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Now that we’ve got all the network gurus, could anyone answer my question in post #32? I’m wondering if my internet plan is overkill.
Thanks in advance.
Stick with the 60. That seems to be the sweet spot with non-gamer, streamer folks.
If you end up getting a Roku in the future then that 60 will enable you to stream music with no problems.
I would be very happy with just Netflix and wireless. I already have Amazon. We only keep the cable (Dish) because my wife likes the stuff on some of the other channels Bravo, Hallmark etc etc.
I think at this point in time, the router is now the bottleneck. Rarely are customers connected directly to their modems (as may have been in the early 2000's). When Wi-Fi devices became popular and operated on the premise of there being wireless internet available in the home, Wireless G was much faster than most internet connections available, at 54 Mbps. Now we have 1 Gig + connections, and the router - even with GBE - is now the limiting factor.
I've seen some modems offer multiple WAN ports to aggregate the bandwidth offered in the top plans offered by cable companies, but really the next step is to go 10 Gbe copper. QNAP is the only company that comes to mind who offers routers with 10 gig connectivity on every port.
10 gigabit is really a magic number, because it is approximately the speed of modern SSD drives that we've all come to know as the closest thing to "instant" as practicable today.
So what are you going to do with 10 Gigabit Ethernet? File servers don’t run that fast so it’s not like you can do backups in your home network at anything like that rate. As I wrote above, the trend is to move to 2.5G Ethernet phys as the price drops but that’s really a service provider marketing thing since nobody is going to use rates above 900 megabit/second other than to run Speedtest. With today’s compression technology, the biggest panel on the market won’t show compression artifacts at all at 100 megabit data rates. Video streaming drives the network architecture. A big house might run a few panels concurrently so 1 Gigabit makes some sense for that application.
The Comcast video distribution architecture has the cable modem as the distribution point for everything. Inside your house, you use WiFi, Ethernet, or MoCA to stream the video to smart panels or little set-top boxes. The cable modem runs router software that comes from a Comcast-specific version of RDK-B so Comcast has control over most of the software running in the cable modem. If you stream over-the-top video from Amazon, Netflix, or the others, it’s the same basic architecture except that the video stream is best-effort so it can have more delay, jitter, and packet loss.
Anyways, this thread is about cord cutting. Right now, you can’t get the same video quality from the over-the-top suppliers compared to cable. If I want to watch the Patriots game tomorrow on my fancy panel, I can get a lousy compressed stream from CBS All Access for $6.99/month, a better quality video stream from some other providers like YouTube for more money, or crystal clear HD from Comcast for really big money. Right now, I’m doing the 1 month CBS All Access free trial. The promo code is either CBSNFL or NFLCBS.
So what are you going to do with 10 Gigabit Ethernet? File servers don’t run that fast so it’s not like you can do backups in your home network at anything like that rate. As I wrote above, the trend is to move to 2.5G Ethernet phys as the price drops but that’s really a service provider marketing thing since nobody is going to use rates above 900 megabit/second other than to run Speedtest. With today’s compression technology, the biggest panel on the market won’t show compression artifacts at all at 100 megabit data rates. Video streaming drives the network architecture. A big house might run a few panels concurrently so 1 Gigabit makes some sense for that application.
The Comcast video distribution architecture has the cable modem as the distribution point for everything. Inside your house, you use WiFi, Ethernet, or MoCA to stream the video to smart panels or little set-top boxes. The cable modem runs router software that comes from a Comcast-specific version of RDK-B so Comcast has control over most of the software running in the cable modem. If you stream over-the-top video from Amazon, Netflix, or the others, it’s the same basic architecture except that the video stream is best-effort so it can have more delay, jitter, and packet loss.
Anyways, this thread is about cord cutting. Right now, you can’t get the same video quality from the over-the-top suppliers compared to cable. If I want to watch the Patriots game tomorrow on my fancy panel, I can get a lousy compressed stream from CBS All Access for $6.99/month, a better quality video stream from some other providers like YouTube for more money, or crystal clear HD from Comcast for really big money. Right now, I’m doing the 1 month CBS All Access free trial. The promo code is either CBSNFL or NFLCBS.
I won't disagree that it's not necessary for nearly anything available to retail end-users on the internet today. Imagine the subscribers Netflix would lose if their videos required 20 Mbps instead of 4-5 Mbps.
You mentioned no one uses 900 Mbps, but it's still available as a tier, for marketing and revenue from people who either 1.) need it, or 2.) think they need it. I'm sure people will do the same and gobble up 2.5 Gbps like the 1 Gbps plans.
What I read is they don't care anymore if people keep cable. They are all getting into the streaming business and think that's where the future is. Those of us who keep cable I guess are the dinosaurs, and they think we'll keep it no matter what. I read in the same article they no longer have a "retention" line for those who threaten to leave, but they pretty much say "oh, well, thanks and good luck" now.
I'm one of those who are loathe to give up cable TV. I despise steaming and smart TV's. I don't want to be asked for a password when I am in bed under covers trying to watch TV till I fall asleep. I want to be able to press the "last" button and switch back and forth during commercials. I want to be able to watch a DVR show during commercials on a network channel. We bought a smart TV for the bedroom because my fiance wanted to give up cable, and I hated it. It wasn't smart, it was stupid, lol.
I don't know too much about internet only, or why the prices are going up. Unless all the big companies are raising prices at once. It's also a PITA to change internet companies, as we'd have to reset so many devices now from the garage door opener to security cameras. We changed our password once (after a neighbor was over here and asked to get on our internet, which I think is nervy unless it's family or a really good friend) and it was a nightmare trying to get everything up and running again afterward.
The part in bold sounds exactly like my wife and why when we left DirecTV and switched to streaming for a few months, we had to ditch it and move to Spectrum. She wanted to click 1 button to flip back and forth between Bravo and Lifetime when commercials arose. Over the last couple of years she has gotten much better at it through using Netflix and Prime Video, so we will be trying streaming only for awhile to become eligible for a Spectrum new customer promo in the future.
Set up guest wifi on your router and have a separate password for that. If someone wants access to wifi, give them that password.
[And I agree, the rate at which you need to re-sign in is infuriating. But that more impacts the standalone apps than the Spectrum app. Still a pain to tell the kids to turn their heads/close their eyes when I need to enter in the password.]
The part in bold sounds exactly like my wife and why when we left DirecTV and switched to streaming for a few months, we had to ditch it and move to Spectrum. She wanted to click 1 button to flip back and forth between Bravo and Lifetime when commercials arose. Over the last couple of years she has gotten much better at it through using Netflix and Prime Video, so we will be trying streaming only for awhile to become eligible for a Spectrum new customer promo in the future.
Set up guest wifi on your router and have a separate password for that. If someone wants access to wifi, give them that password.
[And I agree, the rate at which you need to re-sign in is infuriating. But that more impacts the standalone apps than the Spectrum app. Still a pain to tell the kids to turn their heads/close their eyes when I need to enter in the password.]
I just can’t remember all the passwords for everything LOL. That’s why I was so frustrated because I was already in bed under the covers and ask for the password, and I was going to have to go look it up. Thanks so much for the info on setting up guest Wi-Fi, I did not know that was a thing! Yes your wife sounds a lot like me LOL.
I got myself a TCL Roku TV at Best Buy. It was less then $200 (40") and has Roku built in so there's no need for any addons. Roku has so much free stuff that I just don't see the need to subscribe to any of the paid services yet.
I did this as well. I picked up a 49" TCL Roku TV at BJ's Wholesale in early 2018 for just under $300.00 paired it with a rooftop antenna and I get over 60 channels over the air. I digitized my DVD collection and between the OTA channels, my collection and the Roku free stuff I have way more content than I can ever hope to watch until I retire. I haven't paid a dime for TV since May of 2018.
I believe there is more content available outside the cable ecosystem than inside.
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