Anyone with Quantum Fiber Available?
 

Is there anyon with Quantum Fiber available at your home still using Xfinity, Spectrum or any other service and paying over $50/month for internet service? If so, can you tell us why?

Quite the heavy sales pitch, no? How many "buy Quantum" threads are there now? I am avoiding Quantum partially because of these sales threads.

Beyond that:
- I like the ability to move my 5G gateway with me
- A power outage is less likely to affect a cellular communications network than a cable or fiber provider
- My 5G gateway is on an UPS (so was my Xfinity gateway); I don't know whether the optical converter would be on an UPS but the multiple devices within my home would not.
- I am actually paying less for the service I use than I would with Quantum
- I haven't yet been presented with a "price for life" offer that turned out to cover the life of the offer rather than the life of the equipment, the service, or me.

Thanks, this is good information. The post was not intended as a sales pitch but to create awareness for those looking for alternatives. Any alternatives and you pointed out some good reasons to go with a wireless solution. I've seen some wireless intstallations that work very well but you need to be close to the providers cell tower to get optimal performance. Also, most don't think about using a UPS. They are not that expensive and easy to hook-up keeping your service active during those annoying short power outages we get during summer storms.

Personally, I like Quantum Fiber. I'll like it even more when the customer service improves.

Quantum told me I did not have service in my area even though the fiber cable is looped at the side of my house...so I just went with Xfinity NOW for $30 / month 100 mbs and bought a $200 WiFi 7 router to connect to their supplied cable modem. $50 per month was more than I was willing to pay anyhoo.

Which Village do you live in?

My parents still do, but that is in the process of being rectified. They are getting fleeced by Spectrum.

I have Xfinity, but only because it's really the only game in town for my village. I work remotely and I have no confidence a 5G IP will provide what I need in terms of consistent speed and reliability.

I had no problem with the Xfinity speed or reliability. I would still be with them if they had not ended a discount at an unfortunate time. It wasn’t a large discount but it prompted me to look at what my options might be and I wound up giving TMobile a try. 14 months in and so far so good at my location.

What download speeds are you getting?

When I bother to look, 200Mbps to 300Mbps.

I would not be surprised if that dropped dduring some peak time like football playoffs but I’ve never had any issue with buffering or dropouts.

(Okay, not never. T-Mobile was having some problem Wednesday afternoon but it was back to normal by dinner time)

Nope

I've had the Quantum $35 for life deal since November. The fiber was already in my neighborhood, so that was a 15 minute connection. Speed says a gig, but just ran a test - 521 mbps download, 921 upload. Still plenty fast for multiple streaming devices.

The equipment is included, and the coverage in my house and even points outside is good. It's month to month so if it ever goes south, and Quantum causes too much of a hassle to fix, I can dump it pretty quick.

So it works for me. Of course, your mileage may vary.

I have been a CenturyLink customer both here and in Colorado. I just switched to Quantum as the service tech who replaced my fiber line (pool contractor broke it multiple times) said all the equipment they carry is for Quantum and if I had a CenturyLink outage due to equipment breaking, it might take weeks to replace.

As for speeds, I just checked on my iPad wireless and got 650 download and 200 upload. I do have issues with their support all outsourced to India.

I just helped my 85+ yo neighbor leave Xfinity as she was paying well over $250 per month for TV, Internet and a landline. I saved her over $100 per month. $40 more if she bites the bullet and drops the landline. Took some time for her to get past no channels but I put her favorite stations to the top of her guide and she rarely has a problem.

Which internet and live channel streaming did you get for her?

Trying to convince my father to drop his landline. He's worried he'll miss a call from someone who doesn't know his mobile number. It's been several years since he's received anything but SPAM calls but he still won't budge.

This is a good story. Thanks for sharing it.

But just FYI, almost all corporations have outsourced their call centers. One reason is cost but another is having call centers in different time zones so you can call almost any time day or night. I'm not saying I agree, but this is the way it is and it's not going to change. And just because a specific company has all US call centers doesn't mean its automatically good. Yes, it's easier to understand the agent but they might not be very competant. Overall, Quantum's support is actually very good and they have a great web site where you can do a lot of stuff that you would normally need to call about. The few times I've had to call if I couldn't understand the agent, I would hang up and call back in. Some have told me they tell the agent they are having trouble and they will transfer you to another agent or supervisor.

Do you have a local phone number for Quantum?

How about Ooma VoIP service for your father? My understanding is customers can keep their numbers, but you would have to investigate this for him.

(This is not an advertisement, I am just trying to be helpful. It might work for you, it might not.)

Why are you asking?

I know MagicJack required a desktop/laptop to work and I assumed Ooma did too; he doesn't have either.

My preference would be to have him use just the single mobile number rather than having to deal with two numbers, two phones, two bills, etc. But I'll take a look at Ooma to see if that might work for his situation.

NOTE: I am trying simply to eliminate an expense. A VOIP phone is NOT a one-to-one replacement for a landline phone. In the worst of emergencies, the landline phone might be a bit more reliable than the mobile. On the other hand, I don't expect we will encounter that type of emergency so his mobile on one cell carrier and his internet (providing wifi calling and possibly Ooma) on another cell carrier seems sufficiently reliable.

We changed to Comcast Now for less than a month. We were trying to do anything to get rid of the $125 a month Internet service that we had with Xfinity. It had started at around $60.02 years ago and since then had doubled.

It wasn’t until after we signed up that we found all service was via their app and that made it very difficult considering both of our televisions were crashing regularly. That meant multiple times a day in the evening. Football season

We had less trouble with the computers, but it also was dropping the Pool application. They told us we needed 2.4 which they told us it didn’t have and then after we talked about having to change back, they told us it did have 2.4 and that was standard again I have no idea what the truth was.

After two weeks and probably 13 hours on the phone and five hours in the Comcast store, we are back to the original product but at a substantially discounted price for grief and suffering.

Right all you can get is Xfinity or spectrum there.

(833) 250-6306

Thanks, jrref.

Personally, I would rather boil rocks for soup than work at a customer service call center. The people in India have the patients of Soloman...So to speak.

Had there been a $35 / month deal from Quantum I would have worked a little harder to convince them that I do have a fiber cable pulled to the house. $30 / month 100mb from Xfinity NOW is perfectly fine and a WiFi 7 tri-band router is cheap enough.

I will be doing this for my parents since, for some reason, they insist on keeping a home phone number.

It's interesting because when that $35 per month deal from Quantum came out in December it was for new AND existing customers in selected areas and Not a permotion as per their fine print. I got myself and all the neighbors I could contact on to this plan and even made a thread about it here on TOTV. A "ton" of people got the deal but unfortunately it was turned Off on January 7th. Maybe it will happen again someday? In the mean time I would spend some time with Quantum to put your address in their system so in the future if you wanted to get their service, you will be able to. Getting their database updated is going to involve Quantum dispatching a tech to verify your fiber then they have to update their records. This will take a while to complete.

I loved Quantum for 3 years it was perfect, and then it went down and due to a recent event we needed to have internet for a medical emergency reason. They didn't care - they got cancelled. so now I suffer with spectrum

That's unfortunate. I understand for some, internet is critical for work or medical or other reasons. In working with Quantum, they are usually pretty quick to send out a tech but if anything else is wrong, it can take a while to fix. When I worked for Verizon, we were regulated by the Public Service Commission and other govt. agencies so if there was a medical or other critical issue, we would respond the same day and it would be a priority.

What I'm curious about is, did Spectrum give you any assurance that they would maintain a high level of service given your situation?

Also, at a high level can you tell us what the problem was with Quantum that took too long to fix.

Just curious to learn what happened and for other's is there any company that will respond quickly for these types of customers these days?

Yes! Quantum fiber service database was in error and they wouldn't budge even though I offered to send them a picture of the fiber cable at the side of my house. I would like to have 2 no-contract Internet companies terminated so I can go back and forth at my pleasure. I can actually have 3 Internet service providers if I get Spectrum to bury a cable to the house. Choice is good. I will definitely look out for the $35 deal.

I think what keeps the cable companies going here in the Villages is there are still many people that are so "comfortable" with their TV and sometime phone service that no matter how much they are charged they are "scared" to try a new lower cost service.

More and more I've been contacted by Villagers who are paying $250-$300/month for Xfinity or Spectrum and are troubled that they are being ripped-off but just don't what to make the switch to Quantum, or any other internet service, and YouTube TV or any other streaming service. They claim after being notified of an increase, when they call the company they only give them a "token" discount. I believe their business model is to charge "full price" to everyone they can so they can offer "deals" to those who have alternatives and are more willing to switch.

Many times I suggest leaving all their services alone and trying the free 10 day trial for YouTube TV to see if they like it so the experience isn't as tramatic and they can better decide it the change is good for them, but many don't even want to do that. Regardless, there have been a couple of people who I've have helped make the switch and after about a week they are very happy and felt the experience was pretty easy.

Anyway, just an observation.

I had Ooma for about 5 years, before I retired. I ran a fair amount of conf calls and my cell just didn't cut it from a quality point of view and the occasional drop was unacceptable. This was before Wi-Fi calling on a cellphone. Ooma has a box, you don't need a computer. It plugs into your router. Actually, you can put it before your router as your router can plug into the Ooma box for potentially better QoS. It is low cost, IIRC I was paying about $7 per month. It is effectively a replacement for a more traditional land line. Regarding power outages, my ONT was on a UPS so there is a good chance internet access would continue but the Ooma box, and the attached phone, would also need to be on a UPS. Power outages are so infrequent that I don't think this is really an issue. The voice quality was very good. They did import numbers when I had it. I dropped it when I retired as I didn't need it anymore.

No advertising here either.Check onto Magic Jack Had the service for over 30 years and never had any issues. All the bells come with the service. I pay $95.00 for three years of service. And yes you can keep the landline number. It's called porting.

You don't need a computer for Magic Jack either. It cost me $160 total for 7 years with voicemail and FAX capability...$1.90 / month.

It is fear of change that drives these $300 per month Internet/Cable Box/Phone prices :) You can't move them.

Another reason for cable modem is that the modem/router is in the living room so I can put one large UPS on my NAS, Magic Jack and cable modem WiFi router in case of power outage. Power outages are rare where I live but I feel naked without Internet/phone. I use laptop computers as desktops...Connect to external monitor/keyboard/mouse via USB and USB-C Display Port. My monitor powers my laptop (charges battery) via USB-C port.

at about 9:37am the service just stopped, no reasons, they kept on blaming my equipment, wich it wasn't it was their problem outside this house. I escalated it 3 times and it was still a 2-3 day wait. So I called around and spectrum was the first to not only sign me up but be there in a few hours to switch the fiber to coax, and yes they showed up.

With that said I much more prefer they way it way but if this is going to be the 'new millennial' version of 'lack of support' then I'll love with spectrum as when I calli actually get an american human.

at a deeper level the issue was pretty easy - they had a line break and couldn't see it. I kept on telling them what it was but alas someone with 49 years in all levels of IT has no clue what they are talking about ..... go figure

Thanks for the information. Again, sorry this happened to you.

From what I understand, the "normal" wait for a tech to come out is usually a day or two depending on when you call. If the tech was dispatched they would have found the break and got you back up. I've watched them do this fiber line tracing a couple of times. Most of the time the problem is the fiber coupler in the box on the side of your house. Other times it could be the fiber connector at the terminal. If it were anything else like a cable cut from construction many of your neighbors would have been affected.

In talking to one of the Quantum techs who I know, he explained that they are overwhelmed with new installations because of the cheaper pricing that Quantum has been offering recently and they don't have a specific team just doing repairs. This is why the wait. He said, they need to have a repair specific team focusing on same day repairs to prevent situations like you had from occuring.

This wouldn't have helped in your case but if your service goes out the first thing to do is check the SmartNid. If you don't see a green light then power cycle it. If that doesn't work take a paper clip and depress the reset button adjacent to the power plug for 20 seconds. The light should go from Yellow to Red to flashing blue to green. If that doesn't work call Quantum because it's probably a problem with the fiber coming into your home. I've not seen the SmartNid fail unless it gets zapped from a power surge but it's possible.