How much are folk here paying for internet?

[Member-222782]

My bill is about $84 a month (Xfinity) after a 1 year promotion of $63. Not too bad but I'm more worried about some conglomerate going around buying up local phone/internet companies. I thought there were laws against monopolies?

[gardengirl1331]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

My bill is about $84 a month (Xfinity) after a 1 year promotion of $63. Not too bad but I'm more worried about some conglomerate going around buying up local phone/internet companies. I thought there were laws against monopolies?

That's the problem, this company seems to have already bought out 3 local phone companies in our state with plans for a lot more. There aren't many local phone companies left here. Now there most likely will be none. We don't get cell service up at our house either (another reason we've never owned one) and over the summer some guy was in our yard looking at the pole for a while, I went out to see where he was from (hoping our company was actually looking to get to fiber up here!!) but he was from the state saying he was looking into where exactly the boundaries were for internet because a few of the companies have been lying to the state about where they serve! I was joking with him about how horrible our internet is and how we don't have cell service up here and he said he'd mention it. Then we got chatting about the blue birds in our yard, he said he just got into birding and wanted to show me something on his phone then laughed and said "yeah you're right you don't have anything up here, I can't get on my phone." haha. Not sure if anything will change with the state coming around. But we only have two options the phone company and the cable company. When we originally moved up here about 18 years ago the last rental we had TV was $8 a month for basic basic, like networks only, and was going up to $24! HUGE increase, but not surprising since it was so cheap. But up here it was $65 for basic!!!??? What?! We never did hook up cable. We then bought the house we're in now (we rented the house across the street for years and then bought this place 8+ years ago) Tried to price a few things again and it's the same, it's crazy expensive, through the cable company the service is WAY WAY worse according to the previous owner (works for IBM) so we've never bothered even trying. So yeah it's basically a monopoly up here. This new company coming in buying up all the small mom and pop local phone companies is bad. They should have just started their own and built on to everything else to create competition, but no they bully their way in knowing they'll make bank.

[Member-222782]

^ You may want to consider Starlink or some other satellite-based IP, whom I think cater to rural customers and/or others who cannot be served by traditional providers. I know next to nothing about these services so I can't give advice beyond what I've already posted.

I hope whoever is buying up telecomms is at least an American company. Scary to think there are real megalomaniacal companies/corporations out there actually looking for worldwide domination

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by Jennifer Lawrence Fan

The company was originally RCN. But they got bought up and its astound Broadband now. Its gotten way worse since they took over. I have no idea what the speed is. Sure its got to be good for what i am paying,. that's just internet alone. No Cable or Phone.

I use RCN/Astound. They're not bad. I'd take them over Spectrum any day. My parents have Spectrum and they deal with outages every week. It's crazy. I rarely have outages with Astound.

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by kim_nancy

Wow, that does seem steep! I pay around $80 for internet, including wifi and taxes. It's frustrating when the bill unexpectedly spikes. Maybe check with your provider about any hidden fees or promotions?

My RCN/Astound bill is going to spike up to $90 next month, so time to call them to negotiate another promotion. Always have to do it every year, and so far, they've been giving me a new promotion every year for 9 years now.

Verizon Fios just became available in my building, so I've wondering if it's worth switching to that. I have a cell phone service with them that I'm already paying $70/month on. I'm wondering if they have a nice package for cell phone and home internet...

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by MrHT

My RCN/Astound bill is going to spike up to $90 next month, so time to call them to negotiate another promotion. Always have to do it every year, and so far, they've been giving me a new promotion every year for 9 years now.

Verizon Fios just became available in my building, so I've wondering if it's worth switching to that. I have a cell phone service with them that I'm already paying $70/month on. I'm wondering if they have a nice package for cell phone and home internet...

Yup, just as I predicted, RCN/Astound tried raising my bill from $70 to $90, but I called them right up and they placed me on another one year promotion to get it back down to $70 again. It never fails. They always lower my bill when I ask.

[zman73]

$55 a month after taxes 300 fiber

[sfmarine]

Still paying $120 for Starlink but it works great and is my only option. Not going back to DSL with 3mb down!

[creepycrab]

I currently pay about $110 a month for 25 Mbps satellite internet that effectively craps out once I hit my 100 GB data limit.

Thankfully, the local ISP has finally expanded fiber service to my area, and I'm scheduled to get my 1 Gbps hookup later this week for $80/month.

[JDub1]

I renewed with my internet provider for another year and they kept my rates the same as last year. Small win for me.

[loxly]

120.00 a month for fiber - 1600 down/1000 up, includes the 10.00 for unlimited downloads (no throttling after a certain amount)

[ReVision]

I'm paying 42 euro's a month for 1000/1000 fiber (and no bandwidth cap)

[Vilya]

I pay $14.99 per month for 100 Mbps up/ 20 Mbps down with no data cap.

[Socko]

Mine has changed now.
Price is still 69 euros, but the speed is 1Gbit Up and Down

[Nunab18]

$105 a month (Xfinity) for 200mb up, not much local competition.

[jd_from_da_80s]

I have Spectrum with charges 84.99 plus taxes & fees for 500 Mbps, but I only pay 39.99 after promotional discounts. Total I pay about 190 though because I have a cable/internet bundle

[scullymills]

I pay too much $180ish for unlimited up to 2.5GBPS down and it’s only bc the company pretty much has a monopoly and the competition is too slow and unreliable for my area and household. Total crap but it’s one thing this household needs.

[vista-vision]

Free bump up in internet speed today from 200 to 250/255 down and 30 up (probably another raise coming in the monthly sub price, the provider always plays it that way but maybe not this year because the whole city also has the fiber optic cable choice at a lower price and my internet provider already lost customers (i'm still on copper coaxial wire)
So far this year i pay 59.25 euro/62,65 dollar for internet and a fixed phone landline combo (phone over the same provider cable)

[bhampton]

Whatever it is I try not to think about it.

They say Fiber is coming to our town soon and I know we will get that and it may or may not be expensive but I won't be buying at anything but the basic tier. My house in Florida has fiber but it's still something like $40/month. (I hope.)

I'm not very interested in computers these days it's kind of ironic because I used to like them so much.

[BizCat]

Spectrum for internet; I want to say it's around $90/mo