October 9, 2015 12:31 AM
Slow[er] Internet
Two weeks ago, I decided that I was fed up with Comcast. My last bill was almost $90. All for fast-ish internet that dropped every day and cable that I didn't even use. First I tried negotiating with some customer service reps to try and get a better deal. The most I could save was $10 if I switched to 25Mbps and cut cable. So I thought, screw it, I'm getting Verizon. However, Fios isn't even available in my apartment. The best they could find was DSL for 7Mbps. This sounded extremely slow. But then I remembered still having dial-up in my high school days, and I figured, I can live with it.
Turns out, I'm not even getting close to the advertised 7Mbps. It's more like 0.5Mbps. Then again, I was only getting about 20Mbps with my "150Mbps" internet from Comcast. When I first got the internet set up, it was noticeably slower. Sites that used to load in about a second were now taking a few seconds. At this point though, I think I'm used to it.
I fired up Spotify today (I have a premium account) and tried to stream one of their playlists. It did take about half a minute of loading before I heard any music, but once it started playing, it was perfectly fine! No need to buffer again. If the quality is any worse, my ears aren't good enough to notice it.
I also just decided to watch a youtube video. It worked. No pausing in the middle. Haven't tried streaming on Netflix yet, but will update this post when I do.
2021 Update: No clue if Netflix ended up working or not, but I must not have been working at home because I know I would have gotten fed up with the slow speeds trying to work. I still don't really understand why watching videos never caused me any issues, but ssh into the dev servers at work, and suddenly my slow internet can't handle it.