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Comcrap alternatives?

TylerW said:
Have you checked with Monkeybrains?
Click to expand...

I heard they have lag from this barfer who was playing games, and cut their service after that.
ALso how would they fare with air full with smoke and heavy particles sadly. : |

And then.. there's this :gsxrgrl:laughing:party

https://twitter.com/monkeybrainsnet/status/1445164189241147393

and also this
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskSF/comments/7m0js1/has_anyone_had_problems_with_monkeybrains_isp/
I'm having tons of problems. Slow throughput (often <1 mpbs, especially in the evenings). Ridiculous lag spikes at one of their microwave relays (like 1500ms bad). Random outages (often PG&E's fault but that doesn't matter to me if I have no connection). Spotty support at best, zero support on weekends and evenings.

I've been a customer for a couple of years now. I think they're super good people. And when the connection is up and working, it's great.
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from a few years ago.
 
AbsolutEnduser said:
I heard they have lag from this barfer who was playing games, and cut their service after that.
ALso how would they fare with air full with smoke and heavy particles sadly. : |

And then.. there's this :gsxrgrl:laughing:party

https://twitter.com/monkeybrainsnet/status/1445164189241147393
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That's one of the reasons I love them so much!
and also this
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskSF/comments/7m0js1/has_anyone_had_problems_with_monkeybrains_isp/

from a few years ago.
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I do know some folks who had a really rotten experience with them, both in terms of service and inability/unwillingness to resolve the problems, but those experiences are few and far between. For my experience, they were fast, cheap, and incredibly reliable. I think I had a single outage in the 4 years I was with them. The 2018 fires were no issue with the service.

They're hands down the best ISP I've ever used, and one of the few things I miss about living in SF.
 
uclaktsai said:
I'll just quote myself again haha.

Keep your modem and router separate. Arris SB8200 is what I use for a modem. You'll make your money back in < 2years, but the modem will be good for years and years. Ubiquiti is my recommendation for router, mesh router, access points, switching, etc.

If you have a one story house, keep your router high. The closer to the ceiling, the better. If you have a 2 story house, near the ground on the second floor works too.

If there's a lot of WiFi networks around, you can use a WiFi analyzer to see what bands they're using
ie
iu


Find a channel that is least impacted, and you'll have less overall interference. Otherwise, there isn't much you can do about a congested network. Use 5GHz for shorter range, high throughput. Use 2.4GHz for longer range, but lower throughput.
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Noted, thanks.

So looks like the consensus is Netgear AX6000 for a router...modem is either CM1200 or Arris SB8200?
 
Comcast Xfinity has been down for my parents (El Cerrito) for 2 days now
 
I get constant packet loss with Comcrap ever since I moved in. They've come and replaced lines twice now and said they were putting in a ticket for looking at the stuff outside the house at the street level now.

Their wifi from the modem / router combo it comes with sucks balls despite it being their latest and greatest. Really screwing up my Netflix & Chill, not to mention streaming Giants games.

Can someone break down for me why or which of these I should snag? Bassem?

Netgear - Nighthawk AX6000

vs

TP-Link - AX6600

Is there a newer one I should be looking at instead? Cheaper one?

Netgear - Nighthawk AX5400 maybe?

I'm aiming for one-and-done, and have a hunch overkill will help keep speeds up at max throughout my house (if it says supports 2500 sq ft, I figure that means "you'll get connection, barely, at the limits of that and realistically full max speed only in a rough sphere for 1/2 that").
 
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gnahc79 said:
mesh only if you really need it. having multiple devices just increases the probability of things going wrong, turning things off and on again. for ~1000 sq ft with a centrally placed wifi router, not really necessary.

fancy new one from netgear, $1500 lol

https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/12...wi-fi-6e-mesh-router-release-date-specs-price
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My experience has been the opposite. When I was using non-mesh routers, mostly by TPLink, they would crash with regularity, every other month or so.

I don't know what I've ever had my current mesh router or any of it's nodes crash. I've had them for four years.
 
gnahc79 said:
mesh only if you really need it. having multiple devices just increases the probability of things going wrong, turning things off and on again. for ~1000 sq ft with a centrally placed wifi router, not really necessary.

fancy new one from netgear, $1500 lol

https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/12...wi-fi-6e-mesh-router-release-date-specs-price
Click to expand...
My mesh has been working flawlessly for almost a year. It will also connect up to 100 devices and you have a single password for the whole mesh.
 
could be brand specific. Before our netgear ax6000 I had some TP link router. Not as reliable. It kept glitching after we switched our internet from AT&T ~40Mbps to Comcast 1GB speed. The router specs should have been able to handle the new speed...nope. I think after less than a week of covid online school zoom connections cutting out I drove over to Best Buy and got the new router.
 
gnahc79 said:
could be brand specific.
Click to expand...

It absolutely is.

I'll keep beating the Ubiquiti drum, as ours has been rock solid. I've installed a couple of variations in two different homes; my home has the Dream Machine Pro with two enterprise access points. Each will support 500 connections and each has two 1GB ethernet backhauls that are link aggregated for a 2GB throughput. The other installation is a standard Dream Machine, covering a 1,600 sqft home. The one device is perfectly adequate, though the Internet connection is far slower in that area. Still the WiFi signal is strong everywhere in the house and well into the yard.

These things never crash, which I can't say for any of the consumer gear I've had.
 
NorCalAthlete said:
I get constant packet loss with Comcrap ever since I moved in.
Click to expand...

How bad? More than 1% or so lost packets and everything will suck, need to deal with that first.
 
rodr said:
How bad? More than 1% or so lost packets and everything will suck, need to deal with that first.
Click to expand...
It spikes. It'll be fine for a time then jump to like 40%+ and lag out.

Initially the old line from garage to house was chewed through and in bad shape. First tech replaced that section. Minor improvement.

2nd tech came out and replaced the entire line from street to house and removed splitters / relays going to dead / cut lines. Significant improvement, but still drops - he said he put in a ticket to have them start looking at the street connection but I have no updates to where that's at / how it's going.

tzrider said:
Also, is the packet loss similar on Ethernet as on WiFi?
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Far worse on WiFi. Ethernet I mainly notice when gaming and occasionally while watching movies / on meetings, or sometimes websites will seemingly freeze up / all systems lag for a few seconds before catching up and then all tabs update.

Also varies by device. Wifi to laptop in living room > laptop HDMI to TV = works relatively fine. Directly connecting smart TV to wifi? Lags out so much it's 20 seconds of watching something vs 2 minutes of buffering / freezing / catching up. Makes it basically unwatchable. So I don't want to have to keep daisy chaining the laptop.

At the moment the only "live" cable line for the modem is in the master bedroom, but I did have an electrician run ethernet lines up through the attic to the central closet so my plan is :

- cable from outside to modem in bedroom
- modem to wall to attic to wiring closet (1 line)
- router in closet gives central wifi but also has hard line to living room (via attic and down the wall)
 
NorCalAthlete said:
Directly connecting smart TV to wifi? Lags out so much it's 20 seconds of watching something vs 2 minutes of buffering / freezing / catching up.
Click to expand...

older smart TVs are seriously underpowered for using its built-in wifi + its own smart TV apps. Even with a wired connection smart TV apps aren't that great. No idea if it's gotten better with recent smart tvs. We have an Amazon FireTV Cube and it works great.


+1 on having as much clear LOS for a wifi router, not in a closet. If you want to get extra fancy do the Ubiquiti setup with APs mounted on the ceiling all corporate-like :)
 
Comcast on the phone is saying my modem is getting fed too much power and that's putting it out of spec...causing packet loss, poor wifi signal, and some other stuff.

Downstream receive power level - coax line not wall outlet

Modem is supposed to have a "healthy" number between -8 and +10 decibels per millivolt

Mine is consistently at 11 on average.

They're gonna send another (3rd time) tech out to replace lines through the attic now and then put in a ticket for refer to maintenance for street level inspections.
 
A couple of years ago I started having frequent short outages from Comcast. It took months to track down all of the reasons but in our case it wasn't just one thing. A squirrel had chewed a wire at the pole. The cable run into the house had a tight coil to take up some slack that produced some interference. The modem was buggy (probably memory leak) and would become unresponsive after a few days' run time. It would function but you couldn't log into the GUI after five days or so.

It did take constant complaining on my part, but eventually they worked through those issues and the service has been stable. I still run three external uptime monitors and they detect a short outage in the middle of the night once a month or so. Though the monitors detect these, we never notice them.
 
Well, time to bump this. Got them to give me a promo for a while but it expired in August / September so my bill is going up by $25 / month.

In the meantime I've at least been able to monitor and build a profile on data usage and it looks like I average 500-700GB per month.

This looks good for the router:
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08TGPTQ14/

Need a modem suggestion. According to comcast, compatible options with my internet speed (1.2 Gbps) are:
  • Arris G36
  • Arris S33
  • Arris S33v2
  • Motorola B12
  • Motorola MB8611
  • Motorola MG8725
  • Motorola MT8733
  • Netgear CAX80
  • Netgear CM2000
  • Netgear GM2050V
  • Hitron Technologies CODA56

Currently on the phone with Comcast. God they're frustrating to deal with.

See if this pricing scheme makes sense to you guys:

Unlimited data: $30 / month
Unlimited data + their wifi router/modem: $25 / month
Wifi router/modem without unlimited data: $14 / month

My bill: Going up by $25 / month due to promo on unlimited data expiring. Have been using their modem / router the whole time. Asked to cancel just the unlimited data and the support agent sent me an approval request to cancel both my internet + unlimited data package but assured me that despite what the approval said, it would only remove my unlimited portion. "It's just a package sir that's just the name of your internet package I assure you you will still have internet after signing this."

Me: "I don't trust that. It says "Gigabit internet - cancelled" right there.
CS: "No sir that's just the name of your internet package."
Me: "Yes I understand that. I don't want to cancel the entire thing."
CS: "No sir it's just unlimited that will be cancelled."
Me: "I thought you said the unlimited portion was called 'xFi complete' and was completely separate from my internet?"
CS: "Yes sir that is correct."
Me: "That's my point. I have 2 line items on this form. Line 1 says 'Gigabit internet - cancelled.' Line 2 says 'xFi complete - cancelled'. Why are you adding a line item for my internet to be cancelled if it is completely separate?"
CS: "Sir we're not cancelling anything it is just the name of your internet package."
Me: "And my internet is completely separate from the unlimited data xFi complete package correct?"
CS: "Correct."
Me: "Then remake this authorization request without my internet being listed as cancelled and I'll sign it."
CS: "Sir I assure you that's just the package name and nothing will change..."
 
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