What are my internet options going to be? (Seattle, Bellevue: home, neighborhoods)

[bxtx]

When I finally settle down in Seattle again, what are my internet options? I have AT&T where I'm coming from and they don't serve Seattle.

I don't need anything super high speed or techie and I don't need TV. I WILL NOT give another dime to Comcast in my entire life.

What are the other companies?

I'm in Greenwood if that matters.

[Ira500]

The most common competitor to Comcast around here would be Centurylink. Clear is another available option.
I'm not sure that any of the options are great. I used to be an internet customer of Qwest before Centurylink took over, and boy were they bad! I've heard people complaining about Clear as well. Comcast and Centurylink offer pretty good introductory deals.

[509]

Good luck.....my daughter has Comcast in Seattle at 18mbps. She comes home to Wenatchee to use our internet at 92 mbps. For her Comcast was the lesser evil. It was also the fastest.

However, Seattle has been talking about high speed internet for over a decade now....so maybe in another decade or two.

[mkarch]

You pretty much have to go with Comcast. The century link service is pretty slow.

[BellevueNative]

Don't know if Verizon ever did any fiber in Seattle city limits, but if so, they sold those lines to Frontier. You can look into whether that's an option.

[bxtx]

This sucks!

In Connecticut I had 10 times the speed for half the price.

What gives?

(PS And don't say CT is a lower cost of living because Seattle is actually a little lower.)

[mkarch]

Originally Posted by bxtx

This sucks!

In Connecticut I had 10 times the speed for half the price.

What gives?

(PS And don't say CT is a lower cost of living because Seattle is actually a little lower.)

The short answer it has to do with the monopoly held by the GTE. Suburbs weren't as affected by this, but they also don't have the density to support widespread fiber deployments. It's changing, but the densest neighborhoods were generally off limits for Verizon and others to come in and lay cable/fiber.

[hamellr]

Go to DSLReports.com put in your address and it'll tell you what services you have at that location. It's accurate for everything but FIOS.

[poopskooper]

Originally Posted by mkarch

The short answer it has to do with the monopoly held by the GTE. Suburbs weren't as affected by this, but they also don't have the density to support widespread fiber deployments. It's changing, but the densest neighborhoods were generally off limits for Verizon and others to come in and lay cable/fiber.

And that had to do in part to the "Ma Bell/AT&T" monopoly, correct?

In the old days, it was Seattle, Mercer Island, Bellevue, Issaquah, Renton, Kent, Auburn, Federal Way, etc. which were in the Bell System service area ...Pacific Northwest Bell to U S West to Qwest to Century Link. If you were lived or owned a business in those areas, you were forced to use the Bell system as your telephone provider.

Everett, Richmond Beach, Lynnwood, Bothell, Woodinville, Duvall, Redmond, Kirkland, etc. was served by General Telephone ...GTE, to Verizon, to Frontier. If you lived or owned a business in those areas, you were forced to use General Telephone as your telephone service provider.

So as I understand it, Verizon's FiOS or now Frontier's FiOS is still only generally available in the old GTE areas? ...and not in the old "Ma Bell" areas?

Not sure if that stifled the advancement of fiber optic internet in the greater Seattle area or not but, yes, it does seem true that the Seattle area is so much further behind in offering fast and inexpensive internet options. Seems odd being that the area is so tech oriented that you'd think that it would be on the cutting edge.

[Adrian71]

Originally Posted by poopskooper

Not sure if that stifled the advancement of fiber optic internet in the greater Seattle area or not but, yes, it does seem true that the Seattle area is so much further behind in offering fast and inexpensive internet options. Seems odd being that the area is so tech oriented that you'd think that it would be on the cutting edge.

Boy, isn't that the truth.

In our neighborhood, you can pretty much only get CenturyLink. The speed is OK but not great -- but the big problem for me is we lose our signal at least once a week, and I can't get it back unless I reboot the router.

We tried Clear when we first moved here, and their signal was terribly unreliable.

Comcast has tried to talk us into getting their Xfinity service a couple of times, but the only problems there are (1) they don't have any service lines to our house, so they'd have to dig up the street and the yard to hook us up, and (2) it's Comcast.