Brian’s Guide to “Do you get what you pay for for your internet?”!

Time Warner Cable, Verizon, AT&T and more are common today for home internet. Most readers probably have one of these providers.

For may years, we were on a 3 MBPS plan off of Verizon DSL. My knowledge back then was limited but I did have enough sense to run a speedtest off of speedtest.net. My oh my I was so confused…My Ping was over 300 and my Download Speed was less than 1 MBPS. You don’t need to be a genious to know that there was something wrong there. After another year of this, I couldn’t take it. We were payng 49.95 dollars a month for painfully slow internet. We were even paying for more than we actually received. This was an eye-opener.

This is a classic case of what many people are experiencing. Please run a speedtest and see what you receive. Be aware though that even if you get something less than the speed that your plan says you should get, it is not always their fault. This leads me into my next story.

I an now on Time Warner Cable after switching angrily from Verizon. We moved up from a 3MBPS plan to a 10 MBPS plan. Sounds a lot better, right? Well that was kind of the case… In my house, I have one computer connected to the router by wire and the rest by wireless. It is an E2000 router with Dual Band Wireless N capabilities. All of our wireless computers also have dual band wireless N capabilities. So here is where things started getting weird. My wired computer was receiving 27 MBPS (YEAH!) which was more than double what was expected! This was very nice. My laptop on wireless was receiving about 11 (Still good!) and my desktop on wireless was receiving 1.13 (NOOOOOO). Turned out that I had a bad wireless card. I am now getting an average of 16 MBPS on that computer due to the awesome Asus wireless card I reviewed much earlier. You can see that in our reviews section.

So the lesson here is that you may not be getting what you pay for at first, but that is not always their fault. If you are currently experiencings something, first consider these options:

1. Plug out and then back in the Ethernet Cable (only applicable for those running by a cable connection)

2. Update your drivers (Go to Start, Type in “Device Manager”, press enter, Click “Network Adapters” near the bottom of the list, then select “Update driver”.

3. Try taking out and putting back in your Wireless or Network Card (This will require you opening up your computer)

4. Consider that your Network Card is faulty and get a new one that will fit into your computer (Try arguing with your internet provider first!)

I have had to do all of these and more! I even once had to send back a laptop three times in 2 months to HP to fix a wireless issue. In this next story there is another helpful hint.

So I had an HP Pavillion DV6000, a mighty nice looking laptop with So-So components. Inside was an Atheros Wireless Adapter. I had spent hours talking on the phone with HP support representatives and managers, even executives and they still couldn’t identify the issue. They convinced me that if I sent in my laptop for repair it would be fixed quickly. After a week there, it came back. I excitedly opened it up and found that it was working even worse! Not connecting to my network at all! So I sent it back again, annoyed. Same process, same promise. Once again received it and found that nothing at all had changed but a few scratches I had never noticed before on the laptop. Next I discovered that I still had the exact same wireless card and the only thing they did was investigate the software and drivers. I figured that I needed a different wireless card, and to play it safe, by a totally different company. After a bit of research, I discovered that Atheros was widely considered as a terrible company with the majority of all reviews online being negative. I then asked for a wireless card from Intel when I sent it in the next time. I was so eager when I got it back, and then realized, my laptop still has Atheros! I had them send me an all new laptop with a better configuration! Now all is well!

So the morale of the story is, yes the companies still do sometimes screw you. However, sometimes there are other things you must consider first! Hope this has been helpful!

Brian Adler