Century Link or Cox for cable modem (internet only) ?? (Mesa: big home, tenant)

[Pink Jazz]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

Interesting. I have the AC2300. One of the reasons I have stayed away from 100 is that I did not want to shell out for a POS box from them @ $150.00 or a monthly rental. I doubt I have fiber to the house though.

Mostly FTTH is in newer communities. Our neighborhood is actually an all-fiber neighborhood with CenturyLink, however, for some strange reason, they don't offer anything faster than 100MBps in our neighborhood (only the very newest communities in Queen Creek have 1GBpbs fiber with CenturyLink, and Cox as far as I know doesn't offer Gigablast anywhere in Queen Creek since I think Cox probably doesn't consider Queen Creek to be a profitable enough market for it).

[Marv1985]

Veritased---Thanks for that great info for this soon-to-be cordcutter, but how or why did you choose Youtubetv over Hulu Live TV or basic Hulu or anything else out there?


$190.00 a month for internet, cable TV and Homelife from Cox here in suburban Phoenix is indeed a ripoff.

[veritased]

Marv, first of all you should compare the channel lineup of Youtube.tv compare to the others, fwiw. Make sure they have what you follow.

I didn't actually, I just chose youtube.tv because somebody I know here in bay area worked there and told me how great it is. I did the free trial, it had enough local/network channels and enough of the other stuff (AMC, Fox, TBS, FX1/FX2) that I was good with it. It does not have every channel, but plenty for $35.

The video quality rarely freezes up (due to internet bandwidth dips), and it's usually somewhere I'd say between 2k and 4k quality, the lip sync is perfect 99.99% of the time. Their 'tv guide' isn't so great, but it works. The DVR functionality is a bit mysterious, but it works.

Then, as I said between an additional Netflix HD subscription (cheap), Amazon Prime for free with Prime membership, and then I got Showtime streaming for free with my ATT wireless plan, and it's a far, far better deal than DirecTV or traditional cable bundles. And I don't use traditional POTS phone service anymore... we are 100% cellular.

[Marv1985]

So once I compare YoutubeTv's lineup to Hulu's lineup before choosing one, to go with Amazon Prime which I've had for years, and add in Netflix HD for good measure, I could just drop both Cox's cable and Homelife products, and then compare Cox's price to CenturyLink's price for internet service in order to decide what to go with, correct?


Thanks in advance.

[veritased]

Marv, you could drop the Cox cable TV and phone and I would even say Homelife, and just keep Cox internet (50Mbps plan at least) or Century Link (yes your plan is correct), then sign up for either Youtube.TV or Hulu+.

Amazon Prime Video is for free, for you, since you have Prime account. Also an app on your Smart TV.

Netflix HD just another app on your Smart TV.

If you have a 4K Smart TV, and not necessarily all the right built in apps, buy a Roku Ultra or similar, which connects to your Cox Internet, to your TV, and et voila, has all the above apps, and you have all your video entertainment possibilities.

A 4K TV can be had at Costco for less than $500 and is totally worth it.

Finally looking at HomeLife, forget that... go with Netgear Arlo security cameras which have 0 ongoing service fee, and Philips HUE lighting system if you want remote control lighting.

[Marv1985]

Thanks a TON for this bounty of info; I really appreciate every bit of it. While a 4K Smart TV is definitely on my shopping list, how does a Roku Ultra differ from their other boxes?

[veritased]

The regular Roku only does 2K or 1080 TV, the so called HDTV's of the last 10 years.

The Roku Ultra does 4K and is only another 20-30 bucks more.

If you can, directly connect via Ethernet from your cable internet router to the TV, via a switch is OK, but usually the cable modem has four ports in the back so any of those four ports is good. This ensures that if you live in a crowded area, with many WiFis competing for air space, that you bypass all of that and get all that bandwidth that you paid for, to your Roku.

Avoid WiFi for all streaming unless you are more rural.

[veritased]

Discovered that CenturyLink is an old school telephone services company, albeit not a Bell baby.

Meaning that it's internet is delivered the final 100 yards or so by VDSL variants over fancy telephone wiring to the home, which could mean that the upload speed is a fraction of the download speed. FWIW.
Cox is a cable company, so that internet is coming over a coax cable. There the upspeed is also a fraction of the download speed. While VDSL2 bandwidth is not shared with your neighbors like cable modems are, that can be misleading, since the cable coax bandwidth can be far greater than twisted pair phone wiring to the home. Meaning that the coax, while being shared, has a huge amount of bandwidth that it can split, like a huge fire hose that others may be tapping on at any time in any amount, while VDSL is relatively like a much smaller garden hose that you have to yourself. Choose your poison.

For that reason, I think I am going Cox. Centurylink told me that they only have 100Mbps to my house, which means they don't have fiber to the curb as I would have thought in such a newer development. Oh well. Too bad, I liked their lifetime pricing deal.

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by veritased

Discovered that CenturyLink is an old school telephone services company, albeit not a Bell baby.

Meaning that it's internet is delivered the final 100 yards or so by VDSL variants over fancy telephone wiring to the home, which could mean that the upload speed is a fraction of the download speed. FWIW.
Cox is a cable company, so that internet is coming over a coax cable. There the upspeed is also a fraction of the download speed. While VDSL2 bandwidth is not shared with your neighbors like cable modems are, that can be misleading, since the cable coax bandwidth can be far greater than twisted pair phone wiring to the home. Meaning that the coax, while being shared, has a huge amount of bandwidth that it can split, like a huge fire hose that others may be tapping on at any time in any amount, while VDSL is relatively like a much smaller garden hose that you have to yourself. Choose your poison.

For that reason, I think I am going Cox. Centurylink told me that they only have 100Mbps to my house, which means they don't have fiber to the curb as I would have thought in such a newer development. Oh well. Too bad, I liked their lifetime pricing deal.

Yup, the upload is only about 10% of the download. My own numbers are down circa 49, up 4.7 on a 40 Mbps plan. They are pretty constant regardless of time of day etc. That works OK for me as I'm not uploading anything usually except my Ring device videos and those seem to work OK. If you need more upload then Cox is better.

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by Marv201

So once I compare YoutubeTv's lineup to Hulu's lineup before choosing one, to go with Amazon Prime which I've had for years, and add in Netflix HD for good measure, I could just drop both Cox's cable and Homelife products, and then compare Cox's price to CenturyLink's price for internet service in order to decide what to go with, correct?


Thanks in advance.

I have Hulu + for my summer place. They have a better channel lineup than YouTube IMO. The main knock with them is an absolutely awful guide interface and the streaming can be poor at times. I access it via Fire Stick. These streaming services are OK, but you can't expect the same reliability and features that you get from a satellite provider. I get the upgraded cloud DVR service and it works OK but it is not the same as a dedicated hard disk. Then there are the number of devices limits you have with the streaming services. I've got 5 TVs on my home Dish system and can run all of them at the same time. I can watch two or three shows and record like three others at the same time. Can't do that with Hulu.

The prices also are not what they used to be, either. Hulu is going up by 10 bucks (?) soon. DirectTV Now raised their prices recently too. As more people cut the cord, you can expect them to keep rising. And they all bundle forcing you to pay for a bunch of crap channels you don't want. I long for the days of yesteryear when I had the big huge dish and I could order all my channels ala carte.