Internet Speeds

[glennhoffmania]

How does one determine what speed one needs? Fios has a 500 mbps plan and the next one up is 1 gig. The gig plan is $20 more per month. Do I need more than 500? We have a lot of devices but we don't do much streaming and no gaming.

Related question- if one needs a wifi extender does it make more sense to buy one or rent one from Verizon for $5 per month? If the former, any suggestions?

 

[tbrown_01923]

Well its a matter of estimating your upload and download needs. The number of devices probably doesn't not matter. I doubt they are generating and uploading it to a service provider. Also according to google:

The viewer needs a download speed of around 50 Mbps to reliably watch 4K streams. So-called high-speed internet from most ISPs usually only starts at around 25 Mbps.

so 500 is probably more than enough for you. I bet you can get away with less. Streaming 4k leverages a ton of bandwidth. I think online meetings, for instance, consumer less. But you could use the 4k stream as a proxy of max bandwidth you could come across in a retail type of application. if that makes snese

 

[glennhoffmania]

Thanks. That's kind of what I figured. But the Verizon guy is very convincing. Does the size of the house matter? That's where I assume extenders come in and it's what I'm more worried about.

 

[Saints Rest]

One thing to consider is that the 500Mbps (or 1gig) will be what they give you coming into the router. If you are using Wifi, your speeds will be less. For example, I have the 1gig plan from Frontier and it hits my router around 960Mbps, but once it makes it thru the Wifi and deals with various bits of interference, we are usually anywhere from 150-450, depending on the room and how many devices are hitting it at any one time.

 

[Ferm Sheller]

We are a family of four in a 3500 sq ft house and we have 100 Mbps and it's more than sufficient (we routinely stream on four different devices -- have never had an issue), so I'd image that 500 is more than enough for you. Also, we have the Amazon mesh system like the one linked below (but maybe an earlier version of it), and it's been great.

View: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-eero-6-3-pack/dp/B085WSCTS4/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=eero&qid=1683577113&sr=8-5

 

[glennhoffmania]

Thanks, guys. I knew they were trying to rip me off.

 

[Ferm Sheller]

This is what the speed test says about 100 mbps by the way:

 

[johnmd20]

Thanks, guys. I knew they were trying to rip me off.

500 should absolutely be more than enough.

The size of the house doesn't matter. Don't get extenders, they do NOT work, get a mesh network by like Google Nest or Eero. Make sure you set the modem in the center of your house, not on the edge, everything will work better if the meshes work off of the modem's router and not off of each other.

When I had my house in Ohio, I had 3 Google Nests. The house was almost 6,000 sq feet, with the modem set in the center of the house and the nests on both side of it on each side of the house. My plan was the 500mbps. I was streaming 5-8 screens almost all day. No problems, literally ever. No matter where you were in the house, even the garage or deep in the woods in the back, you could stream.

 

[glennhoffmania]

I'm reading about these Eero things now. So this replaces your router? What if the router and modem are one combo unit?

Also how do you figure out which mesh systems will be compatible with your internet setup? Like are their minimum requirements for the mesh based on what kind of internet you have?

 

[MuzzyField]

Yes, you still use the ISP provided router, you just set the modem function into bridge mode and run an ethernet cable out of it into the base/hub unit of your mesh network setup.

 

[Ferm Sheller]

I'm not computer savvy at all and I set ours up in less than a half hour. Pretty straight-foward. This video seems to do a good job of explaining it.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RLon4g2imI

 

[glennhoffmania]

Thanks. I'm assuming I'd be able to figure out how to set it up. I'm more concerned about buying the correct mesh. Is wifi 6 the standard now, so any mesh system that works with 6 is fine?

 

[uncannymanny]

I ended up buying my own modem (Google Wi-Fi). Feels expensive, but $10/mo is more than enough to cover the cost over less than 2 years.

 

[glennhoffmania]

I ended up buying my own modem (Google Wi-Fi). Feels expensive, but $10/mo is more than enough to cover the cost over less than 2 years.

I thought about that. But they include a free modem/router with the package. So I only really need a booster/extender.

 

[Ferm Sheller]

Thanks. I'm assuming I'd be able to figure out how to set it up. I'm more concerned about buying the correct mesh. Is wifi 6 the standard now, so any mesh system that works with 6 is fine?

I purposefully didn't answer that question because I don't want to mislead you, but I think the answer to your question is "yes". I trust that others here are better able to give you a more definitive answer.

 

[glennhoffmania]

I purposefully didn't answer that question because I don't want to mislead you, but I think the answer to your question is "yes". I trust that others here are better able to give you a more definitive answer.

When I spoke to the Fios guy and mentioned that I could simply buy my own extender he gave me some big explanation about how it has to be compatible with their service because they use cutting edge technology or some bullshit. So while I know he's trying to get me to buy their crap I wanted to at least confirm what specs are required. I assume the more recent Eero systems would be fine.

 

[Ferm Sheller]

When I spoke to the Fios guy and mentioned that I could simply buy my own extender he gave me some big explanation about how it has to be compatible with their service because they use cutting edge technology or some bullshit. So while I know he's trying to get me to buy their crap I wanted to at least confirm what specs are required. I assume the more recent Eero systems would be fine.

If it helps, we have FIOS and we bought this system in May 2020 and it's been great for us:

View: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WMLPSRL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[TrapperAB]

Eero was a godsend in our house — immediately got rid of every dead zone. Super easy to set up. One of the most pleasant tech purchases of the last half decade.

 

[glennhoffmania]

If it helps, we have FIOS and we bought this system in May 2020 and it's been great for us:

View: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WMLPSRL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks. I was looking at that one and the plus or something.

 

[AlNipper49]

When I spoke to the Fios guy and mentioned that I could simply buy my own extender he gave me some big explanation about how it has to be compatible with their service because they use cutting edge technology or some bullshit. So while I know he's trying to get me to buy their crap I wanted to at least confirm what specs are required. I assume the more recent Eero systems would be fine.

He's a fucking idiot. You have a new house. Buy your own wireless.

The more recent Eero systems will serve you very well. For your purposes, it'll be effectively plug and play.

 

[glennhoffmania]

Thanks. That's the feedback I was looking for.

He was also trying to sell me their protection plan. Because if I have to choose device insurance I'd obviously get coverage from Verizon.

 

[AlNipper49]

fuck that. I'd suggest getting cancer over getting a Verizon protection plan.

 

[cgori]

Verizon's entire game right now (both wireless and otherwise) seems to be about bundling shit you don't need onto a relatively cheap & effective core service. They are just praying for a good conversion rate on their upsells.

 

[BlackJack]

Eero was a godsend in our house — immediately got rid of every dead zone. Super easy to set up. One of the most pleasant tech purchases of the last half decade.

This. I have the google mesh wifi, which was extremely easy to set up with a base and 2 access points. My mother-in-law got an eero and it was even easier to set up. And it cost less too! If I had to do it again, I’d go with the eero.

 

[glennhoffmania]

Verizon's entire game right now (both wireless and otherwise) seems to be about bundling shit you don't need onto a relatively cheap & effective core service. They are just praying for a good conversion rate on their upsells.

They have some good Fios discounts if you're a wireless customer so I checked out what it would cost for the three of us to switch to Verizon. Three lines of unlimited and 3 phones would be $260 per month. Fucking insane.

 

[OfTheCarmen]

The only other potential thing to keep in mind is data usage. If the 500 doesnt have unlimited data, but the gig does and your usage would put you "over", it's likely the "overage" charges could exceed the $20 monthly increase.

 

[glennhoffmania]

I never even thought of that. I assumed that all Fios plans are unlimited. I've had RCN, TW and Spectrum and I don't think any of them ever had plans that are limited. Are there actually ISPs with data limited plans?

 

[OfTheCarmen]

I'm on Cox and some of their "lower" speed offerings have data limits.

 

[cgori]

They have some good Fios discounts if you're a wireless customer so I checked out what it would cost for the three of us to switch to Verizon. Three lines of unlimited and 3 phones would be $260 per month. Fucking insane.

That seems ... wrong. We moved all of our wireless to Verizon last year and I think a family plan with 8 or 9 devices on it is less than that per month. What I do remember is that they were throwing around credits from phone upgrades like crazy - if you bought an iphone 14 they gave you $500-1000 of bill credit, it basically made it a slam dunk for several of us to upgrade. But they keep trying to upsell us to their anti-spam service or voicemail+ or whatever.

 

[glennhoffmania]

The unlimited plan is $55 per line with autopay, and the phones are $22 each. You're right- you can get credits if you trade in your phone. But otherwise it's $77 per line per month plus taxes/fees. Maybe my $260 was a tad high but it's still up there.

 

[foulkehampshire]

I always recommend (if you’re an internet only Fios customer) is to insist using the Ethernet ports on the ONT over Coax. It gives you more options for Routers and you’re not limited to those crappy gateways Verizon insists on making you rent.

If you are using the TV service, I believe you’re kinda stuck with the MoCA (coax) standard so you have to use a gateway modem/router from VZ.

 

[bsj]

Bumping this. After decades of renting a modem and a router from Xfinity, and dealing with dead spots, we finally bit the bullet. Today, installed a new Netgear modem and an Eero pro 6 mesh system. It was incredibly easy to set up, and we suddenly have far better wifi which i was hoping for. Entire house is over 100 mbps, with much of the house sitting over 200 mbps. And my back deck and patio, which were constantly dropping in and out of range, are a solid 80-100 mbps. Even my fire pit, back corner of the yard, is in the 50 mbps range.

Sizable investment but worth it, and will make it back in a couple years of modem rental

 

[Time to Mo Vaughn]

I always recommend (if you’re an internet only Fios customer) is to insist using the Ethernet ports on the ONT over Coax. It gives you more options for Routers and you’re not limited to those crappy gateways Verizon insists on making you rent.

If you are using the TV service, I believe you’re kinda stuck with the MoCA (coax) standard so you have to use a gateway modem/router from VZ.

Above either 100 or 200 Mbps, you actually need to use the straight Ethernet out from ONT anyway, but if you also have cable then you'll need to use their router as well to MoCA the cable boxes. I bought one used/factory refurbished(?) on eBay like 4 or 5 years ago for like $70 and I just use it as an additional wireless access point.

 

[Spelunker]

Above either 100 or 200 Mbps, you actually need to use the straight Ethernet out from ONT anyway, but if you also have cable then you'll need to use their router as well to MoCA the cable boxes. I bought one used/factory refurbished(?) on eBay like 4 or 5 years ago for like $70 and I just use it as an additional wireless access point.

ONT?

 

[Time to Mo Vaughn]

Optical Network Terminal

It's basically the box where fiber coming into your house from the street is terminated and then converts to COAX and/or Ethernet. It'll look like one of these guys:

 

[glennhoffmania]

It turns out that the ONT in my new house is in the garage. So unless I want to do a pretty significant rewiring job that's where the modem has to go, correct?. It's where the current residents have it now I think. Can an Eero go in the garage? I'm sure it gets very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. I sent a question to Eero customer support about this but they haven't replied.

 

[jayhoz]

It turns out that the ONT in my new house is in the garage. So unless I want to do a pretty significant rewiring job that's where the modem has to go, correct?. It's where the current residents have it now I think. Can an Eero go in the garage? I'm sure it gets very hot in the summer and very cold in the summer. I sent a question to Eero customer support about this but they haven't replied.

Is their any wiring from the garage to the house at all? Coax or Ethernet? Assuming there is Coax, I believe you could connect the Coax directly to the ONT and then the Eero to a Coax jack in the house via an adapter.

 

[glennhoffmania]

Is their any wiring from the garage to the house at all? Coax or Ethernet? Assuming there is Coax, I believe you could connect the Coax directly to the ONT and then the Eero to a Coax jack in the house via an adapter.

There are coax jacks in the house if that's what you're asking. But I don't think there's any direct wiring like from the ONT to the house. All I know is when I was in the garage I saw the ONT and saw what I assumed to be the Verizon modem next to it. I'll have to ask the owners what they did. But the Eero needs to connect via ethernet to the modem, right? So if the modem needs to be in the garage I assume the Eero does. And then I thought about the temperature issue.

 

[jayhoz]

Your Fios setup will be fiber from the street to the ONT. ONT to your router (Eero in your case) via either Coax or Ethernet. There is no "modem". If the coax in the house is functional then I assume it is wired to the ONT in the garage. If that is the case, then instead of putting the Eero next to the ONT in the garage you could use the coax in the house as the connection to the ONT. You'd need a Coax to ethernet adapter to do this.

I had to request that my ONT connection be switched from coax to ethernet in my house. You might need to have Verizon switch yours to coax. Not sure whether they ever turn that port off for some reason.

 

[glennhoffmania]

Sorry if I'm being dense but I don't understand that. I was told that I need a modem/router for the TV service to work (it's a combo modem and router so I can't just get the modem). So I can't simply run the ONT to the Eero and skip the modem. This is the part that sounds like it could be more complicated than the Eero instructions suggest. This is what part of the instructions say:

1. If you have FiOS TV and Internet, you will need to set up your eeros behind your existing router, temporarily creating a double NAT, and then put them into bridge mode.

I have no idea what that means.

 

[jayhoz]

Didn't realize you were using the TV service as well. No idea what you'd need in that case.

 

[glennhoffmania]

OK, sorry for the confusion. Apparently having TV service changes the setup process and the video Ferm posted above doesn't apply.

 

[Seels]

Interesting timing seeing this thread for me.

I have a 3 story house and a modem I bought. Some Motorolla thing. Anyway, it works fine for most things. Modem is on middle floor, tvs and appliances upstairs downstairs or even in garage all work fine. I get 150-200 mps regardless of where I am, regardless of what I'm using.

With one significant exception: My home PC. It's about 7 feet across from the modem and one floor up, but I get like under 10 mps unless I use an extender. This is new. My basement rooms get on it just fine, the tv that is near my PC streams just fine. If I put my school laptop next to my PC, it gets 100+ just fine. But not the PC. What gives?

 

[tmracht]

Interesting timing seeing this thread for me.

I have a 3 story house and a modem I bought. Some Motorolla thing. Anyway, it works fine for most things. Modem is on middle floor, tvs and appliances upstairs downstairs or even in garage all work fine. I get 150-200 mps regardless of where I am, regardless of what I'm using.

With one significant exception: My home PC. It's about 7 feet across from the modem and one floor up, but I get like under 10 mps unless I use an extender. This is new. My basement rooms get on it just fine, the tv that is near my PC streams just fine. If I put my school laptop next to my PC, it gets 100+ just fine. But not the PC. What gives?

What kinda wifi card in the PC? Had it been somewhere else and worked ok? Seems odd if you've tried other devices on the same desk if it isn't a PC issue of some sort.

 

[SumnerH]

Some things to maybe try looking at/ruling out:

Possibility #1: Your router is dual band (5Ghz and 2.4Ghz) and the desktop for some reason is connecting on the other band from everything else (older wifi cards only do 2.4Ghz). Or if your router is crazy new it could be tri-band, similar deal.

If, say, the laptop and stuff are on 5Ghz and the computer is on 2.4Ghz, then there could be some new piece of technology (a neighbor got a new router that's on that band, or a new smart device, or something) interfering with the 2.4Ghz band and it'd only cause the desktop to slow down. Alternatively, perhaps the desktop used to connect to the same band as everything else and has flipped to another one for some reason.

If your router has different SSIDs (network names) for the 2 bands then it should be easy to see which one your desktop is connected to. If it doesn't, you might consider separating them out so it's easier to force the desktop onto the correct one. Or try futzing with the channel on the 2.4Ghz band if it's currently auto-selecting, in case it's on an overloaded channel.

Possibility #2: There's a specific thing blocking signal to the desktop location. Have you tried moving it 3' in each direction to see if speed is affected?

Possibility #3: There's an antenna wired or plugged into the desktop wifi that has either become unplugged/cable broken or the antenna has fallen down behind a filing cabinet or something dumb like that.

Possibility #4: A bad driver update fucked over your performance on the desktop.

Possibility #5: The hardware is beginning to die.

 

[johnmd20]

Some things to maybe try looking at/ruling out:

Possibility #1: Your router is dual band (5Ghz and 2.4Ghz) and the desktop for some reason is connecting on the other band from everything else (older wifi cards only do 2.4Ghz). Or if your router is crazy new it could be tri-band, similar deal.

If, say, the laptop and stuff are on 5Ghz and the computer is on 2.4Ghz, then there could be some new piece of technology (a neighbor got a new router that's on that band, or a new smart device, or something) interfering with the 2.4Ghz band and it'd only cause the desktop to slow down. Alternatively, perhaps the desktop used to connect to the same band as everything else and has flipped to another one for some reason.

If your router has different SSIDs (network names) for the 2 bands then it should be easy to see which one your desktop is connected to. If it doesn't, you might consider separating them out so it's easier to force the desktop onto the correct one. Or try futzing with the channel on the 2.4Ghz band if it's currently auto-selecting, in case it's on an overloaded channel.

Possibility #2: There's a specific thing blocking signal to the desktop location. Have you tried moving it 3' in each direction to see if speed is affected?

Possibility #3: There's an antenna wired or plugged into the desktop wifi that has either become unplugged/cable broken or the antenna has fallen down behind a filing cabinet or something dumb like that.

Possibility #4: A bad driver update fucked over your performance on the desktop.

Possibility #5: The hardware is beginning to die.

Your possibility chain is like using WebMD. You start out and it's like, "Oh this is nothing, I need to take no actions, I'll get better," and then you keep reading and finish with, "In 3 days I will be dead. WTF?"

 

[Twalk]

For Eero fans, any experience using it with Starlink? I just built a house that is two structures. Both are 2 floors. The 2nd structure is a garage 1st floor and ADU on 2 floor that is connected to the main house with a breezeway. Starlink is working in the ADU but i have concern if we get a tenant its spotty. Researching it seems it should work with Starlink's Ethernet adapter. Was thinking a router in each structure.

 

[amlothi]

The unlimited plan is $55 per line with autopay, and the phones are $22 each. You're right- you can get credits if you trade in your phone. But otherwise it's $77 per line per month plus taxes/fees. Maybe my $260 was a tad high but it's still up there.

LOL

I have 9 lines unlimited through T mobile and pay $66 total per month. $77 per line is a joke!

 

[glennhoffmania]

So I got my Fios hooked up and installed the Eeros. It was easy. And it works well. The speeds aren't crazy but they're fine. We have a couple of spots that could use some work though. Is there any downside to adding more Eeros? Like are there diminishing returns? We have four right now, one on each level. I'm thinking about buying another one for the main floor where the router is, and one for the top floor. Is that overkill? I read that each one should cover 1500 sq ft and our house is far less than 6000 sq ft, if that matters.

 

[AlNipper49]

If you have Amazon Echos the newer ones can use used as extenders.