Broadband internet

[MeredithMan]

Originally Posted by P-3 Guy

I don't think that's Hub66 installing boxes on utility poles throughout Meredith. Hub66 does OTA microwave broadband service. What you are referring to sounds like the NHEC subsidiary NH Broadband, which is currently doing fiber optic installs in Meredith.

NHEC is the one rolling out their fiber in Meredith. They just finished on my street in the last week or so. I checked availability for my address and it currently states "sometime between November and January", so either the website isn't updated or they have a bit of back-office work to do after they put up the cables before you can get hooked up.

[Biggd]

Originally Posted by MeredithMan

NHEC is the one rolling out their fiber in Meredith. They just finished on my street in the last week or so. I checked availability for my address and it currently states "sometime between November and January", so either the website isn't updated or they have a bit of back-office work to do after they put up the cables before you can get hooked up.

This is the one I'm talking about, they've been hanging their boxes on telephone poles throughout Meredith. They did my street so I'm wondering if anyone signed up yet?

[DRH]

Originally Posted by Biggd

This is the one I'm talking about, they've been hanging their boxes on telephone poles throughout Meredith. They did my street so I'm wondering if anyone signed up yet?

NH Broadband (NHEC) strung their fiber optic cables on our Meredith road back in the spring, and the pole boxes were installed several weeks ago. I'm potentially interested in switching over from Breezeline, but I have some questions.

With Breezeline, the coax feedline comes into our house and is connected to the cable modem, which is then connected to our WiFi router, in the living room. I asked NH Broadband how their fiber optic cable would be routed inside the house, and they said it wouldn't be. They said their cable would terminate at the point of entry and that's where the modem would be installed. In our case, that would be in our garage, and I am hesitant to commit to relocating our WiFi router there because I don't know if it would provide reliable coverage throughout our house. Does anyone have any first-hand experience with how this would work?

Also, we currently also have our landline phone service with Breezeline. I would welcome feedback from anyone who has switched their phone service to NH Broadband's fiber optic network. How's it working out for you?

In our case, Breezeline's TV/Internet/Phone service has been pretty good. My only complaint is the high monthly cost. I have no experience with being dependent on streaming TV for the channels we watch, and Breezeline's TiVo boxes make TV watching very easy. So I'll need a pretty good reason to switch over to NH Broadband. Feedback from anyone who's already made the switchover would be very helpful for the rest of us who are still undecided.

[gwhite13]

This morning, an ad on my desktop advertised Fidium one year, one gig, for $50. a month. Spectrum is half that speed, same money.

[Weekend Pundit]

Originally Posted by DRH

NH Broadband (NHEC) strung their fiber optic cables on our Meredith road back in the spring, and the pole boxes were installed several weeks ago. I'm potentially interested in switching over from Breezeline, but I have some questions.

With Breezeline, the coax feedline comes into our house and is connected to the cable modem, which is then connected to our WiFi router, in the living room. I asked NH Broadband how their fiber optic cable would be routed inside the house, and they said it wouldn't be. They said their cable would terminate at the point of entry and that's where the modem would be installed. In our case, that would be in our garage, and I am hesitant to commit to relocating our WiFi router there because I don't know if it would provide reliable coverage throughout our house. Does anyone have any first-hand experience with how this would work?

NH Broadband would install the ONT (Optical Network Terminal) in the garage. Generally ONTs are located near where the fiber optic cable comes to the house. In some cases they are installed outside the home and all of the 'other' cables for TV, telephone, and Internet enter the house there.

That doesn't mean you would need to place your WiFi router in the garage. An Ethernet cable could be run from the ONT to your router inside. You would need to check with NH BB about running the cable between the ONT and your router. They may charge extra for that, but you'd need check with them.

Are you going to be subscribing just to Internet and phone service? Does NHBB offer 'traditional' video services or just streaming?

[DRH]

Originally Posted by Weekend Pundit

Are you going to be subscribing just to Internet and phone service? Does NHBB offer 'traditional' video services or just streaming?

NHBB's promotional literature has indicated that the television part of its fiber optic "package" is provided by DirectTV streaming video.

[Weekend Pundit]

Originally Posted by DRH

NHBB's promotional literature has indicated that the television part of its fiber optic "package" is provided by DirectTV streaming video.

Ok, that makes sense as it means less work and less capital equipment costs for NHBB and they offload supporting the video side to someone having experience in doing so. I know Fidium is doing likewise - offering Direct TV streaming video as well as some others. I don't blame them for not wanting to have invest in capital equipment to support Linear TV services like cable companies do. Under the circumstances streaming video services makes perfect sense.

[The Real BigGuy]

Originally Posted by Weekend Pundit

NH Broadband would install the ONT (Optical Network Terminal) in the garage. Generally ONTs are located near where the fiber optic cable comes to the house. In some cases they are installed outside the home and all of the 'other' cables for TV, telephone, and Internet enter the house there.

That doesn't mean you would need to place your WiFi router in the garage. An Ethernet cable could be run from the ONT to your router inside. You would need to check with NH BB about running the cable between the ONT and your router. They may charge extra for that, but you'd need check with them.

Are you going to be subscribing just to Internet and phone service? Does NHBB offer 'traditional' video services or just streaming?

If you are using coaxial cable from the exterior wall of your home to the router NHBB can connect this to the ONT. you do not need to rewire with Ethernet (CAT5 or CAT6), new coaxial cable, or fiber. I have Verizon fios at home wired with existing coax (old Comcast) from the ONT to the router and actually get better up & down speeds than I pay for.


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[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 $$$.

[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.

[jeffk]

Originally Posted by The Real BigGuy

If you are using coaxial cable from the exterior wall of your home to the router NHBB can connect this to the ONT. you do not need to rewire with Ethernet (CAT5 or CAT6), new coaxial cable, or fiber. I have Verizon fios at home wired with existing coax (old Comcast) from the ONT to the router and actually get better up & down speeds than I pay for.


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There is a caveat to this. In-house coaxial cable needs to be of good (manufactured) quality and in good condition. Pumping a 2 Gb signal into coaxial cable in bad shape can yield substandard (less than 2 Gb) performance. It might be a single segment or multiple segments that needs to be fixed/replaced. You might not even notice a problem with a 100 MB source but find one at 10 to 20 times that speed. I assume it's possible to test your in-house wiring but doubt they will unless requested to do so ($$) or problems arise.

If the coaxial cable is in good shape it will support Gb speeds. When we go to 10 Gb speeds?

[longislander]

I'm a Moultonborough resident and have been using Fidium for a couple of months, as soon as it was available here.

I canceled Spectrum internet but wanted to keep Spectrum TV. Also switched "home phone" (not the Spectrum mobile option). I'm happy with Fidium and get close to 500 Mbps download and upload, for their 1 Gig fiber plan, costing presently, $67.50/month, but that includes $20+, first year discount. I've got a lot of "stuff" that affects bandwidth and speeds. Some are wireless and some are wired. I check download/upload speeds with Oogla or Google speed tests, using either Chrome or Firefox browsers. I've got wired and wireless stuff.

Fidium is fiber all the way to the modem, not like Spectrum. Our modem and router (separate, as was Spectrum) are in our living room, where the wife does a good job blending them into decor. I've got all of the "cabling" side by side that comes from outside, through the garage, and up through the floor in the basement to the living room, where any can be hooked up to any modem and then to the router, if there is one.

I've usd Roku boxes almost ever since it was made available. and still do, even with Spectrum TV on my TV. I've got Spectrum hooked up to the TV #1 HDMI port and Roku hooked up to the #2 port. # 3 is still empty.

Spectrum TV gives you a receiver box with Cloud DVR, that I'm debating to keep or not. I still get the same programs on Spectrum on my Roku box. The difference for me is the receiver box, Cisco HD Digital Receiver Model 4742HDC. Have also looked at streaming thorugh Hulu, Direct TV (streaming, not satellite) etc. as Fidium may suggect since Fidium doesn't have a TV offering.

Spectrum is peddling XUMO streaming boxes, as well, a joint venture of Charter Communications and Comcast.

[Winilyme]

Questions for me:
1 - Does anyone know the approximate cost savings for NHEC vs Breezeline for comparable service?
2 - With NHEC, do I need to pay a monthly fee for the 7 cold weather months we’re not here? With Breezeline, I pay a monthly $5.00 fee to avoid some sort of (net more costly) reconnect fee in the spring. I always felt that was highway robbery since we have no need for broadband during those months.