Internet provider whoes....

[sc00ter]

Im on the web this morning watching a video when suddenly it freezes. I drop down to my laptops connection page wondering why I lost connection. I watched, in real time, my routers name get changed!? What the...... Spectrum merged with Cox as one of our internet providers. This was supposed to be a seamless switch. My router is now named Cox by Spectrum. It kicked ALL of my devices offline. So my wife goes to the Cox store and comes home with one of their "rental" routers. Our router was fine. Nothing is working still. Im at work and not looking forward to messing with it later tonight. She claims there isn't a contract of any kind. I told her to just go back to the Cox store and cancel the whole thing and we'll go with someone else, though I don't know who.

 

[sc00ter]

Any ideas or suggestions welcome.

 

[indianajo]

I use AT&T. expensive, but worth it IMHO. I tried Spectrum, and the first day at 5AM they were stripping all the pictures off bbcnews.com , diyaudio.com , and electricbikereview.com . That has to be a computer somewhere, that is assuming that no customers are going to be using the internet at 5 AM. At 9 AM I called the number and told them to cancel, as my AT&T was still hooked up. The agent told me the reason my performance was not optimal was the cable was not yet buried in the yard. IMHO local cable problems could cause fuzzy picture, wavy lines, snow, off colors. The cable cannot figure out which data is pictures and leave them out. Lying *****. I paid for one month Spectrum service, and turned the modem in at the UPS store as specified.
AT&T just upgraded our neighborhood with fiber into the house, with a different modem. Then they cut my price $8 a month. Eureka!

 

[stompandgo]

Check with your cellphone provider and see if they offer cellular internet via a gateway. I pay $30/month as a T-Mobile customer. Speeds vary with load, but I get between 200-200mbs, better in the winter when the visitors are gone.

 

[Geneva]

Here is a different thought

We don't have a house—we are full-time RVers and have been using Visible Wireless as a hotspot since February 2020. It's an unlimited hot spot, talk and texting, so we can stream and use a tablet and laptop all at the same time (I believe our highest usage was around 185 GB). When we had dogs, I would leave my phone in the camper so we could monitor the temperature and live cameras remotely.

At $35.00 a month its not a bad deal. I'm not sure if this setup would work for your situation, but I wanted to share it as an option.

I will keep the Visible plan when we do get off the road and continue to use it like we do now.

 

[6zfshdb]

You might try looking at one of the Starlink satellite options:

Starlink

Starlink delivers fast, reliable internet at home and on the go. Seamlessly stream, video call, game and more with high-speed connectivity even in the most rural and remote places.

starlink.com