they are the great satan, but they're pretty much the game in town as far as speedy consumer-grade internet goes.
posted by phunniemee at 5:17 PM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Nthing above that cable internet is going to be the fastest option (and possibly cheapest, if comparing plans that offer the same speeds), generally speaking. As far as the cable company "ripping the cables out" presumably all they did was disconnect the cable in the junction box that connects your house wiring to the CATV network. It should be dead simple for them to get it connected up again. There may or may not be a connection fee involved if they have to send out a tech to do it, but sometimes they waive such fees for new subscribers.

If you really want to keep your DSL, you should also be able to ask your provider to see if they support better speeds over your connection. At $25/month, you're probably getting a pretty basic tier of service. However, from what I can tell, Earthlink's DSL service tops out at 6 Mbps, which doesn't hold a candle to what you're capable of getting over cable. If your son's into gaming, I'd probably try for at least 20 Mbps for a decent experience, though obviously the faster the better.
posted by Aleyn at 5:45 PM on September 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

The cable guy did not "rip the cables out" of your house. That would have been felony vandalism, since the wires in your house are owned by you. He may have completely removed the drop from the pole or pedestal, but even that is unlikely. Most likely, he disconnected the line that goes to your house, which could be easily reconnected. Even if the drop is missing, running a new one is part of the installation charge (which they sometimes waive, by the way).

All this is to say that cable is an option, and if Uverse is not available and at&t is your local phone company, will be your only option for higher speed Internet service unless there happens to be a wireless ISP in your area, which is not terribly likely.

You can run a speed test at speedtest.net to get an idea of what you actually have now. If it took literally days to download an update for a game, I suspect it is 384 or 768Kbps. If you are close enough to the phone company's office you might be able to get 1.5Mbps, 3Mbps, or even 6Mbps, but even 6Mbps is pretty darn slow seeming these days. Time Warner likely has a deal for 10-15Mbps for less than $40 a month.

FWIW, Comcast's lowest price Internet package (that has faster-than-DSL speed, anyway) includes a limited cable TV package that includes HBO. If Time Warner is the same, don't be afraid to get the bundle. That you have access to TV service does not mean you actually have to use it! We don't, other than HBO Go streaming.

I don't know if they do it that way in the hope that people decide later to get a full TV package, if their contracts with programming providers make it cheaper for them, or if they just prefer their annual report to show fewer Internet-only customers, but it works for me.
posted by wierdo at 6:17 PM on September 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

To second weirdo, based on the pricing I've seen, the only person you're hurting is yourself if you refuse to get a package with any TV included at all. Meaning, with the cable companies I've had in recent history, the internet-only package is more expensive than the internet+tv package. Just don't hook the TV up to the cable, pretend it doesn't exist, and happily enjoy the fast service and lower price...
posted by primethyme at 6:35 PM on September 12, 2015

Best answer: Is it as simple as purchasing a more up-to-date router/modem thingy?

If you switch to cable internet you will need a new modem. TWC will happily rent you one for a monthly fee, but the more cost-efficient way to do it is to buy it yourself. Look online for a cable modem marked as "DOCSIS 3.0 compatible". TWC will also have a list somewhere of modems that work with their service.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:39 PM on September 12, 2015

DSL is slow, fix that first by switching to cable internet.

Once on cable you are going to benefit from using a fast flavor of Wi-Fi. How old is your Airport Extreme? You should use a model recent enough to do 802.11N at least, or even better 802.11AC (assuming you have devices that can take advantage).
posted by w0mbat at 8:54 PM on September 12, 2015

I agree that you should switch to TWC's internet, and then you should replace, ASAP, the 'modem' (it's a modem by convention, but a router or "bridge" by function) that TWC rents you with a DOCSIS 3.0 (or higher) modem. This will run you about $50-60 bucks, but you can view this as an opportunity to get a more expensive one with its own WiFi to replace your AirPort. It will still have multiple wired ports on it (probably 4), but it'll have more up to date WiFi Standards including, possible, Wireless N or Wireless AC, which will future-proof your network a little bit.
posted by Sunburnt at 11:38 PM on September 12, 2015

We had to go through a few steps to get truly high-speed internet throughout the whole house.

We have TWC cable internet. They're horrible & should be dismantled as s company, but that's another story. They're the only provider of truly high-speed internet available to us.

Now, it is fast. The wired connection to my desktop is outrageously fast.

We purchased the same Motorola modem/router combo that TWC rented, and the speed dropped exponentially as you moved away from the router. It was so bad that we couldn't stream Netflix on the other end of our modestly-sized house. But buying an additional Netgear router (in the $200 range) & using the Motorola strictly as a modem now gives us pretty fast speeds anywhere in the house.
posted by univac at 1:30 AM on September 13, 2015

Call TWC, tell them you are thinking of switching from EarthLink and ask for the best deal they have on an internet only package. You will probably get one year for like $29 a month with speeds that will make your kid MUCH happier.
posted by bkeene12 at 7:07 AM on September 13, 2015

Best answer: As has been mentioned already (by Sunburnt, among others), switching to cable will likely mean you can still get significant speed boosts by getting your own equipment (modem/router) instead of what the cable company will give you. And this can also be economical, given they actually rent the equipment to you.

I'm pretty well technically oriented, but since I am really lazy about research, I just go to The Wirecutter and see what they say about what's best. Here are their recommendations about the best cable modem and the best wi-fi router (for most people). They also have a review on the best cheap router if you want to save some money.

If reading/skimming through those reviews is overwhelming, my quick suggestion is to go through this list and stop when you're satisfied.

1. Switch to cable, getting whatever bundle is a good deal (just because they provide TV doesn't mean you need to use it)
2. Get a new cable modem, the top suggestion in the Wirecutter review (or the runner-up if you want to save some money)
3. Get a new wi-fi router, maybe a new Airport Express if its setup/management is really comfortable for you. Or take the suggestions from the Wirecutter reviews.
posted by cardioid at 6:16 PM on September 13, 2015

All the answers here are wrong. The issue is due to Wi-Fi interference or saturation. Basically, your router is affected by sources of interference on the 2.4 ghz, which causes your connection to drop or become slow.

Read these articles and follow the advice given.

http://www.howtogeek.com/209450/how-you-and-your-neighbors-are-making-each-other%E2%80%99s-wi-fi-worse-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

http://serverfault.com/questions/380019/how-to-get-2-4ghz-wifi-to-work-in-an-area-with-high-interference
posted by GiveUpNed at 8:52 AM on September 14, 2015

All the answers here are wrong. The issue is due to Wi-Fi interference or saturation.

There is not enough information in the original question to justify that statement, and it's kind of rude.
If sitting right next to the wi-fi box (or connecting with ethernet) fixes all the problems, then yes it's a wi-fi issue. You are never going to get more than a few megabit for downloads over that DSL connection though, even on ethernet.
posted by w0mbat at 9:58 AM on September 14, 2015