u-verse at&t fiber taking over Frisco? (Irving, Trophy Club: 2014, homes)

[adyn]

I have uverse and miss FiOS. I'm a gamer and all my online games require a decent connection for latency purposes. Uverse has let me down on that front. FTTN in my opinion is just a fancy word for DSL with a better backbone to the CO. I don't consider uverse fiber, because it's not.

I wish I had FiOS where I live now. Uverse TV is a little better than FiOS but I would give that up in a heartbeat to have true fiber again.

For me, I'd rather have a 10mb/s fiber line than a 30mb/s cable or dsl line strictly based on latency.

[jcmqin]

Wonder if i will get Fiber to premises since our house will be built next year.
We went ahead and got a lot this week and the house is set now.
Really i never do much online gaming very often because i never have time.
No matter i will pick the fastest speed u-verse fiber offers just in case i do later.
Did not really have much of choice since all new homes now only use at&t it seems.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by adyn

I have uverse and miss FiOS. I'm a gamer and all my online games require a decent connection for latency purposes. Uverse has let me down on that front. FTTN in my opinion is just a fancy word for DSL with a better backbone to the CO. I don't consider uverse fiber, because it's not.

I wish I had FiOS where I live now. Uverse TV is a little better than FiOS but I would give that up in a heartbeat to have true fiber again.

For me, I'd rather have a 10mb/s fiber line than a 30mb/s cable or dsl line strictly based on latency.

I agree with a lot of that. We had FIOS in Plano for 2.5/3yrs and we've had U-Verse here in Dallas for about 2 years now. Generally, I like U-Verse more. FIOS internet was better for us. U-Verse TV is definitely better. My son games like crazy at times and he has no issues with U-Verse here. I think a lot of ones satisfaction or lack thereof has to do with the location of ones abode vs. the nearest sub-terminal.

[frenzyrider]

I don't know why ya'll are complaining about u-verse. I have it here in coppell. It blazing fast and I watch amazon instant video Netflix all the time...

[Bigger G]

I have 75/35 from Verizon, it's expensive but decent service.

[TheOverdog]

FTTN in my opinion is just a fancy word for DSL with a better backbone to the CO. I don't consider uverse fiber, because it's not.

Uverse actually has multiple versions, including fiber to the prem just like FIOS, except AT&T only builds it out for subdivisions where they have a full neighborhood contract through an apartment or HOA due to the expense.

[adyn]

Originally Posted by frenzyrider

I don't know why ya'll are complaining about u-verse. I have it here in coppell. It blazing fast and I watch amazon instant video Netflix all the time...

Because streaming a video and gunning for low latency are two different things. It's kind of like horsepower vs torque. Plus it's expensive.

[frenzyrider]

Originally Posted by adyn

Because streaming a video and gunning for low latency are two different things. It's kind of like horsepower vs torque. Plus it's expensive.

Say more. I am a mechanical engineer so I understand the horsepower vs torque argument. How is low latency different from streaming a video? Wouldn't one have issues with streaming aka transmission in case of low latency. Genuinely curious to know.

[adyn]

Somewhat broken analogy but streaming a video is akin to needing lots of horsepower because once you get started, you don't want to stop, you want to get past as much of the road as possible so you don't want to be limited by how much horsepower (bandwidth) you have. However with gaming you want a lot of torque (low latency) because the overall goal isn't to go far but get up to speed as fast as possible.

The easiest way to explain streaming vs gaming is this:

Streaming:

Your computer asks the server to let you watch the video
server complies, starts sending you a constant flow of data until the video is done loading.

Gaming:
-Your computer asks the server where your character is in a game, how much life it has, how much damage it has done, how much money it has, etc.
-Server answers "you're here" and points you in the right direction and gives you your stats.
-Your computer then asks the server where your character is in game, how much life it has, how much damage it has done, how much money it has, etc.
-Server answers "you're here" and points you in the right direction and gives you your stats.
-Your computer then asks the server where your character is in game, how much life it has, how much damage it has done, how much money it has, etc.
-Server answers "you're here" and points you in the right direction and gives you your stats.
-Your computer then asks the server where your character is in game, how much life it has, how much damage it has done, how much money it has, etc.
-Server answers "you're here" and points you in the right direction and gives you your stats.
-Your computer then asks the server where your character is in game, how much life it has, how much damage it has done, how much money it has, etc.
-Server answers "you're here" and points you in the right direction and gives you your stats.
-Your computer then asks the server where your character is in game, how much life it has, how much damage it has done, how much money it has, etc.


The time it takes your computer to ask the server something and the server to answer is what latency is. If it's a TCP packet, the computer says "I want that" and the server says "you want that?" and your computer says "yes, I want that" and the server says "ok, here's that" - there's a lot of back and forth. With streaming video your computer isn't talking to the server nearly that much and there's a constant stream of data coming in from one large file, not millions of little requests. If you have high latency, that is it takes a long time for the computer and the server to send messages back and forth, you will have choppy gameplay. If you have low latency, which fiber is very good at, you will have much better playability.

How I've explained it is pretty rudimentary and misses out on a lot of nuances but it gets the general point across I hope, but it's probably clear as mud.

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

Adyn, you explained it perfectly to this only somewhat technical mind!