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Cable ISPs Offered Fastest Speeds in 2011*
*At Least Among Largest ISPs, And Thanks to Slow DSL

Todd Spangler over at cable-industry trade magazine Multichannel News crows that cable operators came out on top in 2011 in terms of speed. According to data compiled over at the Ookla Net Index, the six fastest residential ISPs in the U.S. based on average download speed were Comcast, Charter Communications, Cablevision Systems, Time Warner Cable and Insight Communications.

The rankings only included the nation's largest carriers (omitting smaller, faster municipal, independent Co-Op or Google fiber operations) and results from both DSL and FTTH/N were blended together, bringing down average speeds for both AT&T and Verzion:
quote:
Comcast and Charter delivered average download speeds of 17.19 Megabits per second, followed by Cablevision at 16.40 Mbps, Cox at 15.76 Mbps, TWC at 14.41 Mbps and Insight at 14.22 Mbps. Verizon Communications fared better than its telco peers with an average download speed of 12.94 Mbps, thanks to FiOS Internet, its fiber-to-the-home service that provides up to 150 Mbps downstream. And overall, Verizon had the highest upstream speeds with an average of 7.41 Mbps. Still, the company's legacy DSL services dragged down overall speeds.
Cable's dominance isn't expected to change anytime soon here in the States, with many more rural-focused telcos (Windstream, CenturyLink, Frontier, Fairpoint) lacking the funds to seriously upgrade to fiber to the home, and larger companies like AT&T and Verizon all but halting their last mile upgrades.
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Rob_
Premium Member
join:2008-07-16
Mary Esther, FL

Rob_

Premium Member

Kill the CAPS

If they stopped with the caps, then we can truly use their product. I feel like were being damned just because we might not want their cable tv or telephone. Which is severely overpriced.

I love it how Cox's phone service is only $29.00 then it's about $50.00 total. that's insane!

Watch out for metered billing coming soon to an ISP near you.

-Rob
Wilsdom
join:2009-08-06

Wilsdom

Member

Re: Kill the CAPS

Yeah, Comcast, Charter, Cablevision and Cox don't deserve any kind of ranking. My ISP is fastest of all! 100Pbps/100Pbps monthly limit: 0 KB.
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO

1 recommendation

rradina to Rob_

Member

to Rob_
Re: $29 becomes $50

Thanks to the FCC, fed, state and local government fees/taxes.

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium Member
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

dvd536

Premium Member

Re: Kill the CAPS

said by rradina:

Re: $29 becomes $50

Thanks to the FCC, fed, state and local government fees/taxes.

Not all of those are mandated taxes, some are "official sounding" fees but in reality are just additional profit items below the line known as "unfees"
45612019 (banned)
join:2004-02-05
New York, NY

45612019 (banned) to Rob_

Member

to Rob_
Yeah, why exactly are Comcap, Charter and Cox in the rankings again? Their pathetic bandwidth caps effectively limit your connection's average speed for the billing period to under 1 Mbps. What impressive broadband! I don't care if Comcap claims to have a 50 Mbps package, as long as it has that cap, it's a 1 Mbps package. Period.

Time Warner Cable, Verizon and Cablevision are the only three that deserve to be on that list as none have caps at this time.
pandora
Premium Member
join:2001-06-01
Outland

pandora

Premium Member

Comcast Business wants your business!

Last time I looked, anyone can get Comcast Business which has no published caps.
45612019 (banned)
join:2004-02-05
New York, NY

45612019 (banned)

Member

Re: Comcast Business wants your business!

Last time I looked, anyone can get a business class connection from any ISP and spend a fortune doing so.

We're talking about residential here buddy.
pandora
Premium Member
join:2001-06-01
Outland

pandora

Premium Member

Re: Comcast Business wants your business!

said by 45612019:

Last time I looked, anyone can get a business class connection from any ISP and spend a fortune doing so.

We're talking about residential here buddy.

ANY Comcast residential user can switch to Comcast business and avoid the caps bud.
majortom1029
join:2006-10-19
Medford, NY

majortom1029 to Rob_

Member

to Rob_
Cablevision stopped their caps a while ago.

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium Member
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

dvd536

Premium Member

Re: Kill the CAPS

said by majortom1029:

Cablevision stopped their caps a while ago.

Only because verizon fios' isn't capped. watch how fast CV puts caps on when/if VZ puts caps on fios.

jkj860
The Final Frontier
join:2002-01-10
Valparaiso, IN

1 edit

jkj860 to Rob_

Member

to Rob_
Caps don't affect me too much. We have 3 desktops, two laptops, 4 Ipods, 3 Xbox's, and a Wii primarily used for netflix all connected with 5 users in the house. And the speeds from Comcast have always been very steady.
»www.speedtest.net/result ··· 3221.png
krazyfiend
join:2011-02-15

1 edit

krazyfiend

Member

Re: Kill the CAPS

Can we trade families? I'm down in Carmel, not too far away from Valpo =)

It seems my family is a bit more Internet consumption hungry (I've blocked torrents via dd-wrt and can confirm we are spy/adware free on all OS based devices)

Three PS3s, One Netflix Account, Two WDTV lives (newer one's), Three laptops, Two Tablets, One HTPC w XBMC, and my i7 dream/Work From Home rig




Dec was down because we were out of town for 2 wks of it...sigh, this is what I get for helping produce copies of my tech inclined self I guess. I do run a media server for kalemsoft and splashtop streamer use for when we are outside the home...so I have been thinking about Business grade to get a faster Up speed w/ no caps.

I will admit, we barely turn 'cable' on...I keep the digitial economy pkg since it makes sense on the internet discount. We practically stream all content-- IceFilms plug-in is a nice one indeed.

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium Member
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

dvd536 to Rob_

Premium Member

to Rob_
said by Rob_:

I love it how Cox's phone service is only $29.00 then it's about $50.00 total. that's insane!

Thats with all the unfees and EVERYONES doing that.
Phone is pretty lucrative only second to settop rentals as far as how much it *really* costs to provide the service.

mix
join:2002-03-19
Romeo, MI

mix

Member

Here is my one issue

Are you more likely to visit a Ookla speed test website when your internet is seemingly working perfectly at top speeds, or when it seems like its slow or malfunctioning? This is the data they are using for these results...

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

1 recommendation

battleop

Member

Re: Here is my one issue

If you are a DSLR reader it's when it's working at it's peak so you can post your speed in a "Mine is bigger than yours" contest. For everyone else it's when it's broken or you think that you are being cheated out of .0234902384 Mbps.

Corehhi
join:2002-01-28
Bluffton, SC

1 recommendation

Corehhi

Member

Re: Here is my one issue

said by battleop:

If you are a DSLR reader it's when it's working at it's peak so you can post your speed in a "Mine is bigger than yours" contest. For everyone else it's when it's broken or you think that you are being cheated out of .0234902384 Mbps.

I do that. LOL>
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO

rradina to mix

Member

to mix
Good point. I usually run a test when things feel sluggish so I can determine if I have a problem. If I get my typical speed, I look for another explanation. If speeds are slow, I test several sites. If it's consistently slow, I reboot the modem/router and test again. If it's still slow, I periodically test until the problem clears or I determine that it's bad enough to call for service.
chgo_man99
join:2010-01-01
Sunnyvale, CA

chgo_man99

Member

Speed is not all

When mediacom(mediacrap) during peak hours shows download speed of 5/mb, I get most video services like Hulu suffering. But videos will load a lot faster on 2mb 3G /hspa connection. Really nonsense.
CrobertGauth
join:2007-12-15
Glen Burnie, MD

CrobertGauth

Member

Stupid Comparison

This is the stupidest thing in the world? Are they being paid by Comcast? Why didn't they include download speeds from cell phones as well.
They should compare by type (cable to cable).

Jerm
join:2000-04-10
Richland, WA
·Ziply Fiber

Jerm

Member

Re: Stupid Comparison

They just publish the results of their data. Pretty simple.

I have Charter (historically one of the worst) but they have been "keeping up" with Comcast's upgrades so this really makes sense.

Of course the killer thing here is SPEEDBOOST/POWERBOOST. I may only pay for 16mbps but I can get up to around 30mbps on some tests.

If I go with DSL I get 3mbps.
chgo_man99
join:2010-01-01
Sunnyvale, CA

chgo_man99

Member

Re: Stupid Comparison

said by Jerm:

They just publish the results of their data. Pretty simple.

I have Charter (historically one of the worst) but they have been "keeping up" with Comcast's upgrades so this really makes sense.

Of course the killer thing here is SPEEDBOOST/POWERBOOST. I may only pay for 16mbps but I can get up to around 30mbps on some tests.

If I go with DSL I get 3mbps.

Mediacom is a lot worse. trust me!
Bengie25
join:2010-04-22
Wisconsin Rapids, WI

Bengie25 to Jerm

Member

to Jerm
I have the 30mb package and I burst up to ~100mb/s. I typically get ~8-10.5MBytes/sec when downloading from Steam/Blizzard for the first few seconds.

keithps
Premium Member
join:2002-06-26
Soddy Daisy, TN

keithps to CrobertGauth

Premium Member

to CrobertGauth
said by CrobertGauth:

This is the stupidest thing in the world? Are they being paid by Comcast? Why didn't they include download speeds from cell phones as well.
They should compare by type (cable to cable).

And then what, see that the slowest user on my ISP is probably getting 25Mbps up and down for the same price as Comcast? Then cable would look bad.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080

Member

no pressure?

AT&T seems to have no pressure on them to improve pathetic Uverse DSL speeds beyond 25 megabits. They also seem to shrug off docsis 3 deployments as well. It's YOU the consumer in these markets that should be putting pressure on AT&T to do better. Break the AT&T/Comcast logjam.

Aozora
join:2008-11-28

Aozora

Member

Re: no pressure?

said by tmc8080:

AT&T seems to have no pressure on them to improve pathetic Uverse DSL speeds beyond 25 megabits. They also seem to shrug off docsis 3 deployments as well. It's YOU the consumer in these markets that should be putting pressure on AT&T to do better. Break the AT&T/Comcast logjam.

Chicago has Comcast or ATT with U-verse being half assed deployed and many areas who have it "available" only have the lower packages in speeds with no better caps than Comcast. RCN has a throttling policy and a real small foot print in Chicago. How exactly do you put pressure on them? All I see them sending are updates about them raising prices so I don't think they are feeling any pressure or going to feel any in the foreseeable future.

Pisgah Rider
join:2004-04-08
Inman, SC

Pisgah Rider

Member

Charter still blows

Who cares how fast it is if it always has problems. One week back with charter & i remember why i left. DNS issues from hell.

I did keep my slower but rock solid dsl. Kinda figured that pc mag test was bs.
ShiftDelete
Premium Member
join:2011-11-16
CA

ShiftDelete

Premium Member

When will there be a study on Bandwith Caps?!?

Agree with all the concerns over Bandwith caps. We need to start measuring broadband success based on cap limits rather than raw speed. What's the point of having the Ferrari of connection speeds only to be limited to 5 mins of driving each day?

Fun fact: We can all thank the FCC for indirectly championing bandwidth caps as part of net neutrality. See below for the text from the net neutrality ruling last year. You can bet providers are leaning on this.

»transition.fcc.gov/Daily ··· 01A1.pdf
--Page 41, Paragraph 72

"The framework we adopt today does not prevent broadband providers from asking subscribers who use the network less to pay less, and subscribers who use the network more to pay more"

As another poster pointed out, business accounts may be the only way around this. Unless you have Fios of course, but as they say..."All good things come to and end".. How long can unlimited on fios last?