Jump to content

randallmark

Members
  • Posts

    4
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Speed Test

    My Results

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Midland, TX

randallmark's Achievements

Earning Trust

Earning Trust (1/10)

1

Reputation

  1. Update: It has now been over five months since I switched from Suddenlink to Grande, and I continue to be well-pleased with Grande. Their service has truly been rock solid at or above their advertized speeds. My dowloads still typically range between 24 and 26 mbps My upload speeds have actually improved, and are now typically near 3 mbps. We have experienced zero area outages and no extended slowdowns. The day and time seem to make little difference, and we make use of it almost around the clock. When we get one of our rather frequent but brief power outages, I do a simple restart of modem and router, and everything is fine again. I noticed today that here in Midland, Grande is now offering a new residential service-teir of 110 mpbs downloads/ 5 mbps uploads. Tempting!
  2. Thanks for writing, Mudmanc4. I have attached the Arris spec sheet produced when I clicked your link. It is not clear to me whether it anwsers your question or not. The box the modem came in clearly says docsis 3.0. Randall
  3. Thanks for the instructions. This is a test to see if my max gets posted. ]My max speed Test #2 to see if I can post my max. ]My max Test #3 to see if I can post my max. Bingo! Test successful at last.
  4. Though I am a new member of forums, I have been using TestMy.net for over a year now, and am persuaded that it is superior to other test sites I have used. I live in Midland, Texas, where I manage two family businesses (oil & gas; water) mostly online from an office in my home. This enables me to take care of my invalid widowed mother (age 83) who lives with me. I am a heavy computer and internet user, though far from a pro at either. I am aiming for a "paperless office." My principal computer is a recent MacPro, though I also have an iMac and a Dell pc on my network (both wired and wireless, NetGear router). I also use an iPad and an iPhone. We are heavy users of broadband. Besides my normal business and personal use of the internet, I also do extensive online trading and research of stocks and other investments with real-time charting. I do online backups of my hard drives. I follow my news, weather, political, and religious interests online (I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian believer). I download many ebooks, audiobooks, and podcasts. For telephone service, we use Ooma VOIP (works great). Mother constantly watches her favorite movies and TV shows using Roku and Netflix streaming video. We both decided we never wanted to watch another TV commercial, and we wanted to watch only what we wanted when we wanted, so we long since discontinued cable and satellite TV service in favor of Roku streaming. Mother and I both listen to our favorite music many hours a day streaming on MOG or Pandora. As long as our internet service is reliable and fast, this works great for us. There's the rub. A couple of months ago, a representative of Grande Communications knocked on our door to inform us that they had just wired our neighborhood (Racquet Club South). I listened with interest because heretofore the only cable-modem option for our location was Suddenlink. (ATT and DSL have long been dirty words to me). My experience with Suddenlink had been consistently dismal, even though I was paying $89/month just for their top-grade home internet service. Occasionally, for short periods I would receive their advertized 36mbps download speed, but it varied wildly, and mostly I got between 3 and 18mbps. A few times a month it would cease entirely. I spent hundreds of hours on the phone with tech support, had many service-call visits (often from their top tech supervisors), and replaced several modems and much wiring, but with no lasting improvement in speed or reliablity. If they could get it up to speed, it would quickly get slower and slower till it stopped. They refused to credit me a penny off the $89/month for the many months of poor service. I felt trapped and abused. My neighbors on both sides told me they had similar problems with Suddenlink internet. This is especially strange, since Suddenlink's main north/south fiber optic trunk line in Midland runs right under the street we live on. I knew that Grande had been serving a few Midland neighborhoods for many years, and I knew that their company-wide speed averages on TestMy.net were only mediocre. However, their sales rep told me that they were shifting their focus more toward internet, and claimed that the new lines they were installing in our neighborhood would enable them to offer much faster and more reliable service than before. They are also promising no data usage caps, which is really significant for us. They offer no-contract plans with several speed choices. I decided to give them a try with their 24mbps plan, since they were giving a $24/month introductory offer (including rental of an Arris docsis-3 modem, the same we were using with Suddenlink). It's only been about six weeks since we switched to Grande, but so far I am very encouraged. Their internet service has been far more reliable and consistent than we had with Suddenlink. More often than not, I get well over the 24mbps downloads advertized, and my uploads are usually between 2 and 2.7mbps. Thus far my slowest download has been 18.8mbps and my slowest upload has been 1.8mbps. Only twice have I needed to restart the modem, and it bounced back immediately. Streaming movies and shows via Netflix and Roku now look and sound like DVDs on our 70" plasma TV. Mother is thrilled. I would be curious to know what kind of speeds and reliability Grande users are getting in other parts of Midland with older lines. If things continue to go well, I expect to eventually upgrade to their new 65mbps plan. I wonder if any of you have tried that plan? Will someone please instruct me how to paste or attach my TestMy.net test records with my posts? I would be much obliged.
×
×
  • Create New...