Time Warner Cable Expands 'Wideband' Upgrades

...Especially on the upstream. My connection chokes sometimes because TWC only offers 512K up here in GSO...

Its probably worse than you realize. If you do not use DD-WRT, OpenWRT or tomato firmware on a supported firewall/router in your home, you simply do NOT have the bandwidth monitoring ability to see how bad it really is.

I pay $60.99 for "up to" 16Mb/2Mb. I rarely see above 300Kbps upstream. In fact the only time I remember seeing the upstream going above 300Kbps is during the speed test where I indeed see 2Mb. The second that Speed Test finishes, my DD-WRT bandwidth logging shows TWC throttling back my bandwidth.

Every time streaming content skips, I check my DD-WRT bandwidth log and its always below 30Kbps...often under 10Kbps, sadly often throttled back to 0Kbps. Let me repeat that, EVERY time streaming content is interrupted my upstream bandwidth is throttled to less than 50Kbps, usually less than 30Kbps. It makes you HATE your provider, more importantly it makes you desperate enough to want decent service. Which all of us should have!

100% of Cable providers throttle Residential Internet service, usually to below the FCC definition for broadband of 768Kbps! Fraud or just customer no service?

'»twitpic.com/47pmum' Tonight I was watching a show on Hulu, when the streaming content skipped and sputtered here is what I saw via DD-WRT. The only other thing I was doing with my quad core Linux PC with 4 GB of RAM was checking Google gmail...so yea I get throttled bad, real bad.

In my area AT&T provides an upstream guarantee stating users will get 80% of their promised bandwidth 99% of the time. Not thrilled with AT&T, but the bandwidth guarantee is enticing, of course I would have to get it in writing and check over their contract before signing, striking out sections that are fishy and making sure my DD-WRT enabled firewall/router is the determining source of that 80% guarantee...barring a written guarantee, they are no better than anyone else. Of course considering how severely I am being throttled back and how much cheaper DSL Extreme is over Cable, perhaps its worth it.

Based on my distance, they promise 1.5Mb/384Kbps which is over 300% better than my throttled TWC Cable Internet.

Even with a $200 up front "wire check" fee, I would recover my costs in less than 6 months which is probably worth it.

Ultimately synchronous FTTH is where I want to be and what I want to have, however I will probably have to move to one of the almost 30 synchronous FTTH communities currently in existence. Examples: Wilson, NC via Greenlight($34.95: 10Mb/10Mb); Chattanooga, TN via EPB($57.99: 30Mb/30Mb); Layfayette, LA via LUS Fiber($28.95: 10Mb/10Mb); Over 16 communities in Utah via Utopia($37.50-$70: 10Mb/10Mb); Salisbury, NC via Fibrant($45.00: 15Mb/15Mb); Tradition, East Biloxi, MS via PrimeTime($45.95: 7Mb/7Mb)...heck even RockFire at the Lake, Topeka, KS via PrimeTime($29.99: 1.5Mb/1.5Mb).

Any and all of those above synchronous FTTH networks are way better than any other thanks to Fiber To The Home. They even blow away FIOS on both service and price go figure.

And don't forget that Google will announce the 5 winning communities of their Go Big with a Gig FTTH build outs this year, 2011! Who would not want to be on Google's backbone network, I know I would! Besides we know how the current oligopolies and monopolies will treat us, Google can NOT do worse than what Americans have experienced for the last 20 years!

That current incumbents should be taking seriously is the loss of TRUST their customer no service practices has fostered for the last 20 years. They should be very, very afraid. The fact that they still are pushing anything other than FTTH, considering the billions they have already received and considering the millions they spend weekly to lobby our elected officials is telling. And it does not reflect well on them at all. I can envision a day when they will not be able to pay you to take their service. That would be true in all of the above communities, think about it!

FIOS is 50/5, FIOS is NOT synchronous.

FTTH is the ONLY solution that is viable long term. Make your stand, run for office and help your community or move to a community that is providing synchronous FTTH today, you will have over 30 options by the end of 2011 and that is a very good thing!