Comcast advertising “10G” in hopes to confuse consumers to accept slower speeds::Comcast says Xfinity offers 10G home internet, but the term “10G” is hazy and potentially misleading—especially because it has no relation to 5G for cell phones.
Even when they use industry-standard terms, like Mbps, they don’t even advertise their upload speed (because it is piss-poor).
Can confirm.
I use Xfinity since they have a monopoly on our area and we don’t really have any other choice. It costs $70/month for 100mbps DOWNLOAD. and it’s about 8mbps upload.
American ISPs are literally the devil
luckily, that was the original price. after like an hour on support the price was lowered to $55/mo for 300mbps. Not great but at least it’s better.
I don’t know how it is for Xfinity, but I work for Spectrum and the low upload is because there is not enough room for it on coaxial cable running at 750MHz or whatever it actually is. A big majority of the bandwidth of the cable, for my company at least, is taken by television and download, which we currently run a docsis 3.0 and a docsis 3.1 segment for download. The upload is a shrimpy part of the band. I know in some areas we are upgrading to support 1.2 or 1.4 GHz, lots more room, so we’re able to increase upload in those areas. This is all rolling out now, I imagine other providers using copper will be doing similar eventually to compete with each other. Lets us run more upload plus double the docsis 3.1 segment so we can go into higher speeds for download (like 2Gbps). One consequence of this is we’re screwing older TV customers, old cable boxes and also TiVo/cable card shit are gonna stop working.
Not trying to astroturf it advertise it whatever, just sharing what they have been telling us. Upload has always been dogshit because they wanted big download numbers to advertise. I literally get free cable from work but have AT&T fiber installed at my house because I can’t handle the instability of the up pipe on coax for some of the shit I do. (Stream to twitch, run a Plex server, etc) it also makes you lag worse in games. Not the overall low speed, just the instability.
I imagine other providers using copper will be doing similar eventually to compete with each other.
Where do you live that you actually have competition? I’ve never heard of two cable providers covering the same territory. The whole industry is a racket.
Here in Alaska you can have a cell line, 500mbps, and unlimited data for $125.
I wish you the same thing that happened to me… I accidentally opened the door to a doorknocker and they asked, “Would you like to save money on your internet connection?”
I told them, “No thank you, I’d actually pay more for faster internet and no cap, since I download a lot…”
They inform me that they’ve just rolled out gigabit fibre on our block. AND IT WAS LESS EXPENSIVE THAN MY 70mbps!
The only time I’ve bitten on doorknocker offer. It was the best computer decision I’ve made since going SSD-only for all games and applications. It’s gigabit up AND down.
This will happen to you. This will happen to you next week. I’m, uhhh… manifesting it as the kids would say.
fiber is a beautiful thing. Both because it’s just objectively better than cable, but also because it side skirts the FCC’s enforced broadband monopolies, so that companies can actually compete in getting it to you. Unfortunately, the fiber expansion in my area has been on an indefinite hold because it’s “awaiting HOA approval”, So everyone around me gets cheap fiber, but my neighborhood is still stuck with xfinity :/
I’m at up to 250mbps down and 10mbps up for $90 usd a month. In fairness though I do see that max speed, and even a bit over it regularly.
There is a local Power company around here that started running fiber to their service area, but sadly I am not in it so I am stuck with ComCrap
I will say I think I’m till in an intro price. But I’m at $60 for 800 down and I think 20 up
I just left their service. I was at 1000 Mbps / 20 Mbps (typically around 850 Mbps / 18 Mbps due to equipment) with unlimited data for $120 a month. Such a waste.
I had someone come to me and ask why they were struggling to upload videos to YouTube despite having a slew of expensive gaming and recording equipment. I had to tell them their only option was to hope that Comcast actually honors their advertised up speed for their business lines and to pay for that.
Xfinity’s 10G network is technically slower than 5G. Peak theoretical throughput on an uncongested 5G network offers up to 20Gbps download and 10Gbps upload. Xfinity caps out at 10Gbps down and up.
In what world are people getting that kind of speed on 5G? In like a lab with perfect conditions and non-consumer equipment? Is this article written by T-Mobile home internet or something? I’ll take Comcast 10G over 5G wireless any day and I hate Comcast.
I automatically assumed 10G was short for 10Gb/s, so I guess I found nothing confusing about the name? They literally are advertising the speed in the name, I think that’s great compared to when they called shit “Blast” and other weird names.
In what world are people getting that kind of speed on 5G? In like a lab with perfect conditions and non-consumer equipment?
It’s right in your quote: “Peak theoretical throughput on an uncongested 5G network”
It’s the theoretical limit of the technology, not real-world numbers.
The network is capable of 10Gbps, but are those speeds being offered? That bit might be a bit disingenuous, if you called the network by its max capable speeds, confusing people on lower tiers? I don’t know. Easier to talk about fibre to the home and its impact on ubiquity and reliability without getting into the names that imply speeds, to my tastes. Hear you on the rest and the name’s meaning too.
Their network isn’t 10Gbps either. I just had them send me a message last week saying our internet will be out for a day because they’re upgrading their 10G network. Guess what the max speed available is? 1.2Gbps. I was severely disappointed as I desperately need better upload speeds.
It wasn’t until a lot of googling later that I realized their “10G” means nothing and is just a marketing term a la AT&Ts “5Ge” they added to people’s phones to make them think they were getting faster speeds. They state they have future plans to upgrade which means I could get it in a year or 50 years from now.
I detest defending Comcast, but are you positive it was 1.2 Gbps and not 1.2 GBps? Because 1.2GBps is about 10 Gbps
It’s all that Millimeter Wave 5G garbage that drops coverage like a fart in the wind, hardly ever works, requires more expensive phone plans, and requires a special radio on your phone in addition to the normal 5g one.
Oh man, this sounds like a repeat of the whole debacle with AT&T and their “5Ge” bullshit. As soon as the whole 5G hype started, AT&T decided to claim that their entire network was now “5Ge” and capable of faster speeds. When in reality the “5Ge” label simply meant that the network in that area was flagged to be upgraded to 5G sometime in the near future, there was zero increase in network bandwidth or performance, just a little “5GE” symbol on your phone. IIRC they were taken to court over it and ordered to stop using the “5Ge” label, but they figured out a way to weasel out of it and never followed thru.
Many years ago, when even smartphones were relatively rare, I learned that AT&T was offering a little USB dongle that would give your computer internet access via their cell phone network for a monthly fee. I thought it was a fantastic idea and I wanted exactly that, so I went in to buy one.
I asked the lady how much data per month was included. She said it was unlimited. I said that it’s definitely not. I just want to know what the limit is. We want back and forth a little bit, and after a while I just asked to see the written agreement, dug through it a little bit, and found the part where it said that I was limited to 5 gigabytes of internet per month. I pointed it out to her, reiterating that 5 gigs is fine, I just had wanted to know what the limit was.
She said, “Oh that’s what comes with the unlimited plan.” She argued that no human being would realistically use 5 gigabytes in a single month, so the plan was unlimited.
I gave up and just bought the thing and left, but it was such a frustrating interaction that it still comes to mind almost 20 years later when someone says “AT&T” and “bullshit” in the same sentence.
You have an unlimited amount of water in that glass, assuming you don’t drink it all.
I really wish the government would crack down on this “unlimited” bullshit. How can companies like Verizon have three separate tiers of “Unlimited data?” It’s fucking impossible to have three separate limits on a thing that is advertised as ‘no limits’
Reminds me of that guy who repeatedly asked Verizon to confirm their price was X cents per byte, but ultimately was charged X dollars per byte.
Found it: http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-from-cents.html
I’m pretty sure they just decided 4G/LTE = 5G. And now have a 5G+ icon for actual 5G. I noticed that when I moved back to an att MVNO last month after decades away from them.
Also, they deploy a wifi SSID profile called att-passwport that auto connects you to some boingo branded wifi towers in select places (like Home Depot). Can’t be disabled permanently and is pretty fucking annoying. Like “may find alternatives” annoying.
I live a couple hundred yards from a tower and recently returned from a two-week vacation. I had a 4g/LTE icon before I left. Now it says 5G, but my tests show the exact same speeds as before. I think you are correct.
It can depend on the level of service you have with ATT that I have seen. If you are on pre-paid plans, or any MVNO they will cap your speed at like 2-4 Mbps on “5G” and around 5-7 Mbps on “5G+” which seems like actual 5G. They bury it deep in their details. MVNO’s say similar as well…
Click “see details” on any of these and it shows in the iframe: https://www.att.com/prepaid/plans/
Heres an example of an MVNO explaining it: https://www.cricketwireless.com/support/data-and-streaming/network-speeds-and-streaming.html
Now, if you get a post paid plan, and only on the highest tier, do you not get limitations on speed (aka QoS).
They are conflating it with “SD Standard-definition streaming” or “4K UHD streaming available”, where the latter is basically with no QoS and will get full speed and priority on the towers. All others are capped at the speeds stated above that I have seen.
I found the post paid details digging the other day but their website is a hot mess (probably dark patterned intentionally that way).
TL:DR - I am not a fan of the way any of these companies advertise service.
More things that could never fly if there was honest, real competition in the internet provider market.
Yes, go after Comcast for their confusing marketing and shitty business practices, but nothing would fix the situation faster and better than having them have to actually compete for customers because there were a few other internet providers out there that customers could choose from.
I did i.t. work at a Comcast and asked about it, I kept asking what the 10g memt, they said it’s basically like a new brand. They already rebranded off Comcast to Xfinity because of all the negative connotation against them, now they’re doing it again. I’ve met so many people that didn’t know Xfinity is Comcast
