Internet Question

[dpg]

Got a question for the WIFI/Internet saavy folks out there. I currently pay 98.00/month from Spectrum (I also have TV through them.) New Hampshire Electric is now hooking up their new internet services in Moultonborough. I believe I currently have 400Mbps service and NHEC offers 100MB for about 50.00/month. I believe my current service is "better/faster" than the 100MB for around half the cost.
All we do with our internet is a couple Blink Cameras, WIFI thermostat and use our phones when we're up. No small kids, gaming etc. Would I be ok with 100MB service and would I really notice any difference?
NHEC does offer faster but then it's about what I'm paying Spectrum anyway.
So..... switch, leave it alone???

[TomC]

I have NH Broadband (in Sandwich) for $50/mo. I work often from home (video calls, etc), have plenty of cameras, a 'smarthome' set up with remote thermostat control, door bell, smart switches, driveway chimes - the whole bit. My wife enjoys streaming movies and surfing the internet simultaneously. I usually get over 100 mbps up/down. I never have any issue with pixelation, buffering, etc. I say go for it.

[Stilljester]

I'm not sure there is right answer here, mainly it will come down to your expected experience when you "use our phones when we're up" and budget...personally I would struggle with 100mb, as I suspect the real speed would be even less in reality. That said, nothing wrong with trying to save money.

Check out this comparison too:
https://broadbandusa.ntia.doc.gov/about/speed-simulator

[ITD]

I'm paying $70.16 for 1 gig service from Fidium. Fidium is fiber to the home, so it's 1 gig up and down. I left Spectrum who was charging me a little over $100 per month for internet only. That was 400 down, and like 30 up. That worked ok, but Fidium so far has been a better deal and has worked well.

It basically comes down to what you want and how much you are willing to pay.

[jeffk]

I'm in Center Harbor and got Fidium (1 Gig) last October. I also just switched to DirecTV Streaming (was on Breezeline) and also switched my landline phone to VOIP. The Fiber pricing and performance is great. In total, I will be saving about $2000 a year, Breezeline being the largest $$$ pig.

One concern. The Center Harbor area had just been set up with fiber. I found reliability to be frustrating. I would have the expected performance and then it would just drop out. I had to reboot the fiber modem, sometimes a couple times. When the connection came back, performance was VERY slow for a while. It was REALLY annoying.

Then, around February, it all settled down and I have had NO problems since. I have speculated that with the massive infrastructure installation effort, some installation gremlins were around for the first few months; not with MY install, but with the network at large.

If Moultonborough has just been set up, it MIGHT be a bit wonky for a while. If you would find something like that REALLY annoying, you might want to wait a bit and let others play guinea pig.

As to performance for 100 Mbps, when you switch your TV service to internet (streaming), I'm not sure about the performance. Supposedly 100 Mbps is PLENTY fast for TV streaming, even for 4K streaming but I don't have experience with it. I have always had a faster connections.

[tummyman]

Have Fidium 300MB service. Also have YouTubeTV. Let Spectrum due to poor service and cost. LOVE FIDIUM. Only one issue ....tech installed my connection to the wrong port on their hub down the raod. All is well until another install used the same hub. Quick call and a fast service and all got fixed correctly. Just an install nit. Overall, service has been flawless. ANd even one weekend had 10 phones and laptops working while two TV's were on...grandkids !!!..and not a single speed issue. I'd consider the 300MB Fidium and forget NHBB....I'm no fan of NHEC anyway, just for full disclosure. NHBB spent a ton of money in M'boro despite coming to the fiber party late and well after Fidium. My guess is they are struggling to attract customers as those who wanted fiber went with Fidium instantly and dumped Spectrum, leaving just crumbs for NHBB.

[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.