Internet Service Providers, Data Caps, Costs, and Streaming Video.
Brevard County, Florida, as a typical example, has two primary broadband vendors, Charter Communications, and AT&T. Other mobile broadband options are available through satellite and cellular phone providers, but aren’t the best choice for streaming HDTV due to service limitations and costs. Here is what you need to know about internet service providers, availability of services, costs, bandwidth, and data caps.
SPECTRUM INTERNET
Bright House Networks, which was once a division of Time Warner Cable, was sold to Charter Communications in 2016, creating the third largest pay-television provider in the United States behind AT&T and Comcast. It is known as Charter Spectrum, or just Spectrum. Charter Communications offers service to an estimated 100 million people in 41 states with significant coverage in California, Missouri, Texas, and Michigan. There have been rumors of Verizon possibly being interested in buying Charter in 2017.
Spectrum offers internet service starting at 60 MBPS (megabits per second) for $44.99 a month for 12 months with no data caps. They’ll provide a wireless router for an additional $9.99 up front, plus an additional $5.00 a month. There’s also a 100 MBPS service for $64.99 (strangely only available in Tampa), and 300 MBPS service for $99.99 a month. There are no contracts, and no data caps as of this writing.
AT&T INTERNET
AT&T is the second largest provider of mobile telephone services, the largest provider of fixed telephone services in the United States, and provides broadband subscription television services through DirecTV. AT&T is the 12th largest company in the world as measured by a composite of revenues, profits, assets and market value. AT&T Inc. began its existence as Southwestern Bell Corporation, one of seven Regional Bell Operating Companies created following the 1982 United States v. AT&T antitrust lawsuit. Southwestern Bell changed its name to SBC Communications Inc. in 1995. In 2005, SBC purchased former parent AT&T Corp. and took on its branding, with the merged entity naming itself AT&T Inc. and using the iconic AT&T logo. The current AT&T reconstitutes much of the former Bell System and includes ten of the original 22 Bell Operating Companies, along with the original long distance division. In July 2015, AT&T purchased DirecTV. AT&T subsequently announced plans to converge its existing U-verse home internet and IPTV brands with DirecTV, to create AT&T Entertainment. AT&T announced a deal to buy Time Warner in 2016.
AT&T has been busy changing out their old copper wires and replacing them with fiber optic cables. They currently offer 45 MBPS for $40 a month (with a 1 TB data cap), 100 MBPS for $60 a month (also with a 1 TB data cap), and a whopping 1,000 Mbps (“gigabit”) service for $80 a month with no data cap. Prices are good for 12 month agreements, and do have an early termination fee.
The reliability and performance of both AT&T and Spectrum is remarkably similar. Although in our newer neighborhood, I can recall three times in the past year where someone has cut a fiber optic cable during construction bringing the entire area down. Fortunately, most outages are fixed same or next day. Our Spectrum has been rock solid with no outages I am aware of. We have underground utilities, and had no outages during hurricane Matthew.
OTHER INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS
HughesNet offers broadband internet via satellite. While it works well for some folks who do not have cable, fiber, or DSL access, there are some downsides to satellite internet. Data must travel up to the satellite and back (about 45,000 miles). This round trip adds about a half-second delay to the total time your computer takes to communicate with a Website or host server. That will prevent real-time, multi-player games from establishing or maintaining a reliable connection with a gaming server. Also, your data rates are comparatively slow (their “Ultra” is only 15 MBPS compared to AT&T’s 1,000 MBPS), and data is capped at 55-100 GB per month. Streaming video would eat that up quickly.
The same considerations apply to cellular “hotspots.” Slower connections and data caps can lead to very expensive cellular phone bills.
There are still a few dial-up internet companies including AOL, but a dial-up connection is too slow to stream media.
STREAMING VIDEO: WHAT DO I NEED?
Which brings us to the big question: How much data do you need to stream video?
Since compression rates change (usually for the better), it is difficult to nail down exactly how much data you need to stream a single video program or movie. Compression takes the full HD signal and makes it smaller so it will stream more efficiently, while using less data, yet still leaving your picture looking as good as possible. Netflix, for example, wrote on their website that their HD video quality will consume up to 3 GB per hour for HD, and up to 7 GB per hour for Ultra HD. Ultra HD used to take up to 15 GB per hour for example, so that's quite an improvement. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Sling are comparatively similar in data rates, required bandwidth, and HD quality.
Netflix does offer a few ways to reduce the amount of data Netflix consumes, all of which unfortunately reduce video quality. For those with data caps, you can probably watch up to 200 hours of HD-quality video per month and still stay under your 1 terabyte data cap. That’s watching 40 hours of television a week for five full weeks. In families with lots of kids, that’s not as outlandish as you might think.
Smaller devices like smartphones and tablets use slightly lower bandwidth for smaller screens, so that helps in most kid situations.
For one single HDTV stream, you should have at least a 5 MBPS internet service per streaming device. Ultra HD may require up to five times that bandwidth. If you and three kids are streaming plain old HD at night, the Spectrum or AT&T 60 MBPS should provide more than enough bandwidth to keep everyone in your house happy, but opt for the 300 MBPS if you can afford it. Keep in mind you may not get 60 MBPS continuously. Cable Internet service can slow down during the evening when more people in your area are also streaming. Even fiber subscribers may be subject to congestion farther up the line when data travels through third-party networks, which can also get bogged down by traffic. Fortunately, Netflix and other streaming providers offer an “Auto” streaming rate which adjusts automatically to deliver the highest possible quality, based on your current Internet connection speed. Quality will degrade with slower speeds.
AT&T has a handy online data calculator that can help you avoid unpleasant streaming video surcharge surprises. https://www.att.com/esupport/data-calculator/index.jsp
An older router may not have enough bandwidth to deliver multiple wireless HD streams. Check the bandwidth on your router and make sure it’s 300 MBPS or better so it won’t choke on multiple streams. Most of the newer 802.11 ac devices fit the bill. The newer 5 GHz wireless offers higher speeds and less interference if your wireless streaming devices offer the 5 GHz band as an option. Save the 5 GHz channel for streaming, and use the 2.4 GHz channel for everything else.