LOL right!! So, I've seen many eventually realize they don't need the landline anymore and just drop it. Some feel the landline phone is like a member of the family. Fortunately, you can go to Consumer Cellular and port your number to them and they will give you a landline phone that works over their cellular network so you can keep it if you want. I think it's $15/month. Or you can get MajicJack.

I know i've said this before but you need to understand the situation the cable companies are in. They are loosing subscribers at an alarming rate so when you call they have been instructed to make it as hard as possible to cancel or try to re-negioate your service. I know some just spend an hour and get some sort of temporary discount but at the end of the day you need to figure out which companies service your home and then work with the company that you like best and has the best deal for your specific needs.

I know I talk about Quantum fiber a lot but the reason is when I moved to the Villages 3 1/2 years ago, many had no idea what it was or that their home was already pre-wired and they had this choice. My personal goal was to create awareness and help my friends and neighbors make the switch if that's what they wanted to do.

I pay $40/month with Xfinity. I supply my own modem and wifi router and my account is on autopay to get that rate. Every 12 months they try to increase my rate but then we just call them and tell them we're cancelling, and then they offer us $40 for 12 months again. Has worked for 3 years in a row so far.

For which speed?

300 mbps. We can have 3 TV's steaming at once without any issues.

Hi-Def (aka 1080p) requires about 5 megabits per second per stream. 4k (aka 2160p) requires about 20 megabits per second. per stream. We used to stream Netflix to 2 TVs simultaneously without issues at full 1080p resolution with a nominal 10 megabits per second internet bandwidth. Most people have more than an order of magnitude more internet bandwidth than they require. This, of course, can't be avoided because the lowest tier of service by most providers is several hundred megabits per second. I have noticed an attempt by providers to upsell customers to even higher nominal bandwidths at higher prices. Most people don't have a good handle on what they actually need.

I switched from the Netflix premium service (4K) to the standard service (1080p) and I didn't notice any difference in picture quality. I have a 75 inch, 4K + HDR, television. I find it very strange that they don't even tell you when a program is in 4K or 1080p.

Note that Netflix just increased their prices this month. The standard service is now $17.99 per month, and the premium service is $24.99 per month.

I find this very strange because if you have anything but a 4K Samsung TV you will see many movies in 4k Dolby Vision and if you have a Samsung TV you will see them in HDR. These movies will definetly be at a noticably higher resolution and brighter. There is no way to not notice it. But, depending on what you watch, you may be watching 1080P content on Netflix so in that case you won't see any difference.

Along with this information, another reason to dump cable and stream no matter which Internet provider you use is because the cable companies are not sending all their content at 1080P. Much if it is still at 720P. Your TV will be upscalling it to 1080P or 4K in most cases but that upscaling is not a substitite for higher resolution content. I helped a couple switch from Xfinity to Quantum with Youtube TV using 4K Roku streaming devices and without any prompting from me they mentioned the picture looked a lot sharper to them after watching content for a couple of days.

Unless you are looking at true 4K material up close (say a few feet), you probably can't tell the difference between a 4K and a 1080p version. Our typical viewing distance is 12 feet for a 75" set. There is not much material in 4K. You can find some nice 4k demos on YouTube, typically nature scenes.

I have a Sony TV. I can watch Netflix through my Xfinity cable box, or using a direct wifi stream using a 4K Roku stick. In either case, the picture looks the same. I wish the provider would tell you which format you are actually watching, but apparently, they want to keep it a secret.

Technically, you are 100% correct, but there is more than streaming that requires higher speeds. For example, if you have cameras or a video doorbell, when someone comes to the door or the camera senses movement, the video has to go from your home to the server in the cloud then back down to your device. Slow cable upload speeds or slower speeds in general make the response time very slow. When I had cable and my video doorbell rang, the person was gone most of the time before I got the video. Another example it if you backup your devices to the cloud which you should be doing. Or if you upload a lot of files or pictures. Then upload speed becomes an issue.

So all this said, Most of us Villagers will get by fine anywhere from 200-500 mbs. Remember, with cable you will get slow-downs from time to time which will cause some buffering so you want a higher speed than 100Mbs to give you some margin when this happens.

If you are a gamer, then higher speeds and shorter latency is what you will want. I'm not sure how many "gamers" there are in the Villages but this is a driver for faster speeds.

These high internet speeds are mainly for homes with families where you have three or more people using the internet or if you have a business at home or you are a Youtuber or upload a lot of content to the internet.

At the end of the day, $40 for 300Mbs or $50 for $500Mbs or if you were lucky and got the $35 for 1Gbs that was available recently these services are what you want. If you have fiber at your home, you want that service because the download and upload speeds are the same, you are NOT sharing your bandwidth with all your neighbors meaning you have a direct connection so no slow-downs during peak times and the latency is the shortest. Always choose fiber over cable at any price.

The majority of Villages would be fine with a nominal 40 megabits per second up and down. It is disingenuous on the part of vendors to suggest that hundreds of megabits per second to gigabits per second will provide you a better experience. Those who actually need higher bandwidths will generally know. Regarding backups to the cloud, they are typically incremental backups and don't require much bandwidth and it really doesn't matter how long they take. If you have no clue what you need then you are probably paying for much more than you need.

I notice when shows are in 720 resolution (typically YTTV) but I'm not sure I notice the difference between 1080 and 4K. I do see a banner with the rate when I first tune to a show but I'm not sure if that's coming from the television or the firestick.

When I was concerned about usage limits I put my firestick into a non-4K mode. Is it possible your device is configured that way and you didn't notice any difference because you never watched a show in 4K?

Thanks for pointing out that the standard plan is only 1080. I have premium for a different reason and was considering a downgrade but now I'll have to give that a bit more thought.

It would be difficult for the provider to tell you that information. There is not a separate data stream for messages from the provider. They don't send a popup or special commercial to those using the 4K streams. The best they might do is present two versions of a show and allow you to choose one but I would find it annoying to have yet another button to click to play the movie (images of George Jetson just popped into my head).

The television should to be able to tell you what resolution it is displaying though each brand would have its own way of accessing that info.

For the record, all of my equipment is in the 4K mode. I have a 4K Roku stick, a 4K cable box, a 4K Blu-Ray player, and a 4K television, and everything is set to 4K.

I agree with you on the backups. After the first full backup, the rest are incremental and not a problem. The problem is with the first full backup or if you want to run another full backup periodically or if you have multiple computers which we do. When I had cable, my upload speed was about 30Mbs and I couldn't get the full backup to complete.

As far as 40Mbs being sufficient, that could be true if you had fiber internet and were getting that speed all the time and were hard wired to your router. But as we know, even with fiber, forget about cable, the internet is variable so you need some extra speed as a buffer or you could have problems. When I help Villagers switch to Fiber Internet, I hear the same story often. That they needed to pay for higher cable internet speeds because when the snow birds returned their cable internet speed would vary enough to cause their streaming devices to buffer and were tired of slow internet when using their computers. The other thing that is often overlooked is for example, say you have 100Mbs service at your router. When you are hard wired or very close to your wifi device you will get this speed. But when you are on Wifi, as you move away from your wifi device, your speed will get slower and slower. Many of us have TVs, computers and other devices on Wifi because we can hard wire them. So having 40Mbs service in theory, if you are wired can be enough bandwidth as you mentioned, but in reality, most use wifi for almost everything so 40Mbs will not be enough speed. This is why I believe most ISPs give you a minimum of 200-500Mbs. They want to service to work for most people and don't wan the call backs. Just not worth it for them.

You make a good point though, ISPs are using speed as an advertising gimmick to some extent. Even if they offered you 1Gbs speed, you would probably never use all that bandwidth. If you are not using the bandwidth it doesn't cost them anymore to provide 1Gbs service vs 500Gbs service. Where speed and number of users comes into play is with Fixed wireless from Verizon and T-Moble and with cable. In all these cases, their transport system is designed to handle only a certain amount of users simultaneously. When this is exceeded you can experience slow-downs.

Doubtful. I get 90% of nominal bandwidth everywhere in my 2100 sq ft house with a router that is centrally located. Regardless, most of the bandwidth is used by video and as long as you can get 5 megabits per second you are good to go.

You're assuming that we are getting non-compressed pure 1080p from your streaming service. That is EXTREMELY rare. Services like Netflix and Prime compress the heck out of everything. Works totally fine for some things, not so much for other things.

Anything over 300 mbps is overkill for 99% of the population.

You are fortunate that you get 90% of nominal bandwidth everywhere in your 2100 sq ft house. I've been in a lot of homes here in the Villages and coverage depends on the quality of the wifi device used and the floor plan layout. Although the cable and fiber techs try to place the wifi device in the best location, I've seen some terrible installs, especially with cable. These days the techs are instructed to do the install as quick as possible. But with a good wifi device placed in a good location, yes, you should get most of the wired speed. So a great example is the new Quantum fiber recently installed in Bonita Villas. These are Courtyard Villas with a common, long floor plan. Meaning usually a bedroom converted office on one end then the kitchen, livingrooms and bedrooms as you go to the other end of the home. When Quantum installs the SmartNid/router they also put the wifi7 pod right next to it on the wall of the bedroom/office in most cases. Although the wifi works, it gets pretty slow and spotty as you go to the other end of the home. What I've been doing for many is making a 10-15ft Ethernet cable then moving the Wifi7 pod over to their desk or a shelf on the desk were there is limited obstructions to the rest of the home. The result is the wifi signal is almost full strength all over the home, even in the Lanai on the other side of the home. In the "old" days at Verizon, the techs would do stuff like this to get the most out of the service. These days, the techs don't have ethernet cable on the truck or are even allowed to make cables. They install, get it working and as long as there is a signal they are done. I don't agree with this but this is the situation.Of course you might get a tech who may take the extra step but it's rare.

I don't disagree with the notion of 5 or 10 or 20 or 40 Mbs being sufficient especially since everything we stream is compressed but you are assuming near perfect conditions. And I don't blame the ISPs "pushing" higher speeds so most installations will work with minimal callbacks. If they are willing to provide reasonable speeds at cheap monthly prices like the fiber companies are doing today, I'm happy. It will be interesting to see what the future holds.

What is labeled as 1080p consumes about 5 megabits per second. Anything over about 40 megabits per second is overkill for 99% of the population.

Nope. Any centrally located router will deliver good Wi-Fi performance.

ISP probably push higher bandwidths because they see higher revenues in doing so and most people have no clue what they require.

You spend a lot of words pushing a narrative.

I don't agree with everything you are saying but you are entitled to your opinion. It's good to get different perspectives on a topic.

As far as pushing a narrative, I have 30 years real-life experience in networking field, worked for an ISP, and am just trying to share some of my knowledge to my neighbors here in the Villages. Many Villagers have none or very little understanding in this area and welcome people who are willing to help.

Not even centrally located.

My TMobile router is at the end of my house closest to the cell tower for best reception. I ran three speed tests standing five feet from the router and three more at the other end of the house in the bedroom. There was essentially no difference at all.

"Essentially" because two of the three tests were faster in the bedroom, farther from the router. My *guess* is that the rate was bouncing between 300Mbps and 320Mbps and it just happened to be at the higher end when I was farther away from the router.

Nope, not opinion, just facts. You consistently go on a rant about cable providers and suggest people need higher bandwidths than required. Cable providers are fine for internet access for the vast majority of people. Choosing a cable provider for content is another issue. While I haven't used a cable provider for internet access there are plenty who have and seem happy. While I have had broadband access for 28 years and fiber to the house for 15 years, I wouldn't criticize those who choose cable for internet access. It is just bits down a wire and if it meets your requirements then it is fine.

It is good to hear that. While I have been reasonably happy with CenturyLink/QuantumFiber, I am glad to hear that the cellular providers are a good option if I need it. Thanks for the feedback.

Which type of home do you have so we can get an idea of the layout? Are there any major obstructions between your router and the rest of your house? My guess is no because as I mentioned, with the proper placement, you can get almost wired speeds over wifi throughout your home.

It's a Begonia and other than a couple of interior walls, there is no major obstructions anywhere in my home.

Just tried it again in the far corner of the garage - as far away as physically possible and through an exterior wall and around a car and golf cart. Again, no degradation at all.

So for me, centrally-located is not necessary, wired is not necessary, and wifi pods are not necessary. Every manufacturer's router is different but right now I'm pretty happy with mine.

That's great. I know that model very well and my neighbor who has that model has one of the older Quantum wifi routers, non-mesh, covering the whole home as well. It's a very open floor plan.

Given your assumptions, for sake of discussion, I measured streaming a Netflix 4K HDR movie last night and the bandwidth was between 15 and 18Mbs. So let's assume 20Mbs for discussion as the most bandwidth anyone would need to stream Netflix on one TV. So, for a typical home here in the Villages with two people living in it, If both parties watched Netflix for example, on two separate TVs it would use about 40Mbs. Beyond that, each person might use their phone but let's assume that is minimal, also many might stream 1080P content using less bandwidth and 40Mbs is what's needed. Again I'm not trying to argue with you, just want to think this through.

This morning I went on the internet to see what's offers are listed for providers here in the Villages at my location In Osceola Hills. I know other areas in the Villages might have slightly different offers. Also, for simplicity, listed is base internet service without any special bundling.

What I found was:

1) Verizon Fixed Wireless: Plans starting at $35/month plus taxes and fees, No speed claims but they say Good for 1080P streaming. The $45/month plan says Good for 4K streaming. Price lock for 5 years. Couldn't find any limitations on monthly data.

2) T-Mobile Fixed Wireless: Plans startiong at $50/month plus taxes and fees. Typical Download Speed 87 – 318 Mbps (5G), Typical Upload Speed 14 – 56 Mbps (5G), No contract or price lock. Unlimited data.

3) Xfinity Internet: Plans starting at $35/month plus taxes and fees 150Mbs for the 1st year. Monthly limit on data.

4) Spectrum Internet: Plans starting at $30/month plus taxes and fees 100Mbs for the 1st year. Unlimited data.

5) Quantum Internet: Plans starting at $50/month, no taxes and fees, 500Mbs, uncertain the length of the deal given the controversy of "price for life". Unlimited data.

6) Centric Internet: Similar to Quantum.

So, given these offers and given the analysis that we don't need speeds over 40Mbs or something close to that, ISPs are all already providing a "base" speed plan for about $50/month given some you need to add the taxes and fees. Their advertising may be trying to convince you to pay more for faster speeds but they are all offering their base speeds at approximately the same cost.

My point is the lowest tier from almost all providers is greatly in excess of what the vast majority of users in The Villages need. Paying more for additional bandwidth is silly since it will offer no value. I have 200 megabits per second up and down as that is the lowest tier offered. This is essentially 10x what I use. Even when I was working from home running software projects and sometimes moving around large tarballs, the lower bandwidth we had at the time (80 megabits per second) was in excess of what I needed. Regarding video, I also measured 4K at about 20 megabits per second. Currently, there isn't much material. Furthermore, at typical viewing distances you would be hard pressed to see the difference between 1080p and 2160p.

Understood. I think there is a minum that these companies are going to charge for minum service to cover their percieved costs. Right now in this area it looks like it's around $50 taxes and fees included. I don't believe we are going to see an offer like $20/month for 50Mbs for example or maybe I could be wrong.

Anyway, thanks for bringing this up. It's an interesting discussion.

As far at the TV resolution, funny you bring that up. My retirement job is TV Calibrator and we do the Value Electronics TV Shootout every year. You can see the videos on YouTube. Most don't reaize there is a relationship of screen size to seating distance in order to see specific resolutions. Here is a good reference explaining it all for those who are interested. TV Size To Distance Calculator (And The Science Behind It) - RTINGS.com

I'm pretty sure there are fewer and fewer 1080P only TVs these days and most are 4K. But your point makes me chuckle because when 8K TV came out we realized you needed to be sitting pretty much on-top of the TV in order to see that resolution. With 4K you have to be sitting closer than you might think to see that resolution as well.

No, we probably won't. QuantumFiber's lowest tier is 200 megabits per second. Paying additional for more bandwidth, unless you have a requirement, makes no sense. I suspect the providers have convinced many people they need more bandwidth. I know people who opted for 1 gigabit per second, and pay additional over a lower bandwidth, but have no need for it.

Regarding TV resolution, the best sets are 4K and 8K, whether you need the resolution or not. That is just the way the manufacturers work; the sets with the best glass and electronics have the higher resolution.

Question: If a 4K or 8K TV does a good job at upscaling, why do you need to watch a 4K signal? Last year, they admitted that the Super Bowl was actually broadcast in an upscaled version of 4K, not a native 4K signal. Was that any different from watching it on an upscaling TV? I certainly couldn't tell the difference.

Very good question.

So, when a signal is "upscaled" to a higher resolution the software has to "make up" information that's not there to get the additional pixels.

The lower-resolution content is upscaled through a process called "interpolation," which enlarges the image while maintaining (or potentially improving) its visual quality. More specifically, interpolation creates a grid of "blank" pixels on top of the original image and then colors those blanks based on their surrounding pixels. The enlarged picture is then refined by sharpening or softening parts of the image when necessary, as well as applying filters to adjust its colors further. The result is an estimate that closely matches the original picture but now fits the pixel count of a 4K screen. (Quoted from https://www.howtogeek.com/4k-upscali...ich-is-better/)

The algorithms used these days are very sophisticated and the results are very good. With native 4K content, there is no interpolation so the result will be the best.

I understand interpolation. But, if they cannot even afford to broadcast the Super Bowl in native 4K, what is the point of broadcasting it using upscaling when almost everyone already has a 4K TV that upscales?

Probably not. If you have a 4K 75" TV and are sitting 12 feet or more from the set you probably can't tell the difference between a 1080p signal upscaled by the TV to 4K and a true 4K signal. YMMV as some sets may upscale better than others. In the case of a network sending out an upscaled 4K signal, they may do a better job of upscaling than your TV.

Biker1 answered your question, but to add, bottom line, every TV has different upscalling capabilities. The more expensive the TV the better the upscalling will be. When the network upscales then your TV has to do less or no work upscalling so everyone will get a good picture no matter which 4K TV they have. Over time, as the technology allows, "eventually" 1080P broadcast video will be replaced with 4K video, just like there is less 720P broadcast video than years ago. This is what we expect but whether that happens or not we will have to wait and see.

If your cable bill goes up and you call to complain, if they give you a discount is what your are getting still the cheapest or are you still paying too much? What's everyone doing when this happens? Is there anyway to stop fighting with your company every year?

When I look at the web sites, all the "deals" are for 1 or 2 years. Verizon is offering a 5 year "deal". I also see pricing without the taxes and fees so sometimes it can be pretty misleading.

Yup...AV1 is outstanding and open source.

I backup an Oracle VirtualBox VM weekly...It takes many hours using cable modem upload but I don't care. I don't use OneDrive but sync would be fine.

I value "cheap" when it comes to voice/data communication :) 100mbs is more than enough @ 30 bucks per month and can handle at least four 4K streams...6 bucks per month cell phone service thru Tello.

I suggest using Virtual Card if your credit card company supports it (Capital One does). You can create a credit card in front of your real credit card that you can turn on and off or delete it. This way you are not exposing your real card number at all these streaming services. You dont have to worry about autorenew.