Net in Evanston: Xfinity or Uverse? (Chicago, Deerfield: subletting, apartment, home)

[ynysdyn]

My wife and I just moved into an apartment building in Evanston that's wired with Comcast. The previous tenant we're subletting from also used Comcast, so we figured, why mess with a good thing? Especially since they don't lock you into contracts.

We're currently on the "Blast" package with Xfinity, paying for 50Mbps/month plus cable channels that, honestly, we don't really need. Currently, our DS/US is 16.45/10.46. Considering Xfinity's next lowest package is for 16Mbps/month, it seems like we could downgrade and be just fine...

But that's not all. We've only had the modem for 3 days, and so far have experience NUMEROUS drops is service; the modem will simply disconnect from the internet. Though brief, these disconnects happen sporadically throughout the day, at unpredictable times (though more often at night). This will not do, as we are both avid streamers and gamers. I just got off the phone with customer service and, while they're very pleasant over there, I've had another 2 brief outages in as many hours.

When I was living in Deerfield, my roommate had us set up for AT&T Uverse. Speeds are comparable, and while we had the same problems with reliability, I felt that they were less frequent than what I'm experiencing with Xfinity, though with ATT I had to reset the router once or twice a day. Still, it was better than realizing, half a dozen times or more per day, that I have to wait for the 'net to come back. But, then again, there were the billing problems and customer service calls my roommate had to make that were none-too-pleasant to listen to...

So, there's the question: should I just hound Comcast customer service until the problem is fixed (new modem, whatevs), and potentially downgrade my service to fit the speeds I'm getting, or jump ship for Uverse and possibly be locked into the same sort of unreliable, unpredictable connection for 2 years?

If it helps, these are the devices that we keep connected to the net; I don't know if different providers handle different loads better, or if the number of devices will affect D/U speeds...
- PC (ethernet)
- Laptop (wifi)
- Tablet
- Kindle Fire
- Two smartphones
- PS3


Sorry for the long post, but thanks in advance for the help.

[pidgeon92]

With uVerse in Chicago, I've had 40+ drops per day. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[chet everett]

The "wiring plant" in just about all multi-family building is the weak link, lots of shortcuts / work around that happen when technicians can't get to all the locations they'd like to / are brought in as an afterthought.

Building that are more modern typically have far superior options for Internet service. Single family home owners can also put lots more pressure on the providers as there is much less excuses for "inaccessible wiring". Of course that won't really help unless you move BUT depending on how many other tenants can pressure the Managment company to get the situation addressed that MIGHT be the best route to getting some improvements...

[ynysdyn]

That's an interesting point, Chet, I hadn't known about that before...

For the record, we're not using the building's wifi itself; instead of just having a Comcast username/password that lets us sign into the building's Xfinity wifi, we have our own modem and package with Comcast. Dunno if that changes anything or should make a difference, but I thought I'd clarify.

[chet everett]

In many cases, if there has been a history of complaints, the management company will get a "business grade" Internet package and appropriate access points to support sufficient users / bandwidth. If that is an option it is probably better than what you can get out an indivual modem.

Ask you neighbors. Somebody must know what kind of speeds their getting.