In order of best technology/speed:

1. Quantum (CenturyLink) Fiber: Fiber has no degradation as user load increases.
2. Spectrum: Spectrum is a combination of Fiber and Cable, so performance will not be as good as pure Fiber.
3. Xfinity - Pure broadband cable. Performance drops as user load increases.
4. CenturyLink DSL: Any type of DSL is very slow compared to fiber or cable. Performance degrades quickly as distance to connection hub increases and as user load increases.

This listing has nothing to do with price - only addresses the best technologies and speeds.

Interesting, but totally irrelevant to most users. Most users care about price, reliability, and service. Also, if you have the Xfinity Internet service, you can buy the Xfinity Mobile cell phone service that uses the Verizon network for way less money than a direct account with Verizon. My cell phone bill is only $13.60 per month.

Verizon
 

I got Verizon free for a year then $25 month. Free modem. About 200 mbs.

Not available in my part of St. John's either.

We tried Verizon's modem box in a trial. We never got above about 80 mbps which is quite slow by today's standards. It also disconnected a lot no matter what area of the house we put it in. Even at cheap it was not worth it. Good to hear you are happy.

All services are good...until they're not.

We have xFinity, best plan they offer. About 5 days ago lightning hit somewhere close...don't quite know where but the flash and the boom happened almost simultaneously. Since then the service drops offline intermittently: at first, just after the flash, several times an hour; since then, maybe two or three times per day. Never for very long (maybe 1-2 minutes). In talking to others in the area, they're having the same issues.

Calls to Customer Service route to BFE and some person with English as a second language reading words off a screen.

When up and running their service is second to none; lightning-fast and ultra reliable. But this exact same thing happened last year at about the same time. Seems like they should be able to get their act together.

(Sigh....feel MUCH better now...)

Most internet providers do a decent job of providing internet services. If you can get a true fiber network provider, get them, stay away from any dsl provider.
The internet provider is only a small piece of the network you need to be concerned about. 99% of the homes have a terrible network setup in their house and probably don’t know what network speeds they are actually getting to each of their devices. You might pay for 1000Mb internet speed but you are probably getting a couple hundred Mb on your phones and tablets. So why pay for 1000Mb when you are getting 200Mb at your phones?
How you can tell if you are part of this 99% group, how many SSID’s do you have access to from your network installer? I bet 2 (which is the default) but you should only have 1. Another way to determine if you are in this group is to go into each room where you watch tv or use your phones/tablets/computers and check your internet speeds and if they are less than 80% of the speed you are paying for, you don’t have a good network setup. If you are paying for 1000Mb internet, then you should be getting at least 800Mb at your phone/tablet/computer (if your devices are fairly new)

Most expensive after contract expires.

Agree
 

I agree. We switched to Quantum. Fast reliable WIFI
with no issues.

I had the exact same lightning issue with Xfinity. Worked great for 2 years...then lightning hit my neighbors house. I stream TV...it started to buffer quite a bit. Had 3 (!!) different techs out. Never fixed. Switched to Spectrum. Working a lot better. Xfinity customer service is abysmal. You must go to either their 441 or Leesburg locations to get any real help. When I called one time they wanted to charge me to send someone out. Went to 441 store, they set up tech visit immediately and no charge. The Xfinity call center is possibly the worst phone experience EVER!! They changed their name from Comcast to Xfinity to better their image -- sure didn't fix their phone service one bit. Horrid! If Xfinity works, great...just don't have a problem.

I just went through this exercise. I went with Quantum Fiber. $70 (all normally hidden fees /taxes, installation, router included) all up. The service is over 900 mbs with no limits on concurrent connections and data usage.

I have never been without a contract. Yes, Xfinity is expensive if you don't have a contract.

Why? Unless you are moving around large files the bandwidth doesn't matter. For the vast majority of people, their largest bandwidth consumer will be video streaming. Hi-Def (1080p) consumes about 5 megabits per second. Most people pay for much more bandwidth than than need.

Quantum Fiber for $30 per month for 200 megabits per second up and down (much more bandwidth than we consume) with no contract.

Most people can't consume more than a 5 or 10 megabits per second of bandwidth. The vast majority of people who pay for 1000 megabits per second are wasting their money.

[QUOTE=rsmurano;2221796]Most internet providers do a decent job of providing internet services. If you can get a true fiber network provider, get them, stay away from any dsl provider.
The internet provider is only a small piece of the network you need to be concerned about. 99% of the homes have a terrible network setup in their house and probably don’t know what network speeds they are actually getting to each of their devices. You might pay for 1000Mb internet speed but you are probably getting a couple hundred Mb on your phones and tablets. So why pay for 1000Mb when you are getting 200Mb at your phones?
How you can tell if you are part of this 99% group, how many SSID’s do you have access to from your network installer? I bet 2 (which is the default) but you should only have 1. Another way to determine if you are in this group is to go into each room where you watch tv or use your phones/tablets/computers and check your internet speeds and if they are less than 80% of the speed you are paying for, you don’t have a good network setup. If you are paying for 1000Mb internet, then you should be getting at least 800Mb at your phone/tablet/computer (if your devices are fairly new)[/QUOTE]