Senior IT Reporter Jon Brodkin: Saved $$$$ by dumping Comcast

ISP: RCN cable

Location: Massachusetts, home of the World Series Champion Boston Red Sox

Monthly bill: $123.35

Services: Internet and TV

Advertised speed: 50Mbps down, 10Mbps up

Data cap: None.

Included equipment: TiVo box, TiVo Stream box, Arris DOCSIS 3.0 modem (there's no extra equipment fee so using my own wouldn't reduce my bill)

I switched from Comcast to RCN nearly two years ago after a decade of haggling with Comcast over my bills. There were unexplained $20 price increases several times a year, leading to countless long phone calls with Comcast employees in which I begged them to charge me the price they originally promised me. I finally switched after two consecutive months of being explicitly promised a certain price and then having to pay much more than that on my next bill.

When I finally dumped my Comcast Internet, TV, and phone service for RCN Internet and TV, my bill dropped from $185 or so a month to only $100 even though RCN gave me faster Internet speeds. RCN promised three years at a stable price, with $10 increases each year. It's gone up slightly more than that because of some new taxes and fees plus a $5 in-home streaming package that I added, but it's still the lowest bill I've had in years. The service has been at least as reliable as Comcast. The only drawback is RCN is slower at adding sports channels and signing streaming agreements with media companies. For example, I can't watch ESPN's live streaming on my computer or the WatchESPN mobile app because RCN hasn't struck a deal with ESPN yet.

Now for the longest section—yes, it's Comcastic

Contributing Writer Jonathan Gitlin: Speed problem recently solved

ISP: Comcast

Location: Washington, DC

Monthly bill: $49.95

Services: Internet (technically I also get Xfinity TV but didn't bother getting a cable box from them as I'm very happy with DirecTV)

Advertised speed: 50Mbps down, 10Mbps up

Data cap: Unenforced 250GB limit

Included equipment: None

For the past five years I've been getting Comcast's Performance Starter Internet—20Mbps down, 5Mbps (?) up—along with the rental of a cable modem from Comcast for $57/month. The last couple of weeks saw a significant speed degradation down to ~7Mbps down, 1Mbps up. Some troubleshooting the problem with Comcast at first suggested the age of our modem might be a problem as it was only DOCSIS 2.0; after realizing that I'd been paying $8/month for the last five years to Comcast for a rental modem, I decided to buy a new DOCSIS 3.0 modem myself (a Motorola SB6141 as recommended by The Wirecutter). Replacing the modem didn't fix the speed issues, and as a result, Comcast bumped up my service for the next 12 months from Performance Starter to Blast, which is 50Mbps down/10Mbps up.​

Senior Business Editor Cyrus Farivar: Longing for Sonic.net

ISP: Comcast

Speeds: 25Mbps/10Mbps

Location: Oakland, CA

Monthly bill: $50

Data cap: none that I'm aware of

Services: Internet only

Included equipment: None, I own my own DOCSIS 3 modem.

I don't *want* to be a Comcast customer, but I have no real alternative. I'm on the edge of DSL service. When I lived in another part of Oakland, I was a Sonic.net customer, which I would go back to in a heartbeat. Sadly, they won't serve me where I live now.

Reviews Editor Ron Amadeo: No NFL Sunday Ticket? No thanks

ISP: Comcast

Location: New Jersey

Monthly bill: $66.95

Services: Internet

Advertised speed: 25Mbps down, upload speed is not advertised

Data cap: Nope

Included equipment: lolno

Everything works great. I just buy Internet because Comcast doesn't have NFL Sunday Ticket so I wouldn't touch their TV service with a 1000ft pole. Landlines are dumb, so I don't need that either. It's stable and fast enough. Comcast just added a $10 a month package for 100Mbps service, and it actually hits 100 Mbps—my friend down the street has it. I'm thinking of upgrading.

Technology Reporter Sam Machkovech: Waiting for an alternative

ISP: Comcast

Location: Seattle, WA

Monthly bill: $75.71

Services: Internet

Advertised speed: 25Mbps down, 5Mbps up

Data cap: None, because “enforcement of the 250GB data consumption threshold is currently suspended”

Included equipment: Ubee DDM3543

I have come to learn that much of Seattle is as fed up with Comcast as I am. The company has a monopoly on citywide high-speed Internet, with only piddly CenturyLink DSL as an alternative. Public excitement is growing about the fact that Comcast’s lease agreement with the city will expire in 2016, and local leadership may not elect to renew that deal. In the meantime, CondoInternet leads the city by providing 1,000Mbps service for $80/mo to select Seattle condos and apartments—nowhere near my house, sadly—while our hopes for a wider fiber rollout were squashed when the company that had been tapped for the service, Gigabit Squared, failed to pay the city overdue bills during planning phases and was cut loose.

Technology Editor Peter Bright: UK ISPs are better

ISP: Comcast

Location: Houston, TX

Monthly Bill: about $80 (varies slightly)

Services: We only use Internet, but I think there’s some kind of bundled TV service too

Advertised speed: I’m not sure, and nothing on Comcast’s site appears to tell me. I assume 50/10, but I honestly have no idea. Comcast tells us our modem is limiting our speed (it’s not DOCSIS 3. Hell, it might not even be DOCSIS 2).

Data cap: Unenforced 250GB limit. We routinely blow past the limit; I think last month we were at 600GB.

Included equipment: none

I’ve had more outages in a year of Comcast than I had in 10 years of UK ISPs. It doesn’t seem to be a very reliable service. But streaming media seem to work adequately, so that’s the main thing.

Managing Editor Eric Bangeman: Decent Internet, no rugby

ISP: Comcast

Speeds: 50Mbps/10Mbps

Location: Chicago suburbs

Monthly bill: $84.95 ($8 for modem rental, $66.95 for high-speed Internet, and $10 for BLAST)

Data cap: currently suspended

Other services: none, because rugby is on DirecTV

Service outages are very infrequent, and it’s probably time for me to try and get my bill down by threatening to switch to the other cable company in town. Comcast’s service was not the best when I lived inside the Chicago city limits, but now that I’m in the suburbs it’s actually fairly reliable. I’m one of the fortunate few in the US that has three legitimate broadband providers to choose from. In addition to Comcast, I can get 18Mbps DSL from AT&T (with 45Mbps once U-verse arrives) and WOW Cable also offers 50/5Mbps cable Internet, although it’s a bit more expensive than Comcast. Given that I’m happy enough with Comcast, I’ve got no reason to switch.

Senior Reviews Editor Lee Ultra Ever Dry Soylent Von Hutchinson: A man with complex needs

ISP: Comcast Business

Location: Houston

Monthly bill: $133.70

Advertised speed: 50Mbps down, 10Mbps up.

Services: Business class Internet, static IP, no server restrictions or port blocking, and some totally unused value-added business services (email, web hosting, virus scanning, spam filtering, other crap)

Data cap: None

Included equipment: Comcast-branded SMCD3G gateway

I opted long ago for business-class service because I host Web, e-mail, and dedicated gaming servers out of my closet. Comcast’s BC offering is the only one in the vicinity that allows customers to do any server hosting at all (for residential customers, even if you happen to find ports 80 and 443 and 25 unblocked, hosting servers is still against the terms of service and the acceptable use policy). I am obsessed with the idea of data mobility—my personal collection of pictures and movies and music should be able to follow me wherever I go, without me having to lean on a third party’s cloud service (along with that third party’s inevitable attempt to monetize me, either by directly billing me or through invasive behavioral tracking). I jumped from Comcast’s slower 16Mbps down/3Mbps up service so that I could have a bigger upload pipe, which translates directly into helping me stream stuff to myself faster when I’m remote.

(See Lee's previous article, Why I pay extra for “business-class” broadband at home.)

IT Editor Sean Gallagher: Well, it's better than WiMAX

ISP: Comcast Business

Location: Baltimore

Monthly bill: $135.45

Advertised speed: 50Mbps down, 10Mbps up. (Looks more like 30/8 to me over Wi-Fi, but it's sometimes higher).

Services: "Deluxe 50" Internet, with a static IP address and (largely unused) business e-mail and hosting service

Data cap: None.

Included equipment: An SMC cable modem.

I switched to business class because the consumer service was horrible, and at the time I was hitting data caps ALL THE TIME. Previously I briefly switched to Clear WiMAX service when I was freelancing, but that was a horrible idea. As snow and rain dropped my Internet connection to a crawl.

The base price of my service is $109, with a $15 premium for a static IP address and $10 a month for the equipment. FiOS has red-lined Baltimore city, and there really aren't any alternatives to Comcast other than DSL. And given the quality of the telco infrastructure in Baltimore City, DSL is SOL.