Need to switch ISP (advice please)

[Qalbert]

long story short I transferred to a college close to home due to $$$ issues and am currently living at home again. Current Internet is Verizon 1mbps DSL. Torrents max out around 80kbps, and if anyone is downloading anything the whole connection runs like dialup. Xbox Live is hardly playable. So what would be a good, but fairly inexpensive upgrade/switch for decent online performance? (I live in Norfolk, VA near the navy base, since location can be a factor) basically I pay my folks whatever the difference is per month to upgrade the internet connection so yeah any tips/suggestions?

[Ruiner]

Unfortunately, Verizon is pretty much the best ISP out there. I would highly recommend against Comcast and Time Warner, though.

[Qalbert]

so what would be the best upgrade? I honestly don't know as much about connection speeds as I would like, lol. I basically want to be able to torrent/megaupload etc, while browsing at a good speed, and have fairly lagless xboxlive as well. How fast of a connection should I upgrade to? is that FiOS upgrade overkill? I hear good things about fiber optics.

[Julian]

I think Verizon is probably one of the better ISPs around that hasn't gone to crap yet >.>

Since you have Verizon in your area, if they also have FIOS available, that would be the best that you could get. Do you care at all about uploading or seeding torrents? (like, a private tracker where you need to keep a ratio) If so, FIOS is the way to go.

Otherwise, just look to upgrade to a better Verizon plan. 1megabit = 125kB, but it will always be a bit less than that, so just keep that in mind when looking at other plans. If with 1mbit you're getting 80kB, then use that as a rule of thumb, 10mbit will probably give around 800kB/s

I'm pretty sure Verizon doesn't have any monthly caps like other ISPs? I'd take advantage of that lol

[OzzofAsura]

I don't know if it's available there or not, but I have Optimum Online and it's absolutely great. Only a bit more than DSL, and way faster and more reliable.

[Cjskater]

If you want to torrent and download from megaupload + online gaming at the same time, the only advice I could give is just cap them at a certain speed. There's no connection out there that could handle full speed torrenting + other downloads without making your online gaming almost unplayable. If you was to cap them though, you can get probably away with it. The main thing is capping that upload speed on the torrents.

If you have a low upload speed, like 40kb/s, then you will need to cap it (torrents) around 10kb/s in my experience. Download speed doesn't effect your connection much as far as browsing and gaming goes as long as what you are doing isn't too bandwidth heavy. A maxed out upload will bring your connection to it's knees while a maxed out download will only make things a little slower. If you had 800kb/s download you could cap it at 650kb/s (and max that out with torrents/megaupload) and probably wouldn't notice a thing as far as online gaming goes. Another thing that likes to bog a connection down is how many connections are open while torrenting.

Conclusion: Get the best plan you can and cap your bandwidth.

---
small note: I'm no expert either, I'm probably wrong on some of these things, just telling you what I know from experience.

[Qalbert]

no FiOS available here so do you think the 7mbps would be enough?

[Stee]

are you looking for cable type speed or dsl speed but reliable?

I have a DSL connection (SBC/AT&T) they're slow compared to cable speeds but they're reliable, at least for me. Speed is always the same and its enough to do everything.

But if they offered verizon FIOS here I would switch.

[Qalbert]

what would be involved in going from dsl to cable? how expensive/installation heavy?

[Sqwunk]

no FiOS available here so do you think the 7mbps would be enough?

We currently have the 1mbps plan like you (torrents almost never going above 80 kbps)

Although it's not verizon anymore up here, it's fairpoint, quite frankly, Verizon's customer support is pretty horrid. So far fairpoint has been great, and I intend to upgrade to their 7mbps plan in the near future. Fios is not an option in small towns like mine

[OzzofAsura]

what would be involved in going from dsl to cable? how expensive/installation heavy?

MY cable was free installation and 29.99 for the first 6 months, then 40-something I believe. Speedtest.net clocks it at 15mbps download/~ 7mbps upload.

[Qalbert]

Im looking at 37.99 for 7mbps verizon (2 year contract required)
or Cox cable 10mbps 39.95 for 12 motnhs then 43.95.
Leaning towards Cox at the monet (heh heh).
Anyone have experience with Cox internet?
Downside is installation is not included, what all would I need to buy/install?

[Sonomaa]

cable is almost always better than DSL, but can vary, sometimes it gets slow if a lot of people are using it
fios is always the best.

[Qalbert]

MY cable was free installation and 29.99 for the first 6 months, then 40-something I believe. Speedtest.net clocks it at 15mbps download/~ 7mbps upload.

What company?

[Kerberoz]

TWC was free "installation" and it's like $70/mo for digital cable + internet. 20mbps down/0.5mbps up and generally pretty reliable/good pings.

[Stee]

Depends on the cable company really. I heard way too many horror stories about Comcast, Time Warner to even bother with that.

The only choices I have in my area is sbc dsl or comcast....so sticking with dsl till a new service comes in.

[Guyverarmor]

Depends on the cable company really. I heard way too many horror stories about Comcast, Time Warner to even bother with that.

The only choices I have in my area is sbc dsl or comcast....so sticking with dsl till a new service comes in.

DIfferent people have different stories. I have had alot of customers come from SBC saying it sucks balls soo... yeah.... and I am supe at TWC So I hear both sides... I know some of customers have bad exp. with us as well.

[Akucaen]

You're a bit too far to the west, but Suddenlink is a fantastic service. TWC basically up and left our area a while back and Suddenlink moved in in their place. As far as ISPs go, they've been fantastic. 24/7 tech support with people who speak English (from America,) I actually get the download and upload speeds I was promised (10Mb service and I usually cap at 1.1~MB/s), if you even have a lick of technical knowledge the guys will go off script to help you figure out a problem assuming you can keep up with them, and they don't have any kind of caps in place. I may sound fanboyish by how I back them up, but they basically do everything about internet providing... correctly. The only "downside" is that 10Mb service is their fastest home service. Their business class lines get rediculously fast but also cost the same price to go with it. (I know they'll offer up to 500Mb services, the school just bought one.)

They're effectively the Alltel of cable providers. The underdog that provides fan-fucking-tasting service and no one has really heard of them.

Edit, pricing "may" be a downside, I don't know. I paid $35 for a 10mb service for 6 months as an introductory rate. I'm now paying $54 a month for it, but it's worth every penny for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

Edit 2 - Or you can pay $30 for 1.5Mb WiMAX internet via Clearwire. They'll do 2Mb, but you have to bundle it with other crap and makes it something like $70 a month.

[Qalbert]

so we are switching to cox cable preferred plan, and need to buy a modem/router, ideally 4 ethernet ports and wireless, and tips as to a good brand?

[Celeste]

D-Link is pretty good. Also, Comcast isn't terrible at all. I download a ton of movies, music, and video games every month too. Their cap isn't ridiculous. Not that I like it anymore, but I get great speeds out here. Verizon doesn't offer service in my area, and all I'd get with AT&T is 768 kb/s, which is shit compared to the 15-22 mb/s I get with Comcast.