Any alternative to Comcast cable internet? (Atlanta, Mableton: home security, living in, zip code)

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by AcidSnake

Yeah, but you gotta understand that just because your situation with Comcast is okay doesn't mean that it will be the same for others. Comcast has a cable monopoly, just as AT&T is a telephone/tele-communications monopoly.

The customer service of these monopolies are hit & miss; depending on the area a customer lives at & how much profit a customer can bring them, these monopolies can either be totally helpful or totally not.

I've had great uninterupted service with AT&T right up until I decided to lower my costs. Then they turned from helpful to rude. I guess that's typical of a deregulated uncaring mega-monopoly corporation. So much for the invisible hand of the "freemarket"...

Now, I am in the midst of switching to Clear internet. Hopefully this will be a good move, as I am looking to keep my household costs as low as possible, and "naked" DSL for me does the trick.

Snake - Let us know how your Clear experience goes. I am curious.

[flyonpa]

Ive been using clear since last summer, and ive had good luck with it, good speeds, Did need to put the modem in 2nd floor window to get best speed, but got OK speed on 1st floor.

[molsonds]

Originally Posted by AnsleyPark

Snake - Let us know how your Clear experience goes. I am curious.

DON'T go with Clear!!!!! Clear does not and cannot deliver the speeds it claims!!!! I have been a customer of Clear for almost 2 years - but the last 9 months (under contract) have been MURDER for speeds. Using SpeedTest.net, I have not been able to get download speeds any faster than 1.14 Mbps (typically it's FAR LESS than that) - and upload speeds have even been worse, typically around .09 Mbps. They ROUTINELY throttle speeds (even though they will only admit it over the phone to existing, upset customers & in their private forums) and punish ALL their customers (not just ones who use a lot of bandwidth). Basically their customer base has grown far too much for their network & they can't handle it. They will lure you with promises of fast speeds, mobile internet & cheap prices - but buyer beware, you won't even get what you pay for with Clear! RUN FAR AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY - they are a total scam and have many class action lawsuits out there (and their CEO up and quit this past April amid all the allegations of poor service)!!! I speak from experience as a 2 year sucker - don't fall for it, you'll regret it! I can't wait to get back over to AT&T (who I dumped for Clear) or even might try Comcast instead of try to stay with Clear any longer! Especially stay away if you like to use the internet for gaming (even the simple ones on Facebook are impossible to load), Skype or video chat (can't do it - not enough bandwidth for any video), YouTube (can't load the videos) or Netflix instant streaming (again, can't load the videos). I'm not talking as someone who watches videos online, but I did try to enjoy my Netflix subscription - got too frustrating, couldn't even watch a 30 minute show, much less a movie!

Stay away from Clear at all costs.....you'll thank me later! ANY other internet provider is a better option!

[AcidSnake]

I haven't been made to sign a contract with Clear. If I had to, I wouldn't even have considered it.

Also, I'm using the lowest speed of 1.5MBps because all I need my internet service for is opening e-mails and pestering people on city-data with comments like these.

Originally Posted by molsonds

DON'T go with Clear!!!!! Clear does not and cannot deliver the speeds it claims!!!! I have been a customer of Clear for almost 2 years - but the last 9 months (under contract) have been MURDER for speeds. Using SpeedTest.net, I have not been able to get download speeds any faster than 1.14 Mbps (typically it's FAR LESS than that) - and upload speeds have even been worse, typically around .09 Mbps. They ROUTINELY throttle speeds (even though they will only admit it over the phone to existing, upset customers & in their private forums) and punish ALL their customers (not just ones who use a lot of bandwidth). Basically their customer base has grown far too much for their network & they can't handle it. They will lure you with promises of fast speeds, mobile internet & cheap prices - but buyer beware, you won't even get what you pay for with Clear! RUN FAR AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY - they are a total scam and have many class action lawsuits out there (and their CEO up and quit this past April amid all the allegations of poor service)!!! I speak from experience as a 2 year sucker - don't fall for it, you'll regret it! I can't wait to get back over to AT&T (who I dumped for Clear) or even might try Comcast instead of try to stay with Clear any longer! Especially stay away if you like to use the internet for gaming (even the simple ones on Facebook are impossible to load), Skype or video chat (can't do it - not enough bandwidth for any video), YouTube (can't load the videos) or Netflix instant streaming (again, can't load the videos). I'm not talking as someone who watches videos online, but I did try to enjoy my Netflix subscription - got too frustrating, couldn't even watch a 30 minute show, much less a movie!

Stay away from Clear at all costs.....you'll thank me later! ANY other internet provider is a better option!

[RoslynHolcomb]

I loathe Comcast with the heat of a thousand suns and my husband hates them even more. We're not even allowed to say Comcast in the house. We had a cable and internet with them--big mistake. We called because we wanted to move our home office from a spare bedroom to the living room. They said their charge for that was $40, we said okay. The guy came, moved the cable jack and it worked fine. Then we got our bill and they charged us a $26 service change fee in addition to the $40 they told us about. My husband called to complain. They said don't worry about it, don't pay it and it would be taken off the next bill. This continued for two months with my husband calling them every month, and them agreeing that there should be no charge. One bright sunny morning my husband, an avowed footie, got up early to watch the Everton vs. Liverpool game. He was very excited because he rarely gets to see Everton play, and they're his fave team in the known universe. He cooked a big breakfast and turned on the tv to watch the pre-game show. You guessed it, no cable. By the time they got our cable back on he had missed the game. Seriously, they would've been better off just slapping the man, as the English Premier League is the only reason we had cable in the first place. He told them to come get their crap right then and there and we haven't had cable since. (As angry as he was I'm surprised he didn't rip out the cable with his bare hands.) Frankly, I don't miss it. We have an antenna and I actually prefer the children's shows on Qubo to the endless commercials on Nickelodeon and other channels.

We had planned to get Uverse just for football season then disconnect again only to discover that despite their constant canvassing in our neighborhood we can't get their service here. Yeah, talk about the right hand not knowing what the left is doing. I'm not sure what the husband plans to do about football season, but I know it won't be Comcast. He'd rather miss the Alabama/Auburn game than give those people one quarter.

[EastCoast2GA]

FiOS is awesome. Hopefully you guys will get that. Really gave the cable companies are run for their money! Fierce competition between FiOS and cable brought out triple-play deals for $69 a month!

[vince217]

I wasn't satisfied with Comcast (XFinity) in our current home... dropped / slow internet connection, which is a pain when running a home-based business. We had very little choice on internet provider in our area. So when AT&T U-Verse became available in our area, I signed up. There were some technical issues during start-up (I agree with Caleb, U-Verse tech support sucks, i was passed on from one technical department to another and was on hold for over an hour), it is working great now. I hope the service does not degrade as more people in my neighborhood sign up for U-Verse.

I never really liked cable, we had Charter in one of our previous homes and was experiencing the same thing.

When we were living in an apartment, they had U-Verse, and I was very happy with it. No dropped / slow internet... and as a bonus their tv service seemed better too (better DVR search, watch recordings in any tv with no extra fee).

[SAAN]

Clear isnt that bad to me, ive have the 6MB $40 plan and ive only had issues 3-4 times in the year ive have it except when there is a storm, but i do believe they throttle everyone sometimes. When there is a rain storm, the internet is guaranteed to act up though.

[brownhornet]

Originally Posted by molsonds

DON'T go with Clear!!!!! Clear does not and cannot deliver the speeds it claims!!!! I have been a customer of Clear for almost 2 years - but the last 9 months (under contract) have been MURDER for speeds. Using SpeedTest.net, I have not been able to get download speeds any faster than 1.14 Mbps (typically it's FAR LESS than that) - and upload speeds have even been worse, typically around .09 Mbps. They ROUTINELY throttle speeds (even though they will only admit it over the phone to existing, upset customers & in their private forums) and punish ALL their customers (not just ones who use a lot of bandwidth). Basically their customer base has grown far too much for their network & they can't handle it. They will lure you with promises of fast speeds, mobile internet & cheap prices - but buyer beware, you won't even get what you pay for with Clear! RUN FAR AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY - they are a total scam and have many class action lawsuits out there (and their CEO up and quit this past April amid all the allegations of poor service)!!! I speak from experience as a 2 year sucker - don't fall for it, you'll regret it! I can't wait to get back over to AT&T (who I dumped for Clear) or even might try Comcast instead of try to stay with Clear any longer! Especially stay away if you like to use the internet for gaming (even the simple ones on Facebook are impossible to load), Skype or video chat (can't do it - not enough bandwidth for any video), YouTube (can't load the videos) or Netflix instant streaming (again, can't load the videos). I'm not talking as someone who watches videos online, but I did try to enjoy my Netflix subscription - got too frustrating, couldn't even watch a 30 minute show, much less a movie!

Stay away from Clear at all costs.....you'll thank me later! ANY other internet provider is a better option!

The reason Clear declined so rapidly is because they share their 4G bandwidth with Sprint. All of Sprint's 4G phones, hotspots and tablets use Clear's wimax for service. Since I have a 4G phone i've seen firsthand how quick the 4G speeds went downhill over the past year. And the more phones that are added the slower it will get since Clear doees literally nothing to improve their backhaul.

[ecuresident]

Well unfortunately clear was close to being bankrupt so there isnt much they can do to improve their backhaul. Sprint owns something like 30-40% of clear and clear as hoping Sprint would buy the rest a few months ago, but they declined, luckily they are getting a hefty payout from Sprint so maybe that will hep clear. Sprint is also talking to lightsquared and potentially trying to switch over to LTE instead of wimax as wimax isnt as fast.