Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

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mattaudio
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby mattaudio » July 1st, 2016, 11:19 am

I'd do centurylink for a year, and you'll probably have fiber by the time the promo is up.

Silophant
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby Silophant » July 1st, 2016, 1:09 pm

Does anyone have any experience with CenturyLink fiber? I'm currently on CenturyLink DSL, after Comcast screwed up my billing three months in a row a while ago, and entering my new apartment's address on their site just leads to a popup saying "Fiber may be available in your area! Call a representative to chat about it!" Which, as a millennial, I am loathe to do. I'm sure a gigabit connection will be expensive, but I'd be pretty thrilled to have a reasonably priced, stable 40Megish connection.
Joey Senkyr
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John21
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby John21 » July 1st, 2016, 1:33 pm

Or just get CenturyLink, they're $30 for the first year (and I'm sure if you threaten to cancel every year you could keep the $30 price).
That's what I did. USI should be in Standish Ericcson next year. Century Link ran fiber in my alley about a month ago. No one's tried to upsell me yet.

Anondson
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby Anondson » July 1st, 2016, 2:29 pm

I'm using CenturyLink fiber. I almost went with full gigabit, but I couldn't talk my wife into going that much. I'm kinda glad she talked me back off that. The savings wasn't huge, but over the months and years would add up.

We're perfectly pleased with 40.

tcarter612
City Center
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby tcarter612 » July 1st, 2016, 5:51 pm

USI will cover the entire area with fiber by the end of next summer and if all goes well we will have our upgraded wireless platform TDM deployed by the end of this year.

http://fiber.usinternet.com and http://tdm.usinternet.com for locations.

Thanks a ton for the support.

-Travis / USI

karlshea
Nicollet Mall
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby karlshea » July 2nd, 2016, 12:40 am

Or just get CenturyLink, they're $30 for the first year (and I'm sure if you threaten to cancel every year you could keep the $30 price).
I'd rather deal with a local company where I don't have to have a "bundle" and don't need to play shenanigans with their pricing. USI is still competitive and they are also talking about starting an IPTV service down the road.

karlshea
Nicollet Mall
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby karlshea » July 2nd, 2016, 12:42 am

USI will cover the entire area with fiber by the end of next summer and if all goes well we will have our upgraded wireless platform TDM deployed by the end of this year.

http://fiber.usinternet.com and http://tdm.usinternet.com for locations.

Thanks a ton for the support.

-Travis / USI
Hey Travis— Just curious, what happened in Stevens Square? It looks like just the mainline is left to run and then it got pushed back a month. Did you run into an issue?

tcarter612
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby tcarter612 » July 2nd, 2016, 7:36 am

Yeah Stevens Square construction ended up being more difficult and time consuming then I was expecting, 3rd ended up taking a ton of time to get done.

Good news, most of the challenging areas are done and I confident we will hit the new timeline. Sorry for the delay and thanks for the support :)

karlshea
Nicollet Mall
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby karlshea » July 4th, 2016, 11:47 pm

I saw the crews out and it did seem like that took forever. No boulevards :-/

transplant
Metrodome
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby transplant » July 5th, 2016, 12:01 pm

Hello Travis,

Can you tell me if there are plans to come north of 44th street next year in Linden Hills? I just moved in to a house at 40th and Abbott Ave S and am already fed up with Comcast. I am doing a major addition and would love to provide a conduit for you guys if you plan to come up there. If so, what size conduit should I put in?

tcarter612
City Center
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby tcarter612 » July 5th, 2016, 5:56 pm

I am hopeful for next year, worse case 2018.

If you put a 1" minimum conduit in that would work perfectly.

Thanks

David Greene
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby David Greene » July 6th, 2016, 9:15 pm

So my wife wants me to record the Women's Gymnastics trials this weekend and later, the Olympics.

In the past I've used various incarnations of MythTV but I'm just fed up with trying to keep that working. It seems like it doesn't support newer tuners well at all. I had an HDHomeRun working for about 10 minutes before the whole system went kaput. I can get it to reconnect after several reboots of both machines but it's just not worth the pain.

What do cord-cutters here use for DVR purposes? It's really hard to beat the low, low cost of SchedulesDirect for MythTV so spending $15/mo for TiVo is outrageous. I really don't want to have to set up a Windows box because we don't need it for anything else.

John21
Rice Park
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby John21 » July 7th, 2016, 9:15 am

So my wife wants me to record the Women's Gymnastics trials this weekend and later, the Olympics.

In the past I've used various incarnations of MythTV but I'm just fed up with trying to keep that working. It seems like it doesn't support newer tuners well at all. I had an HDHomeRun working for about 10 minutes before the whole system went kaput. I can get it to reconnect after several reboots of both machines but it's just not worth the pain.

What do cord-cutters here use for DVR purposes? It's really hard to beat the low, low cost of SchedulesDirect for MythTV so spending $15/mo for TiVo is outrageous. I really don't want to have to set up a Windows box because we don't need it for anything else.
I've never used it but the guy that writes the electronics column on Saturdays in the Strib usually suggests this one- https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-Homew ... ywords=dvr

karlshea
Nicollet Mall
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby karlshea » July 7th, 2016, 11:25 am

I use MythTV on a home-built Linux box for the backend and Kodi on a couple of Chromeboxes for frontends, but I'm using an internal PCIe 6-tuner Ceton. Unfortunately it looks like that company has basically shut down since Microsoft stopped supporting Windows Media Center, so you can't buy them anymore. That also means that setting up a Windows box isn't going to be a great solution either.

I hear a lot of really good things about the HDHomeRun, I wonder why you're having so many problems? Could it be network issues or problems with your CableCard? Does the HDHomeRun have a static IP? Have you also tried out Tvheadend instead of Myth? That might help clear up which side is having the problem.
Last edited by karlshea on July 7th, 2016, 11:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

karlshea
Nicollet Mall
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby karlshea » July 7th, 2016, 11:26 am

I've never used it but the guy that writes the electronics column on Saturdays in the Strib usually suggests this one- https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-Homew ... ywords=dvr
That's just for over-the-air.

David Greene
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby David Greene » July 7th, 2016, 12:28 pm

All I need is OTA but the Amazon reviews make me hesitant.

I looked at Tvheadend but there was some issue with needing a kernel patch for using it with HDHomeRun that no longer applies to more recent kernel sources. It was like a year ago that I looked at it so maybe things have changed. I was trying to set up Tvheadend+Kodi at the time.

I might try to get Myth going again for the short term as I don't have a lot of time to waste before tomorrow! Maybe upgrading the HDHomeRun firmware will help. The issue is that I can't even discover the HDHomeRun from the console using the tools SiliconDust supplies, so I don't think it's a Myth problem per se.

karlshea
Nicollet Mall
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby karlshea » July 7th, 2016, 5:02 pm

I'm wondering if a combination of a firmware update and a static IP on that HDHomeRun will help. If it's trying to do autodiscovery and the IP keeps changing that could explain some of the problems you're having. (also try checking/disabling the firewall on that machine, is it blocking service discovery broadcasts from the HDHomeRun?)

Sorry I don't have any more experience with that tuner, all I can help from is the Myth end.

Edit: You definitely need to make sure tcp/udp port 65001 is open on the client: https://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46008

And also check the netmask on your client box, if it's wrong you might be missing global broadcasts.

David Greene
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby David Greene » July 7th, 2016, 8:25 pm

Thanks for the link! What's weird is that after several reboots I can discover it but somewhere between 10 minutes and several hours later, it's gone. So I'm not hopeful that it's simply a firewall issue. Worth looking into, though.

karlshea
Nicollet Mall
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby karlshea » July 8th, 2016, 11:18 am

I wonder if the HDHomeRun is bad? Can you still ping it by IP after it's no longer discoverable?

Maybe fire up Wireshark and take a look to see what's happening differently between discoverable and not. As much fun as that sounds.

David Greene
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Re: Fiber Internet and TV Services, Cord Cutting

Postby David Greene » July 8th, 2016, 1:39 pm

Good suggestions.

This is why I didn't go into IT. :)


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