Internet Providers-Urbandale

weisr2002

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Mar 13, 2009
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Anyone know what my options are for internet providers? What can I expect to pay per month. Need decent speeds but nothing elaborate. Live in an apartment in Urbandale.
 

CYdTracked

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Mar 23, 2006
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Grimes, IA
Qwest is going to be the cheapest probably. Unless you package something with Mediacom cable they aren't going to be competitive for internet-only pricing plus their reliability and customer service is not great either.

My Dish Network and Qwest DSL have been WAAAAYYY more reliable then my Mediacom ever was. At least with Dish I know if it is storming real bad I might lose signal for 10 minutes but at least I won't lose it randomly for several hours straight on a clear sunny day like I did with cable. Same with my Qwest, I hardly recall the times I didn't have DSL internet because they are so few and far between and short lived usually.
 

TalkToQwest

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Dec 14, 2009
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AlleyAddict and CYdTracked, So glad to hear you are having such great experiences with your Qwest services! Please let us know if you ever need anything! and weisr2002, if we can answer any questions please feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] or hit us up on our newly launched Facebook page, www.facebook.com/qwest
http://www.cyclonefanatic.com/forum/campus-life/88145-internet-providers-urbandale.html

thank you


Steph Lake
Manager, Talk To Qwest Team
http://www.facebook.com/Qwest?v=app_336872315664&ref=tshttp://twitter.com/talktoqwest

"At Qwest your account information is confidential and protected by law, so I need your permission to access the account.â€￾

 

brianhos

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Too bad Qwest is not expanding the higher speeds quickly. I am in Ankeny, and get 3M, but the guy across the street has 7M. I have speed envy.
 

sunnysideup

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Aug 6, 2009
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Too bad Qwest is not expanding the higher speeds quickly. I am in Ankeny, and get 3M, but the guy across the street has 7M. I have speed envy.

I would go with Qwest in a heartbeat if they offered their 20 Mbps service here in the Metro. As is I just stay with Mediacom for their 15Mbps service.
 

brianhos

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I would go with Qwest in a heartbeat if they offered their 20 Mbps service here in the Metro. As is I just stay with Mediacom for their 15Mbps service.

I am going to give them another 6 months. But I want to start using DirecTV on demand and netflix streaming, and 3M is annoying.
 

CYdTracked

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Mar 23, 2006
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Are you guys being stalked by Qwest?


LOL, apparently! I wish I could save a little money on my bill still too. My internet is pretty cheap but I have a basic local phone package that seems to keep going up in price. I know, I'm old fashioned and still have a land line as well as a cell but just like how I can sign up for everything using my land line and not worry about stupid calls I don't want to take coming to my cell phone plus just find it handy in case of a 911 emergency to have a reliable land line in the house that can be quickly identified.
 

sunnysideup

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I am going to give them another 6 months. But I want to start using DirecTV on demand and netflix streaming, and 3M is annoying.

That's why I shell out for the Mediacom Max service. It's not cheap but being able to download songs in a few seconds and streaming netflix makes me stay with it. Plus it's nothing but spectacular for online gaming.
 

CYdTracked

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I just upgraded from the 1.5mb service to 7mb service not long ago because of a promotion and its still more bandwidth than I'll need. I don't do any heavy downloadling or online gaming so it's plenty fast for me.

Just because Mediacom advertises a certain speed I doubt a lot of you really get the full bandwidth and some not even close to the advertised speed depending on how heavy the usage is in your neighborhood. Cable is shared bandwidth and there are some terible nodes in some places in town. DSL is dedicated bandwidth just to your residence so you aren't sharing it with any of your neighbors like you would be with cable internet.

A good site to see how much you are actually getting: Speed Test - dslreports.com do it several times and and at different times during the day to get a good idea just how much bandwidth you are actually getting. Mine usually are very close to the Qwest advertised speeds that I signed up for.
 

sunnysideup

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I just upgraded from the 1.5mb service to 7mb service not long ago because of a promotion and its still more bandwidth than I'll need. I don't do any heavy downloadling or online gaming so it's plenty fast for me.

Just because Mediacom advertises a certain speed I doubt a lot of you really get the full bandwidth and some not even close to the advertised speed depending on how heavy the usage is in your neighborhood. Cable is shared bandwidth and there are some terible nodes in some places in town. DSL is dedicated bandwidth just to your residence so you aren't sharing it with any of your neighbors like you would be with cable internet.

A good site to see how much you are actually getting: Speed Test - dslreports.com do it several times and and at different times during the day to get a good idea just how much bandwidth you are actually getting. Mine usually are very close to the Qwest advertised speeds that I signed up for.

Yeah definately. I realize that cable is a shared connection while dsl isn't. I use speedtest.net once in a while just to see where I am at. I normally pull anywhere from 10mb to as high as 21mb one night. There have been a few times when I'm down around 6-7mb but it's not too often.
 

Ames

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I just upgraded from the 1.5mb service to 7mb service not long ago because of a promotion and its still more bandwidth than I'll need. I don't do any heavy downloadling or online gaming so it's plenty fast for me.

Just because Mediacom advertises a certain speed I doubt a lot of you really get the full bandwidth and some not even close to the advertised speed depending on how heavy the usage is in your neighborhood. Cable is shared bandwidth and there are some terible nodes in some places in town. DSL is dedicated bandwidth just to your residence so you aren't sharing it with any of your neighbors like you would be with cable internet.

So when your Qwest DSL gets back to Qwest what happens to it?

It gets dumped into a shared pipe to the net with all the other DSL users. DSL is going to be the speed you paid from you to Qwest, but nothing says Qwest can actually carry that speed out to the internet. Get enough DSL users in the same area using the net and it slows down also.