Chattanooga now has one of the fastest fiber connections in the United States.

As a person that’s from Chattanooga, I can tell you that this fiber Internet service offered by EPB is sorely needed. Vendors like Charter, AT&T and Comcast have had a strangle hold on that town forever.

Comcast has been increasing their rates and never providing anything new, and AT&T has their DSL service, but their coverage is very limited.

Basically, what it boils down to, if you want high-speed Internet service, you had to go with Comcast. And if you did go that way Comcast always pushes you to the bundle package.

EPB having the ability to run Internet service anywhere there’s a power line; that’s awesome.

Comcast, sure their seriously irritated. Sure they tried to sue EPB for moving forward with their fiber service because they knew it was going to make Comcast look like a bunch of schmucks; and they did.

In just a few years, EPB planned and installed an Internet service that’s unrivaled in the United States. Comcast has been in that town/area for decades and all they do is rip customers off. I think it’s about time Comcast had some competition.

And Comcast’s service is basically $43.00, but once you tack on the extra fees, it’s right at $50.

I can speak from experience, Comcast doesn’t have the best service; not by TV and NOT by Internet service.

As everyone knows their Internet connections aren’t fiber connections, they’re coaxed connections and those connections aren’t dedicated, they’re shared. If someone in the area around you is hogging bandwidth; you’re going to suffer. And the way Comcast handles bandwidth hogs; if you’re taking too much bandwidth for any amount of time, they’ll start shoving lost packets in to your stream and slow you down.

The thing that gets me about Internet Service Providers is the advertisements. They keep advertising the high transfer rates for Internet service, but the fact is, you’ll never, ever, really see it. Data can only be received as fast as it can be sent.

I’m a person that’s been on the web since 1994 [slightly before] and I’ve never seen a transfer rate over 2mb [that’s 2,000k per second] because you can only get the data as fast as they can send it. advertising anything beyond what you can get, tied with their shared connection- it’s all false advertisements.

So while EPB is putting the screws to Comcast and AT&T; they’re also putting the screws to the consumer in the fees arena. The lowest level bandwidth is 15mb, but it’s $60 a month.

This fiber service is only going to really be for those who are really wanting or needing serious bandwidth; like rabid bandwidth users or businesses that have a real need for high transfer rates- like web media providers/groups.

I can tell you from experience that Verizon’s FIOS service is awesome. The transfer rates are the fastest I’ve ever seen and the level of digital picture in comparison to Chattanooga’s Comcast; it’s night and day. I never knew the difference until I changed from Comcast to FIOS. Comcast is doing a lot of HD picture compression. You don’t know any better if you live in Chattanooga…

But all in all, I really like the fact Chattanooga is getting this, and the recognition for this service for that area.

I suspect Google will be watching how this rolls out and see what they can do to improve theirs.

Until next time,
LEHenryJr
LEHSYS.com

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