[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by smekad

... guess the millenials now take the internet as given, just like we used to take electricity as given

Ha Ha! I know I do, and could hardly be less millenial! My wife watches movies every day. I watch some other youtube stuff for a couple of hours a day too. I'm planning an Amazon Prime setup on my wife's laptop: I don't know how much that will impact the bandwidth. I don't watch movies. We don't have a TV: we rely on the net.

Buts kids-in-the-plural: I bet they can eat a whole lot of internet!

But my second (of the day) law of the internet would be that, whatever the bandwith, Youtube will sometimes stutter and buffer!

[carboy]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I do wonder what people do with these speeds! Frankly, 8Mb/s was enough for me.

I have 5 Mbps. In Dec, I am planning to upgrade to 10 Mbps plan! Not because I need it but because my provider has reduced the price for it to almost match what I am paying for 5 Mbps now.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

I do wonder what people do with these speeds! Frankly, 8Mb/s was enough for me.

Originally Posted by hserus

You’d watch a HD quality movie without lag or jitter. You would stream audio likewise

Originally Posted by smekad

Both my kids have stopped watching cable TV, they prefer to watch their fav shows only on Youtube/amazon/netflix on a smartTV. Most of our audio players are hooked on to the internet. Not to mention my work which requires me to have home office setup.

+1 to both hserus, smekad.

Media consumption trends are drastically changing now. The cable might soon become extinct as we know it. People don't want to change their schedules just to catch a show or two. Rather they want to watch it at their convenience. Not to mention the movies. And this can be multiplied by the number of individuals in the household. So when you have 5 folks streaming shows simultaneously, 8mbps line may not suffice.

[libranof1987]

Has anyone attempted using a second modem/router as a wifi extender?

Airtel recently offered an upgrade to 40 mbps from my current 4 mbps (same plan: 999/month) and in the process, changed my modem.

The Airtel person on the phone himself suggested that I can keep the old modem if I wish and use it as a wifi extender. The person who came to change the modem, however, did not know to do it and suggested I look it up online

[diyguy]

Originally Posted by libranof1987

Has anyone attempted using a second modem/router as a wifi extender?

I have done this and daisy chained three routers to the main router. However I found that the wireless connected routers would drop the connection and often need to be restarted. Since then I have wired the routers to my main router and all has been well since.
For the wireless connection I used DD-WRT firmware and you need to check for a suitable firmware for your hardware. I do not think wireless repeating works with stock firmware.

[sanjbmw2001]

Originally Posted by diyguy

I have done this and daisy chained three routers to the main router. However I found that the wireless connected routers would drop the connection and often need to be restarted. Since then I have wired the routers to my main router and all has been well since.
For the wireless connection I used DD-WRT firmware and you need to check for a suitable firmware for your hardware. I do not think wireless repeating works with stock firmware.

I believe some routers can be used as repeater or bridge with stock firmware. DD-WRT would be used on routers which would not offer the repeater function on stock FW.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by libranof1987

Has anyone attempted using a second modem/router as a wifi extender?

Airtel recently offered an upgrade to 40 mbps from my current 4 mbps (same plan: 999/month) and in the process, changed my modem.

The Airtel person on the phone himself suggested that I can keep the old modem if I wish and use it as a wifi extender. The person who came to change the modem, however, did not know to do it and suggested I look it up online

This is maybe a better thread (On Wi-Fi & Routers) for such ins and outs. I haven't done it, but many have. I've only used one of those dedicated range extenders just to reach a "bird cam." (It didn't work out well, because I was too stingy to buy a good ip cam. Otherwise it was fine)

I also did the upgrade from 8 to 24, but use the Airtel thing only as a modem, not for range, but for features and configurations on my router. Modem -> router is wired.

[TorqueyTechie]

I recently upgraded to ACT fibernet from Airtel. I was fed up with Airtel giving me 2mbps speed and not upgrading their switches to support higher bandwidth. I had taken Act blaze which was 60mbps speed and 100 gb of data. But I think from sep 1 they have changed it to 75 mbps with 140 gb of data at the same cost. I am super happy with their speeds . There is no buffer even when streaming HD content from youtube. Will plan to set up VPN and share my friend's US netflix subscription.

[DwarkaDelhiWala]

I'm on Excitel : 100 mbps - same speed on both upload and download
No data limit / No FUP
Rs. 1174.10 including all taxes per month (not 28 days).
Payments/complaints - all online.

[Rajeevraj]

Moved to a new place which had Airtels Fiber network. 100mbps, 180GB @1499 +tax. Ironically in my old place I was paying 1899 for 8Mbps and 230GB.

As a bonus, they are giving 1000GB additional data free. Valid till March 2018. So my data balance shows 1.1TB now.

Happily streaming some Ultra HD content from Netflix now. Although that will eat up the GB's very quickly

[narayan]

I recently moved to Singapore and got my broadband connection at home. One of the cheaper providers here is M1 broad band. And their most basic plan is for S$29 per month ( Thats ~ Rs1377 at prevailing exchange rate ). 1GBPS and no restriction on data. Along with this, they provide a 4G SIM card free with 1GB data quota per month ( which one can use in a dongle or in a phone ).

Hence it looks cheaper than India but there is a catch.

Installation fees are quite steep here. S$55 one time activation fee + S$50 installation fee if done on a weekday during office hours ( else it goes upto S$150 on weekends or even during evenings on a weekday ). I somehow got a offer for waiver of installation fee alone.

Also, all services are contract driven here. The above pricing is for a 2 year contract. If you don't want to sign a contract, the per month tariff will go upto S$39.

[diyguy]

I have ACT at home on the 100Mbps plan. I am getting the full promised speed. However Amazon prime video and Netflix both hang and buffer for me on my ps3. YouTube is never an issue though. I've noticed the quality of the video goes down after this buffer and hence believe it is not a device issue. I have a WD media player as well but it doesn't support Amazon prime video.

Here is the speedtest. I am running parental controls through netgear and hence openDNS.

What could be the issue? I wasn't watching Amazon video earlier when I was on the 150Mbps plan, but will try it again for a month to see if that helps.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by diyguy

Here is the speedtest. I am running parental controls through netgear and hence openDNS.

I find speedtest to be useless. Most providers have a direct pipe to them. One day when my connection had a problem & I could barely load text page, speedtest still showed what speed the provider had promised me.

I find http://testmy.net/ & http://speedof.me/ to be more reliable.

[diyguy]

Originally Posted by carboy

I find http://testmy.net/ & http://speedof.me/ to be more reliable.

thanks tried both and similar results as speedtest.

[Thad E Ginathom]

When speedtest starts, I think it looks for the most favourable server, using ping. First and foremost, it proves that our connection to our supplier is doing what it should.

But one can test download speed from the real world by selecting a different server. Choose one in USA so that the the supplier's international bandwidth gets tested.