The Truth about Austin Internet and TV Service Providers
Dealing with Austin Service Providers for internet, phone, and television can be a real pain. It’s hard to know what company will serve your needs best while providing a fair cost. This article is intended to distill all of the moving parts associated with TV and network service providers and give you a straightforward guide of who does what best.
The three basic elements of network service are internet, phone, and television. Each service provider has strengths and weaknesses in each category. We’ll break it down by provider later.
Depending on where you live, you may not have many options in choosing your provider. Before you get too deep into your research, check what’s available in your area.
Which Provider Won’t Raise my Rate?
None. Whether it’s Spectrum, AT&T, Google Fiber, or Grande, every company operates on 12-month introductory rates that increase after your first year. That rate increase is unavoidable.
Rather than trying to juggle providers year in and year out to avoid rate increases, we suggest you pinpoint which provider will fit your needs service-by-service and accept the inevitable truth that your rate will increase after year one, no matter what.
Own Your own Equipment - Modems and Routers
Ubiquiti UniFi Managed Network setup by Smarter Homes of Austin
The default of any service provider is to lease you low-quality equipment (a router and modem) and include a leasing fee in your monthly bill (sometimes hidden and fixed). However, there are Many Benefits to Not Leasing Your Equipment. If the modem is yours, you can get a standard modem that's not one of these clunky all-in-ones. The modems themselves just take that incoming IP address and pass it along to a router that you also own, managing the network within your house yourself.
Your router's going be what determines the number of devices that can connect and how far WiFi travels. Purchasing your own, quality router ensures wifi will go further than with the very low-quality router-modem combo that would be provided.
We’ll be frank - managed networks, or those where you provide your own equipment, are not a cheap solution. They are, however, more reliable, they save you money on leasing fees in the long run, and keep your devices more secure. They also allow you the capability to extend your WiFi throughout your estate. You pay more upfront because you’ll need an integrator or IT guy to install the equipment. They will then act as your technology monitor, detecting, troubleshooting and solving problems with your network as they arrive.
We always recommend a Ubiquiti managed network. We find the equipment extremely reliable and it works especially well with Grande, Spectrum and Google Fiber.
How Much Data (MBPS) Does my House Need?
Many people wonder if raising their package to 1,000 mbps is the way to improve their connection speeds. The truth is, it’s usually overkill and unnecessary. Your data is pretty dependent on your infrastructure and whether or not your network is managed. With a strong system set up, that has a high-quality router, allowing numerous device connections and WiFi reaching your whole home, you won’t really notice the difference between say 400Mbps and 1000Mbps.
To find a realistic number for your family, start by making a list of activities by person in the home. What does your family use your data for? How many gamers live in the house? What gaming platforms are they using? Is it a lower bandwidth data platform like a Nintendo Switch, or is it a high demand gaming system like Xbox or PlayStation 4. Once you have all the numbers in order, use that information in a minimum recommendation quiz to calculate. Just keep in mind that anything over a 100 megabits per second speed is an almost unnoticeable difference.
We found this article pretty helpful when it comes to breaking down the actual language of internet speeds and measurements.
TV and Internet Provider Break Downs
(Click on Provider for Details and Breakdown)
AT&T - Neighborhood Exclusivity, Data Throttling, and Good TV
- Most exclusive
- $50/month for the first 12 months
- 100 Mbps over copper, goes upto 1,000 Mbps over fiber
AT&T is notorious for a few sneaky, behind the scenes activities. The first of which we want to cover is neighborhood exclusivity. They are one of the only companies out there known for buying their way into neighborhoods as they are being developed. What that means is that AT&T will often make a deal with the developer to handle all of the network infrastructure: the conduit, the underground work, all the digging and trenching and backend. Then, the neighborhood gets services setup for free and sometimes AT&T actually pays the developer for letting them essentially monopolize that area for a specific period of time. So, as a resident, if you're finding that AT&T is your only option and you’re feeling trapped in your plan with them, this is why.
They also participate in data throttling. Basically, if there's an area where there are more people streaming during certain periods of the day, like at night when everybody's off work and watching Netflix, they are going to then lower the bandwidth allocations for that neighborhood so that they're not wasting data. If they're seeing that neighborhood-wide the amount of data being used is over what they've allocated for their data budget within that neighborhood, then they're going to throttle the network to the total amount of data going to that neighborhood. That’s why some people within that area are going to experience problems.
They are also known for individual network problems. Depending on where your home is within their network of data is going to depend on whether you’re at what we call the “end of the line”. In short, AT&T prioritizes based on geography. If you're closer to the end of the line, you're kind of getting whatever data is left and if there are a lot of homes that are before you in line of the fiber, they're getting all of the data and the bulk of the quality, first.
When it comes to equipment, you’ll have to use their clunky, all-in-one modem/router. When you lift it up and it almost feels like it weighs nothing because it's filled with black magic and air. This equipment is made with very old technology, known for having issues randomly week to week, with no rhyme or reason whatsoever, especially during major events like the Super Bowl, World Series, Olympics, and New Year's Eve.
In terms of TV and cable, AT&T gets a “decent” score from us. They are essentially the middle of the road quality-wise. While you may experience shotty connections at times, they do have cloud recording. That means if you set up all of your recordings and your cable box dies, they’ll send you a new cable box and when you plug it in, it will download all of your recordings and scheduled recordings right away. They also have an app: AT&T Direct TV. However, the app has no recording, so it's just for live TV only and the price is not included in your plan.
What most people don’t realize is that companies like Spectrum hire third-party subcontractors to install their equipment and get it configured with Spectrum’s service infrastructure. These subcontractors are often paid a flat fee which means there is no motivation to spend extra time on service configuration, home assessment, or quality control. In the end, you’re left with stock equipment that you're essentially leasing from the provider, often installed as quickly and easily as possible, and it only goes so far.
Spectrum - Flexible Equipment, No Data Throttling, Horrible TV
- Most popular
- $44.99/month for the first 12 months
- 100 Mbps, goes up to 940 Mbps over copper
Spectrum, unlike AT&T, does not throttle their data. They offer different packages at different speeds and capabilities. That means that if you’re having an issue with your connection, the outage is likely occurring in the whole neighborhood. This has some benefits. It proves that they are not prioritizing some customers over others and it increases the likelihood of it being corrected in a timely manner.
Spectrum is also a lot more flexible when it comes to buying your own equipment. You can purchase a Spectrum approved modem as long as its speeds are of the 400 megabits per second package or less. This allows you the freedom to build a managed network that can be more closely monitored, secured and increases reliability. You will also avoid leasing costs.
Where Spectrum prevails in the world of WiFi, it tanks in the world of TV. Spectrum is by far the worst television service out there. They use hard drives for recording storage as opposed to the cloud. As a result, if you record something in one room on their Spectrum cable box, it's only viewable from that location. For that reason, not a lot of people like Spectrum as far as their recording services go because they are not cloud-based. If your cable box ever dies, so you're going to have to reset up all those recordings again.
Spectrum also just released a brand new app. It brags features such as "full TV lineup in-home and up to 40,000 On Demand TV shows and movies in your home, on your mobile and connected devices, including phone, tablet and Roku, Xbox One and Samsung Smart TV." You can also access movie channels and cloud recording without using a cable box.
Google Fiber - Game-Changing Speeds, Great Connections, Great Hardware
- Most Reliable
- $50/month for the first 12 months
- 100 to 1000Mbps
Google Fiber entered Austin to affect the market’s speed allocations and pricing structures. Because we are a hub for technology and innovation, Google wanted to restructure market standards and capabilities. Before Fiber came to town, the speeds were much lower downtown and in the overall, greater Austin area but their services forced all of the other providers to move the speeds up and prices down. Previously, the average speed package was between 10 and 20 megabits per second. Now base packages are available at 100mbps. Google Fiber is not limited at 940mbps like most companies. It’s scalable up to 1,000mbps.
Another way that Google Fiber is extremely innovative is in its data sharing. This game-changer is slightly less appealing to their customer base. Google gives providers a lot more feedback on the bandwidth, how individual users inside the home are using that bandwidth, what websites they're searching, what channels they're watching, etc. This data is super valuable to the providers to be able and creates an additional revenue on top of what their making from monthly bills. The trade-off is that they do not throttle their data at all. There is so much data that they will let you have as much as you want in a neighborhood, meaning incredible reliability.
They do recommend that you lease their modem unless you have an expanded WiFi, whole-home system by Ubiquiti, in which case they have partnered with Ubiquiti to turn your security gateway into your modem. That makes Google Fiber our ideal choice for a managed network.
It's important to realize that the core brand and offerings of Google fiber are the internet. There is no possibility to get just a TV service through Google fiber. You're always starting with internet and adding on digital cable from there if you decide to go that route.
Their TV services provide the same great features as AT&T by way of cloud recording. They have great hardware and if the hardware breaks, it re-downloads TV content upon installation. They also have an app that, unlike AT&T, is included.
Most of our clients who have Google Fiber focus on having it for internet only and then they go to a television provider like Direct TV. Even though ST&T owns Direct TV, it's a very different product. Direct TV is targeted toward sports fanatic types with multiple sports packages. This allows you to really fine-tune your package to serve your likes.
Grande Communications - Boutique Offerings, Mesh Compatibility, App Linking Smart TV
- Most Limited
- $35.99/month for the first 12 months
- 300-600Mbps
Grande Communications is a bit of a niche provider, mainly centralized in the downtown area of Austin. They offer ultra-high speeds and what we refer to as boutique offerings such as additional hardware for whole-home WiFi via Eero mesh network equipment and high-quality DVR for TV shows that can be added using TiVo. In summary, they have the most features but serve the least neighborhoods.
They are an extremely reliable company. They rarely have connection issues or neighborhood-wide problems.
When it comes to equipment, some of their modems are on the street level, meaning that the modem is serving multiple homes. We call this a smart mode. They also have other modems that are located inside the house but because of this, it is not very common for you to find a third party modem that will work with Grande. Due to their reliability, the equipment becomes less of an issue but it does limit your ability to create a managed network. However, their partnership Eero mesh means you can repeat the signal throughout the home using mesh network products.
A lot of people will go with their bundle TV and internet package, mainly because it's not just the cable box. It does DVR and allows you to link apps, which is really great. That means if the content you are seeking is not available on Grande's service provider channels, it will show you the apps that it is available on (ie Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon) and you can stream it from those additional apps through your cable box onto the TV. TiVo has made it very simple for people to find the content that they like cross-platform over multiple apps. The only other place that we've seen something like is on a Roku.
TV Channel count and Internet pricing infographic for Austin TV service providers.