Friday, June 6, 2014

TV & Internet Review

Several months ago, my family decided to upgrade our internet. We had been using a wireless service from TDS Telecom with download speeds of 1.5 Mbps. We had upgraded to that back in 2004 or 2005 and it had served us well until my son got a laptop and a tablet for Christmas and his birthday, respectively. He enjoys watching Youtube videos of Minecraft, and this would hamper other internet users' ability to watch Netflix, work, etc.

So upgrade we did.

Funny part: the nice Customer Service Associate at TDS pointed out she hadn't upgraded anybody from our plan in four years or more!

The Associate also informed me of TDS' relatively new TV service. It is fiber-optic (as opposed to their former partnership with Dish TV). After learning more, we decided to give it a try.

The TV service has far more High-Definition channels than Comcast had in our area. It also has far more regular channels than Comcast offered. The channels themselves were also more desirable (the kids love Disney XD).

The internet is blazing fast! My computer (from which I type this entry) can only download at 72 Mbps. It is constantly reading 72 Mbps wireless access, even though TDS "only" promised 50 Mbps with our plan (their fastest option). My work computer can download as fast as 128 Mbps, and it has always indicated it was receiving at that speed. We never have slow-downs - even if everyone is downloading TV, movies, Netflix, Youtube, WWE Network, etc. - all at the same time!

All of this, and the price was only $6 per month more than we had been paying for the internet and TV service prior. Oh, and the kicker? My company reimburses me for internet & fax line as they are used in the course of my job... so my "out-of-pocket" expenses actually DROPPED from ~$90/month to about $40/month!

I'd say that's a win, no matter which way you slice it.


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