AT&T just installed fiber in my neighborhood. I currently use Xfinity for internet and have had no problems with it. Their prices are approximately the same, but AT&T offers service with no contract and will buy out the remainder of my Xfinity contract. AT&T will also waive the installation fee at this time.

What say you experts? Is it worth the switch? Xfinity has a horrible customer relationship reputation, but AT&T's is not much better. What has your experience been with AT&T?

The AT&T fiber solution is also symmetrical, which is a plus. I switched several months back because they were going to give me 1G/1G at $100 per month, with no contract. My Xfinity bill for internet and TV was over $240 per month, so it was a no brainer for me.

AT&T and Comcast customer service both suck, if you have to deal with them.

All customer service for non-luxury items sucks. Almost not worth considering anymore in a purchase decision like this.

We had AT&T fiber for 8 years in Dallas and it was fine.

Your primary issue will be know how on setting up your own router if you don't want to use their out of box gateway/router for both functions.

Is it real fiber…meaning fiber to your house or fiber to the box and then copper to the house? Silly question but they were advertising fiber speeds a while back but it wasn't actually fiber to the house.

We have fiber (stream everything) and have had minimal issues.

DallasTeleAg said:

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The AT&T fiber solution is also symmetrical, which is a plus. I switched several months back because they were going to give me 1G/1G at $100 per month, with no contract. My Xfinity bill for internet and TV was over $240 per month, so it was a no brainer for me.

AT&T and Comcast customer service both suck, if you have to deal with them.

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Out of curiousity, are you now actually paying less. By the time you add various streaming services, aren't you back in the neighborhood of that monthly cost?

I was already paying for Netflix and Amazon Prime, so I don't consider those when doing my comparison. YouTube TV is only $50 per month, but i am not planning on paying for that until football season. I only have my Internet spend and my phone bill.

And actually, I think I only pay $90 a month for the 1G/1G internet, because I am an AT&T cellular customer.

In answer to the earlier question about "true fiber" or not, that's a very loaded question. On the commercial side, I don't even consider something "true fiber" unless it is dedicated internet access, with an SLA.

I can tell you I have an AT&T fiber converter in my garage that has a duplex going out to the box on the street. It is then copper from that converter to my AT&T router/modem, in my house.

It's really irrelevant whether they convert to copper in your house or elsewhere. At some point, it has to be converted. Copper can exceed 1G symmetrical with no problem, and anyone paying for more than that is just stupid, unless they have invested in some crazy network and PC equipment to support >1G. Even still, I think it's a waste.

ETA: Another huge selling point for AT&T is that Xfinity had certain download limits before they would levy additional charges. I don't have any download limits with AT&T.

DallasTeleAg said:

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I was already paying for Netflix and Amazon Prime, so I don't consider those when doing my comparison. YouTube TV is only $50 per month, but i am not planning on paying for that until football season. I only have my Internet spend and my phone bill.

And actually, I think I only pay $90 a month for the 1G/1G internet, because I am an AT&T cellular customer.

In answer to the earlier question about "true fiber" or not, that's a very loaded question. On the commercial side, I don't even consider something "true fiber" unless it is dedicated internet access, with an SLA.

I can tell you I have an AT&T fiber converter in my garage that has a duplex going out to the box on the street. It is then copper from that converter to my AT&T router/modem, in my house.

It's really irrelevant whether they convert to copper in your house or elsewhere. At some point, it has to be converted. Copper can exceed 1G symmetrical with no problem, and anyone paying for more than that is just stupid, unless they have invested in some crazy network and PC equipment to support >1G. Even still, I think it's a waste.

ETA: Another huge selling point for AT&T is that Xfinity had certain download limits before they would levy additional charges. I don't have any download limits with AT&T.

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I have fiber from street all the way into my house and into their box…no copper…not sure what that means in all your technical talk but they def had two different varieties and one used copper and the other was fiber all the way into the house

I view it as irrelevant. What matters more is if the connection back to the carrier datacenter is shared or dedicated. Whether it's on glass or copper when extended into your house is not going to affect the speeds, when 1Gig and under. It's simply a marketing thing, unless the distance from the node is such that fiber is required to minimize the degradation. As long as your cable run is under 300-320ft, you wouldn't know the difference.

With this new availability in my neighborhood, AT&T is offering speeds up to 5 gigs. That seems ridiculous right now, but will probably be the bare minimum necessary in 3 or so years. I've noticed that web apps expand to fill the available bandwidth. It's probably a corollary of Parkinson's law.

FiOS started running fiber to homes 20 years ago. Residential gigabit internet is almost 15 years old and it hasn't become a minimum of any kind either.

Good point, although I suppose that availability of gigabit speed has to reach a critical mass before developers will start writing to it. On the other hand, 5 gigs may be way more than most people need forever.

I don't see that being a thing for more than 3 years. There is just no need for it. Maybe we start seeing some things, 5-10 years down the road.

The infrastructure needed would be a huge overhaul with cabling/network equipment, the devices themselves would all require new 10Gbps NICs or better processing power to accommodate, and then the sites or servers you are accessing would actually need to support supplying that kind of bitrate for all the users accessing them.

Honestly, what are you downloading that requires more than 100Mbps? You could have 6 people in your house all streaming UHD 4K movies at the same time, and you would not exceed 450Mbps. In fact, your biggest choke point would probably be the processing power of your router and/or WAP.

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Honestly, what are you downloading that requires more than 100Mbps?

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Nothing. I was just discussing the availability of what seems ridiculous speeds. I'm thinking of getting their "slowest" offering which is 300 mbps.

Just had ATT Fiber installed. While the advertised speed is 1GB the tech explained that speed is limited by the end device.

I get 1GB to the router but only 300MB on my devices. So it seems like any of the higher GB plans wouldn't result in faster speeds for the higher price.

Worlds Foremost Ag said:

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Just had ATT Fiber installed. While the advertised speed is 1GB the tech explained that speed is limited by the end device.

I get 1GB to the router but only 300MB on my devices. So it seems like any of the higher GB plans wouldn't result in faster speeds for the higher price.

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Depends on the device. And are you talking about your router? Yes, if you have an underpowered router connected to 1GB internet then your devices connecting via wireless will max out what your router can handle.

Astroag said:

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Is it real fiber…meaning fiber to your house or fiber to the box and then copper to the house? Silly question but they were advertising fiber speeds a while back but it wasn't actually fiber to the house.

We have fiber (stream everything) and have had minimal issues.

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Very valid response and 1000% needs to be considered. We moved into our new home last May, so nerded out hard on all our new electronics set up.

We do ATT fiber (To respectfully disagree with the above poster, I have always had a baller ATT technician at the house that has showed me everything I need to know and then some. Call customer care could be sheet but what large corporation's isn't?). Finally bit the bullet and moved to all streaming.

We do DirecTV streaming with Amazon Firesticks on each TV and have 3 added wifi extenders in strategic locations throughout our house and back patio/yard. We have never had an issue except our living room TV is an amazon Fire one from Costco and is l**** AF (like AF. so frustrating).

When we first moved in I used to test the wifi speed all the time and it was always beyond stellar. Directv stream isn't for everyone but gets my Houston local sports networks and SEC Network. Honestly went this route because it has an actual "guide" and feels like you can still just flip channels like old school cable. That vs. Youtube TV is similar from what I can recall and I am also not the type of guy that GAF about $10-$20 delta per month for what I want.

I mean c'mon. Don't go to breakfast one Saturday morning or have one less marg at Friday night fam tex-mex... Penny pinchers in this situation, I will never understand. But I digress.

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In short, 1 GB fiber to the system. Firestick per TV, DirecTV streaming and damn disney plus etc for the toddlers and I am set.

Hope this helps. Just my 2 cents.

ETA: LOL to add it filtered "@ggy" out of my verbage of L@ggy AF. I find this humorous on a Sunday night.

I've had AT&T fiber for over a decade probably. It is great. Cheap, fast, reliable. We have the lowest plan, 300 up and down, for around $50/month. It almost never goes out. The only fault I can find is that it doesn't keep working when I accidentally cut the line while digging in the back yard

Worlds Foremost Ag said:

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Just had ATT Fiber installed. While the advertised speed is 1GB the tech explained that speed is limited by the end device.

I get 1GB to the router but only 300MB on my devices. So it seems like any of the higher GB plans wouldn't result in faster speeds for the higher price.

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If you can upgrade the wireless card on older computers then you can achieve fasters speeds for a low cost. For my 4 year old Dell desktop, I just needed Wifi 6 and it upgraded my speedtest from 300 mps down to 900+ wireless down. Same increase for one of our laptops too.

Not available yet at our new house and I miss it. Comcast is...well, Comcast.

Not to redirect or hijack the thread, but I don't want to start a new one to ask a very similar question.

For those who live in the Rockwall area or have other experiences with Optimum cable, how does it compare to AT&T fiber?

Both are offered in the house we are moving to when we return to TX, and I am trying to decide which one I want to go with for a 1GB plan. I had AT&T fiber (in Florida) and I have COX cable now (in California). Both have been pretty reliable. I have never heard of, or used, optimum.

Comcast rebranded to Optimum, it's fine. We're in NW Austin and have only been down very briefly a handful of times in 2 years.

I would go with AT&T fiber over Optimum.

This is not true, Optimum is the provider formerly known as Suddenlink, only with even junkier customer service and ridiculous billing practices. Optimum operates in many mid-sized and suburban markets around the state (Tyler, BCS, Lubbock, Georgetown, etc.) Not that Comcast is any better...

My bad, got my mediocre multinational cable companies mixed up

You are correct, Suddenlink is who I was thinking of. Thanks for the correction.