TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
In my early Internet days my fastest Internet I could get living in rural Colorado was AOL dial-up at 48.8 kilobits. Earthlink and MSN could not even compare. But then one day we got high speed Internet, A whole whopping 9 megabits up / down for a whopping $100 a month. Now we were cooking. This was early 2000s.
Well when I moved, to Indiana, Comcast offered to get me 25 megabits up / down but for $55 a month. They tried to sell me on 50 megabits up / down for $25 more a month but I did not need it. I just saved a bunch and 4x my speed. This was about 8 years ago. Well has my high speed journey been crazy since COVID. This is the story.
ISP Reviews
The following reviews are of three ISPs in the greater Indiana area stretching from 2016 - 2024.
Comcast
So while living in Indiana, the 25 megabits up / down was more then enough. I had a small stint as a contractor in Baltimore, MD for a year and T-Mobile came in clutch for hot spot 4G LTE Internet in the hotel. Well once back from Baltimore I bought my house and stuck with Comcast. Well COVID hit and as many others, I had to work from home along with my children doing online school.
What happened, data caps. The cost to up the data cap was ridiculous. Also 25 megabits was no longer cutting it. So I start shopping around and discover Frontier. 500 megabits up / down for $75 a month no contract, no data caps, fiber. Hell yeah.
Now Comcast is known in online reviews for crappy customer service. I never had this experience. Getting through to a person, well that is a different story but once connected, they were great to work with. Naturally they could not beat the Frontier deal.
Frontier
All in all the 500 megabit fiber service is nothing to complain about. It did as it stated. I was not locked into a contract. The speeds more than got children and I through our new online reality. Life was great. But the reality is, like others, I am looking to cut costs and really no longer need the 500 megabit connection to the Internet for my current needs. Enter T-Mobile and 5G Internet from home. I will discuss that later.
The issue I had with Frontier is with attempting to quit. Now I was not locked into any contracts. I simple wanted to terminate the Internet and return the equipment. This was back in Oct 2024. Well the lady would not take no for an answer. To top it off, I was going to be charged for next months Internet and have to pay a $50 restocking fee of the modem. Now to be fair you are not leasing the modem so I guess this is to make up for that fact but it was annoying none the less. Either way I got two months free and the lady stated to call back in November to then cancel. She stated she was giving me a deal as I would only be charged the $50 restocking fee.
Cut to November 2024 and I call to cancel. Well they cannot identify me with the PIN that was on my bill with the new sales lady. So she has to send me out a paper with a PIN to confirm my identity. Fine. Well it just so happens that the paper comes when the new bill cycle kicks in so I would be charged for Internet I have not used for almost two months. I was ticked.
NOTE: I am not stating the lady did that on purpose, the timing was just annoying.
So cut to Dec 2024 and I call. Finally I was able to cancel the service. The third sales lady was nice and not only canceled the new Internet charge that would hit me, but also waved the $50 restocking fee. But my gosh, why couldn't I just cancel in the first place!!!!
T-Mobile
What can I say. T-Mobile has been awesome. Their 5G home Internet is awesome. The reason for the switch was I get the home Internet, cell phone plan, and Netflix covered for $100 a month. That's it. Internet speeds are about 150 megabit up / down and I have never had any issues with T-Mobile. Trying to get through to their customer support is cumbersome but as a whole, it is just a down right awesome deal with no contract. Isn't their modem cute. No running of cables or drilling required.
Final Thoughts
- Comcast: If you are looking to bundle cable subscription with your Internet and are not worried about data caps, sure. But there are faster services.
- Frontier: If you need speed they can't be beat for the price. But my goodness they will not let you quit even though you are not in a contract. And a restock fee for the modem, come on.
- T-Mobile: WINNER. For the price, no contract, no data caps, cell phone and a streaming subscription covered, quit at anytime. Yeah they have more then earned my commitment.
NOTE: The opinions expressed in this article are my own. You cannot draw any statistical significance with a sample size of one. So do your research. 😁