As I have just relocated part-time to NYC, I have decided to really look at my needs when it comes to internet and broadband TV.   As most people in my building  just use Warner Cable here in Brooklyn,  it is almost like a no-brainer to call up Warner and set-up an appointment  to use the service.

I called two weeks ago to set-up an appointment.  It was Tuesday. They said they would send over a Service guy to set it up on Sat.  The going rate for Internet Only was about $33/month + the installation and box of about $100+.  To get Wifi was an extra $5/month.  So my costs would be for unlimited internet at broadband speed at about $38/month

Well I had a set window to meet the guy from 2-5pm.  He never showed up.  When I called into Warner Cable they said that he did show up but could not connect to me by phone. So the value of me sitting at my place, Why did he not buzz? So I proceeded to call Warner Cable and got the IVR telling me to wait to 5pm to call. If he did show up at 2:15 like they said, and I waited 3 hours for nothing, it kind of pissed me off that on a beautiful Saturday, I waited for 3 hours at home for somebody not going to show up again and I would have never known it.

So in my call that finally got through to a person at 5:15pm, I rescheduled for Thurs Evening from 5~8pm.  He wanted to set me up on Weds from 2~5pm, but I said that I had to go to work and could not sit at home for 3H on a Weds Afternoon.

Sure enough, I get a call from the Warner Cable guy that he is at my place on Weds at 2:05pm.  ” Bloody Hell, I thought, I told them I would not be there.  So when I got home, I then spent another 30 min on the IVR to get to an operator to again tell me that I was scheduled for Weds, with no record for Thurs.  I would have to wait till the following Tues for the first available appointment.

This really pissed me off. As I have been without Internet now for 2weeks, I was getting frustrated, so I wanted to see what my other options were.

1) Can not go to another Cable Company as my Apartment Complex is only Warner.

2) What about getting one of the Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile hotspot cards…. This way I will not be locked to my home for my connectivity.

So I started my check.  As I have been having broadband connectivity problems with my phone and AT&T, I decided to go into Verizon first.  This is what they offer.

Verizon

1) MiFi can be purchased for $180 or a 2 year contract for about $40.9 for the little credit card box ( you get up to 5 connections and good 3G speeds. 4 hours of battery life)    The costs is what was interesting $40 for 250MB ($0.10 MB or  $100 G after) or $60 5MB ( $0.5MB or $50GB after), the costs were pretty high for Data, so I decided to do a real check of what my needs are per day approximately.

2) Get an Android device and use untethering.  Well they do offer all you can eat for about $30, but to connect to tether, they charge an additional $20/2GB.  So for $50 I can get about 2GB ( $0.5MB after).

So if you are a daily user of 2GB, then the tethering with the mobile device is not bad, without jumping to the $100′s of month for extra bandwidth.  The 5GB is about 150% the cost of Warner for the monthly installments, but it is still limited.

Apparently.

T-Mobile

1) With an Android device with $30 all you can eat package, apparently you can do Tethering…. So this might just be the right way to go for a home-hotspot, but also a hotspot on the go?

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Daily needs.

Besides my work that includes massive social media, emails and web browsing.  I do stream music and I do watch movies and video’s. So this is my system.  ( I will add a chart of my usage patterns later after I study it a bit more).   But to watch a move it is about 250M. So for 5G, you only get about 20 movies a month for Verizon.  This might just be enough…. email and social is so small with Data I felt I was I would be OK.

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What an opportunity for the Mobile Operators to destroy the Cable companies for home internet.  Just thinking since they do have location-based services to identify the cell towers that are in proximity to your home, why limit the bandwidth when you are at home.  Charge a special unlimited rate of  $60 month, and then have it kicked in to a limited amount on the Go.  This way it is easier to start to understand the loads on the network as users do not move that often.  Can really grow services that become truely wireless.

I will decide now over the course of the next couple of days,  Verizon, TMobile or Warner Cable……