This is pretty upsetting to see. In Phoenix Arizona Cox Communications is the biggest ISP and their prices reflect it. Their internet was fast and reliable while I used it, but paid ~$180 a month for gigabit speed. I got a flyer in the mail for Verizon’s 5G home internet with a promotion for a ‘price lock’ for 10 years at $25 a month bundled with our cell phone plan. The speeds are definitely slower (100-300mbps in my area), but I don’t notice it at all even when gaming - AND have had fewer outages in the year we’ve had it than when we had cox. It’s clear with the new companies coming into install fiber in Mesa and Phoenix that cox will begin to feel the squeeze, and I would not be surprised if this tactic becomes more prevalent.
Article promotes fucking 5G home internet but in the article states “[t]he only fix they had was splitting the cost of a Verizon 5G router with a roommate, but that was also too slow to be usable most of the time” before they go into their gushing about how these 5G home internet solutions are the savior of all.
Paid advertisements for shit services can’t even keep from bad-mouthing these shit services. Technology is so fucked over by all these greedy corporations selling garbage solutions to suckers.
I mentioned in the article that 5G home internet is not a solution for everyone. The reliability varies significantly by location and network quality—some people have no issues, for others it’s unusable. It’s not a perfect solution that will fix the US’ infrastructure problems, but in the meantime it is making a difference for some people.
Yup, it’s probably a decent solution for us. We live near some 5G towers at a city park. The population density here is pretty low, but the capacity needs to be high because we have a few festivals in that park throughout the year.
So I’m guessing the 5G offering is pretty competitive, but I’m already in a solid wired service so it’s not very attractive. My city is also rolling out fiber starting this year, so my service will get even better and probably cost about the same (my current service is from a halfway rolled out fiber network that good shut down due to political nonsense; I get Cat5 to the house, and share fiber with the block).
I’m sure the are communities similar to mine that don’t have decent wired Internet for whom 5G could work. Also, it existing puts pressure on other services to improve (e.g. my ISP started offering higher speeds only after the city put out a proposal for citywide fiber).
“cheating” meaning doing the exact same thing a regional telecom monopoly has been doing since AT&T was incorporated in the early 1900’s. On the other-hand 5G can’t “compete” with traditional broadband and had to lobby the FCC to be considered broadband at all. In all likelihood wireless internet will never be a viable alternative to fiber/copper infrastructure if you look at latency, over-subscription, and the effect that density has on service in addition to theoretical speeds.
will it be “good enough” for most people, sure. But most people were perfectly ok with dial-up internet until streaming video became the norm too. It doesn’t mean that dial-up should have existed as long as it did.
In conclusion, internet service should be a utility with highly regulated SLAs and minimum service agreements. Or just skip the liberal bullshit and nationalize the telcos.
I realize I have incredibly high standards for home internet service because the idea that 5G home internet is good for anything other than a failover for the times that Comcast goes down is completely foreign to me.
That being said, people should be allowed to choose service providers. Especially if it can be done without any traditional means of installation.
Yeah, there’s more to Internet choice than off-peak bandwidth. I have decent 5G towers nearby, but they’re at a local park and get high traffic when there’s city sports, festivals, etc going on. My wired Internet (muni ISP) is consistent always, I’ve never seen a slowdown, just a few outages each year (hopefully going away with our fiber overhaul starting this year).
Yeah, if you want to use 5G, go for it. I just don’t think it’s as good as wired Internet most of the time, even if you need to deal with a crappy cable company. But maybe it’s good enough for your use case.
The landlord is the one cheating. They are likely earning a kickback on those included internet plans. Your landlord could have said no. Sadly it’s pretty common for multiunit rentals to be locked in to just provider.
Not that ISPs don’t usually suck. When AT&T Fiber lit up in my neighborhood in 2022, magically Spectrum was able to offer faster speeds at lower prices. Though sorry Spectrum, I prefer my 300mbps symmetrical to your 500/20 service.
Are you trying to say competition is good for the consumer?! That’s a wild accusation.
It’s funny how the author is complaining about the incentive for companies to become monopolies under capitalism, and leaves it up to another corporation to lobby for a change. And that voting democrat will help prevent the monopoly too.
Direct and collective action might be better. Such as gathering the tenants together and everyone agreeing not to pay the internet service provision that was forced on them. That would pressure the landlord to not make a deal like that again.
I would like to see more collective action, but it’s also incredibly difficult to put your housing situation on the line when the US (and most states) does not give you a functional backup. As you said, it’s capitalism at work.
I live in the Phoenix metro area and I have Mediacom. I would love the option to get screwed by Cox. That’s how bad Mediacom is.
Can’t imagine this will remain legal
[thunderous laughter]
My 5G phone’s internet sucks compared to the Spectrum I have at the house. Spectrum sucks compared to the Frontier fiber alternative, but I am currently in the Spectrum part of the cycle of having to alternate between them to avoid paying 2x as much. I think Spectrum is starting to realize that they suck because there full rate for my current plan is only about $5 more than Frontier’s promo rate. I imagine they are hoping that I dislike switching enough that I’ll eat the extra cost to avoid switching. If Frontier would just let me have the promo rate all of the time, they would get more money from me, but I guess too many people are too lazy to switch for them to do that.
That sounds just like them.
This isn’t new, my last apartment did this. Their internet was mediocre at best, and I couldn’t afford to just do my own AND pay for the forced upon me internet.
