I'm forced to pay for Spectrum cable internet, and I'm not the only one.
  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    9 months ago

    I’m actually shocked at how small an amount of people have t-mobiles. It works fantastic and never drops in my area, which is a whole lot better than the cable net I had. My phones are t-mo so the internet (its a gateway they give you, so modem/wifi in one) is $30 a month with no taxes or bs. Straight $30. I think it’s $50 if you aren’t a t-mo cell customer.

    • Scary le Poo@beehaw.org
      1·
      9 months ago

      Latency. Also, wired is always better than wireless. I’ll save the long boring explanation for another time, but suffice it to say that wireless constantly has dropped packets, and constantly has to retransmit data.

      Wired when you can, wireless when you have to.

    • Pete Hahnloser@beehaw.org
      0·
      9 months ago

      I’m on T-Mobile via an MVNO for $204/year all-in (Mint, 5GB/month) and have 5G Business Internet through them for the flat $50. Combine that with being exclusively on solar power, and it’s cute to hear when the local utilities go down.

      Is it as fast as fixed internet? No. Is that relevant 95% of the time? Also no.

        • Pete Hahnloser@beehaw.org
          1·
          9 months ago

          I rarely break 1GB/month given how often I’m on WiFi, and I don’t stream anything on my phone (purchased music collection works just fine). I get that’s not how we’re encouraged to use phones, but it suits my needs.

    • beefcat@beehaw.org
      0·
      9 months ago

      i play games online, and wireless is prone to jitter and lag spikes.

      you don’t notice these things when browsing the web, streaming movies, or even downloading large games. but in multiplayer games it’s a problem

      i have gigabit fiber in my neighborhood though, so i’m not being forced to choose between shitty cable and compromised wireless

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
        0·
        9 months ago

        I also game online and have no lag or jitter(unless it’s server side and everyone is complaining). Like I said before. I have good ping and zero packet loss. Sounds like you had a bad wifi set up.

        • beefcat@beehaw.org
          0·
          9 months ago

          Average ping isn’t really the problem with wireless, it’s packet loss. But my concern wasn’t WiFi, which has gotten pretty good, though still prone to issues with certain home designs and building materials. My concern was cellular networks. 5G reception at my house with two different major carriers (AT&T and T-Mobile) is just OK at best, and I measure plenty of packet loss and lag spikes. It’s not a problem for my phone, but I would find that unacceptable for my home internet.

          I don’t think we will ever reach a point where wireless technologies are as good as a hard connections. All the neat tricks we use to eek more bandwidth out of wireless spectrum like time division multiple access are equally applicable to both copper and fiber optic lines. And those copper and fiber optic lines have the benefits of having much more spectrum available to use, not having to share spectrum with nearly as many devices, and not having usable spectrum limited by line-of-sight. They also benefit from not needing to share nearly as many clients over the same medium, since each individual wire is it’s own medium, rather than sharing the same RF medium as every other wireless device in your locale.

            • beefcat@beehaw.org
              0·
              9 months ago

              20 packets is a very small sample size.

              ping also won’t necessarily capture all lost packets over wifi. Many are lost and re-transmitted by the wifi hardware without anything higher in the stack being aware.

              • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
                0·
                9 months ago

                Look, man. Keep trying to spin things as hard as you can, but my wifi doesn’t lose packets, and “higher than the stack” hiding dropped packets is pure baloney, since that would still show a substantial increase in ping time. Stop trying to make yourself feel vindicated for buying expensive internet.

                • beefcat@beehaw.org
                  0·
                  9 months ago

                  Hey man, I’m just speaking from 15 years of industry experience. Like I said, if you’re happy with the performance, that’s great. But I can objectively measure (and feel) the difference, so don’t go trying to tell me my personal experience is somehow invalid. People should know that there is, in fact, a difference. You’re not even addressing what I said about the latency and just getting hung up on packet loss.

                  Also my internet is not expensive. My city has a municipal fiber network, and I only pay about $50/mo for symmetrical gigabit service. I don’t need to “vindicate” myself here. I don’t think people should have to settle for wireless internet to get away from Comcast when fiber is a faster option without compromises.

      • BotCheese@beehaw.org
        0·
        9 months ago

        From what I understand it is some thing for AI, to stop them from harvesting or to poison the data, by having it repeating therefore more likely to show up.

        • beefcat@beehaw.org
          0·
          9 months ago

          Sounds an awful lot like that thing boomers used to do on Facebook where they would post a message on their wall rescinding Facebook’s rights to the content they post there. I’m sure it’s equally effective.