Broadband internet

[DRH]

Originally Posted by tummyman

When we switched from Spectrum to Fidium, we had to run a tiny fiber cable from the outside connection point to the interior where my router is located. A real pain as it was in my crawl space but I did it anyway to avoid a hole in the house near where we wanted the router. We did not switch over our landline phone....Fidium had it screwed up on our initial order and we decided to just stick with Spectrum phone for a while. So far, speeds are terrific even with the 300MB service. We use YouTube TV and it is great....dumped Spectrum Cable TV a while ago since we were able to have just one cable tv provider between our MA and NH homes. Saved us a lot of $$$.

Was the small fiber cable you had to install to the router necessary only because you kept your phone service with Spectrum?

[TheProfessor]

Three companies offering wired internet.

As stated in another post. The new ones are Fairpoint/Fidium AND the NH Coop.

Some get the two confused as to what they have/get.

[BroadHopper]

When I switched to Xfinity the ONT is in a dark green box on the corner of the street. They buried cable wire from the ONT box to a light beige box connected to the house. From that box, a wire ran through the wall into the attached garage. The modem is attached next to the wire. Since wi-fi coverage is bad in the garage, I installed a powerline network adaptor next to the modem and attached a wi-fi router to an adaptor. The router is centrally located in the house. I also bought another adaptor to hard-wire my computer in the office. I just purchase another adaptor to hard wire the TV. So far so good!

I was also told Xfinity has wi-fi and 5G modems in various power lines.

Not sure why the ONT is on the street corner and others are directly on the house.

[tummyman]

Originally Posted by DRH

Was the small fiber cable you had to install to the router necessary only because you kept your phone service with Spectrum?

No, it was a tiny diameter cable that runs from their outside ONT to the modem. Their installer was to drill a hole into the house wherever we wanted the modem to be located or just remove a coax cable and use that route. However, the modem, in my case, was not close enough to an outside wall, requiring us to feed the cable into the crawl space and then up into a closet where the modem and router was located. Plus wife was not happy with more holes in the house !!! Fidium uses two boxes in the house...a very small modem that their tiny fiber cable plugs into that then is wired directly to the router. Each house configuration is special....but getting the equipment into a central place helps with the wireless coverage. They do charge extra for wireless expansion modules if needed but that has not been an issue with us. Our 300MB service was well tested this summer...at one point we had 4 computers, one TV, and 8-10 cell phones all tied into the network and no issues observed. With just wife and me usually, no issues at all. People do not need to over purchase speed. Start low and then move up IF NEEDED.

The phone was a pain, as Fidium did not handle correctly the request to Spectrum to retain our phone number. I think it was just a mix up one off. Anyway, since there was little difference in monthly cost, we decided to leave well enough alone. Others who switched both have had no issue, so my guess of a one off seems reasonable.