Internet Question

[Weekend Pundit]

I had Metrocast/Atlantic Broadband/Breezeline for years (Gilford). Once Comcast came into town and was available I switched over due to my increasingly frustrating issues with Breezeline. I haven't had any issue with Comcast and have 1Gb/s speeds for download on Internet. (About 300Mb/s for upload).

Fidium isn't available in Gilford yet, but it's only a matter of time since Consolidated is replacing all of its copper with fiber. I don't know if NHBB is available in the parts of Gilford served by NHEC. If not, I expect that will happen soon.

If the service was just for me I would only have Internet service, but since I am taking care of my elderly mother and she isn't particularly tech savvy, I have VIP (Video, Internet, Phone) service for her. It ain't cheap.

However, in the future I will cancel the video and phone service and probably change over to Fidium. I know quite a few people who have it and love it.

[BroadHopper]

I had Breezeline at 500 mbps for years without a problem even with 4K streaming and the grandkids video games. The best investment is the router. A cheap router can be a bottleneck when handling multitude of simultaneous connections. I learn the hard way most of the problems I had with Breezeline/Metrocast etc. was the cheap router I rented from them. I bought a modem to save monthly cost. I strategally placed the router in the center of the home and connect the modem to the router with CAT 6 cord. Since the TV is nearby the router the tv is connected to the router with a CAT 6 cord. I use a seperate channel for all my IOTC devices (thermostat, cameras, security et all).

Today, I have Xfinity at 300 Mbps. With the same modem and router, I have notice no difference in speed or service. In fact speed tests shows up to 400 Mbps. Roughly the same as Breezeline performance. Go figure.

I just set up a modem/router combination for my grandchild in college. He has Spectrum 100 Mbps and he is happy with the service. Even when he is streaming movies and his roomates were streaming games. I think the investment in a router is more important than the internet service!

Currently invested in TP-Link AX1800 router. The Linksys EA6900 is also an excellent product.

[dpg]

Thanks for the replies and opinions. I have no major complaints with NHEC for electric and Spectrum for everything else. Well, that being said, other than the damn Spectrum bill slowly creeping up constantly. Just like XFINITY (Comcast) here in Mass, it seems like every other bill has another .25 or .30 added to it.

[tummyman]

I have Verizon FIOS in MA nad Fidium in NH. At one point, hd both with their TV packages. Finally cancelled and went with YouTubeTV....now just pay for one but can use it in both locations. Saved a mot of money. Worth looking at.

[NH.Solar]

I switched from Breezeline to the Co-op fiber internet over a year ago and couldn't be more pleased with it's performance. I use it daily to feed a music streamer powering a very high fidelity stereo and the performance rivals CDs. I also watch movies and Formula 1 on my large OLED tv and again the performance is truly stellar. Price-wise and performance-wise you won't be disappointed!
The only caveat is that NHEC uses third party installers that are paid per installation, and though the gent that did mine was polite and personable, his workmanship sucked and required multiple corrections. The modem box was mounted on my wall at least 5 degrees from vertical, he drilled another hole in my wall board less than 3 feet away from the one that pre-existed for the original Metrocast installation, and the fiber was run through my crawl space loose and willy-nilly rather tahn being tucked between the basement wallboard and rafters as was all of the other wiring. If you go the Co-op route be sure to watch the installation at every step!

[Billy603]

I switched NHEC from consolidated late last year when they came to Meredith. As someone else mentioned, we also had a lot of outages in the first month or so, and no problems since. Much faster than consolidated, running webcams and such 24/7, sling TV, etc with no buffering at all. Very happy camper.

[patman]

FWIW... ISPs will often oversell you on what you need. I've had DSL from Consolidated Communications with 15Mbps down/3Mbps up for 5+ years. Not a typo: Mega-, not Giga-. In that time, I have had zero problems with any of the streaming services (netflix/amazon/apple/hbo/discovery/etc etc) and successfully worked full-time remotely doing video conferencing (zoom/google/etc) and software development.

The key to the equation is what is your typical availability, competing traffic, and round-trip response. Even with 'fast' service, how often do you actually get that throughput? How often do you actually need it?

DSL has been slow (on paper at least), but it's been completely usable and dead reliable. We've had maybe 1 outage per year, the longest one was about 3 hours last fall (aside from regional power outages where everything is down). It doesn't get bogged down with neighbors' traffic (partly because nobody else uses it so there are no 'neighbors' to share with), and the ping times are decent.

I've tried to get broadband connected 4-5 times, but we have buried utilities, and although the cable is available at the pole, and there are TWO empty conduits available, nobody seems to be able to tell me how/who the line gets run through the conduit to the house. The techs only know how to run from the pole through the air to the house. That said, all I hear about Breezeline (and comcast, and others) is the frequent outages. Do I really want to fight the battle to get the cable run to the house for spottier service? So far...no.

Cell service varies wildly, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's 1 bar and nothing goes through. Sometimes it's swamped. Sometimes we were getting connected to a 5G tower that...wasn't passing any traffic through. So cell really isn't a better option either.

Food for thought.

[Lakegeezer]

After quitting Spectrum TV, I told them that I'd switch to Fidium if they didn't lower my internet costs. They gave me a $55/month promo price for 300/10, which they will likely renew after the promo period. Going to their office in Plymouth or Conway is the trick to getting the cheaper rates. At some point, Spectrum (being bought by Cox) is going to a hybrid system, where upload and download capacity will be the same. Can't wait!

[RUGMAN]

Three months ago we called Breezeline about the rising costs. We were asking for a lower cost, we have been with them for 9 years. The person on the line told us there was nothing they could do. After continuing buffering, we decided to stop in at the Xfinity store in Gilford met a great associate got double the speed 1000 , 5 year contract , 2 years of Peacock for 1/2 the price. Once we were up and running we called Breezeline to cancel, now they wanted to offer us all sorts of deals, after spending the better part of 2 and half hours on the phone being transferred to several people and supervisors, we finally got it into their heads that we no longer wanted their service or deals. It took us more than twice as long with Breezeline to cancel than it was to sign up with Xfinity.

[jeffk]

When I just cancelled my Breezeline service I waited on hold for an hour (apparently a common wait time). When I finally got through the person was very polite and when he offered a price reduction, I said I wasn't interested. He said he was required to make the offer so I let him work up some numbers. It was a ONE YEAR price reduction offering less than half the savings I got by switching everything to Fidium/DirecTV. I told him I wasn't interested and he went through with the cancellation. He comped me for the first half of May's services so I didn't owe any money and my equipment was older so it didn't need to be returned.

So, I am free of Breezeline and saving $$$$$.

I am very happy with Fidium internet (1 G service) + VOIP phone ($92) and DirecTV Streaming (Entertainment pkg > no sports surcharges, no extra premium channels) ($95).

[Senter Cove Guy]

If anyone has switched from Spectrum to NH Broadband, I think you've given up the free, McAfee antivirus protection that Spectrum provided. What antivirus have you switched to?

[jeffk]

Microsoft Defender provides decent security if you are using Windows and it's free. If you are using Windows 11, the new required hardware features significantly harden your system to to some attacks. Defender now includes protection against newer threats, like Ransomware. I have been using it for about 10 years without significant problems. There have been no active attacks but it picked up a few suspicious files on a scan and, after checking on the files, I told it to erase them. End of problem.

Most of us are not targets so our threat level is lower.

Frankly, the biggest threat to PCs is foolish users going to nebulous websites, responding to to-good-to-be-true email offers, and following links that lead to who knows where. The best start to defense is JUST SAY NO and hit delete if you don't know who you are dealing with.