Internet Providers Which one do you have?

[Neil]

Which Internet provider do you use?

 

[jp]

I had fibertel. The download speed got steadily slower, to the point where I couldn't do anything. I think there's something in place which slows your download speed depending on how much you download. Not helpful if you have to work with video files.

With arnet now. Not amazing, but not bad at all. No real complaints as yet, touch wood...

 

[Neil]

Here it follows a predictable pattern, d/l speed is slow during daytime (between 8:30 am and 12 midnight..) , after midnight speed's increase..

I can do all my d/loads at night so its ok for me..!

 

[desertrose]

I have Arnet. The service was quite good for a while, lately my connection has been terrible and the helpdesk is of no use at all, but most of the time they just keep you on hold for quite a while and no one ever picks up.

 

[captdave]

I have both, as I installed Arnet DSL several months ago when the cable went out and after several days of unsuccessful attempts to connect to Fibertels customer service I succumbed to an offerta from Arnet for 6 months of cheap service.
Fibertel eventually fixed the problem, and I have continued with both since then while I decide which one to keep. My house is quite large, and wireless signals are hard to pass throught the thick stone walls, so I have been using Arnet on one side of the house and Fibertel at the other. I am just about to switch off the cable connection and keep the DSL, and here's why:

a) Speed of connection:
I forget what speeds the respective companies claim they are providing (Fibertel claims 2 gigs - hah!), and I have been in the Internet business long enough to know that the claimed speed seldom if ever has anything to do with reality. The bottom line is that here in Vicente Lopez, they are functionally identical, with the DSL perhaps a little more consistant.

b) Price:
Arnet is clearly cheaper, especially with the promos they run. Right now Arnet is charging about 50 peso/mo. (after discounts) while Fibertel is charging $125, netting about 80 after discounts for cable service.

c) Customer Service:
This is where Arnet is the clear winner!
I tried for several days to contact Fibertel, and it took literally days to get through busy lines and interminable waiting on hold (several times I gave up after waiting 1/2 hour or more). When I finally got through I then was given the common "we will have someone there between 12 and 5 PM next Thursday" bit. They did show up that day, and did fix the problem, several weeks after it went down! No credit for lost service, of course!

When I called Arnet they answered the first time, were helpful and friendly, and had a modem in my hands the next day! I had some difficulty getting a signal through the antique phone system that has been in this house since the 80's, and I finally called customer support for assistance. Again they answered promptly, were helpful, and although the tech and I figured out what was happening they still sent a tech the next day (!) to make sure I was up and running.

IMHO, at least here in Vicente Lopez, Arnet wins every catagory!

Hope this helps!

David

 

[desertrose]

David I am happy to hear that Arnet were so helpful. In my case they had suggested I pay for my own tech and once we know what the problem is they might eventually send one of theirs...

 

[HDM]

I have a fibertel cable modem, and so far, at least, it consistently runs at 3 gigs. The only problem is the frequency with which the modem needs to be rebooted. Sometimes it needs to be rebooted three or four times a day, and then it might run just fine for weeks, and then go down a few times a day for three or four days in a row, then run fine again for weeks. Also have the concrete wall problem, but our flat is U-shaped, and my office is in the bottom of the U, so I set the router in the window, and the signal passes nicely through the windows on each side of the U, although barely reaches the room next door, which does not have a window on that side.

One of my neighbors has an unlocked dsl router, and a speedcheck on that signal usually runs between 1 and 1.3 gigs. So in this case, the cable more than doubles the download speed.

 

[2GuysInPM]

We have both Fibertel (via Multicanal) and Arnet also in a load-balancing and fail-over configuration. If one goes down our router automatically switches it to the other. Internet is essential for our work, so this setup works best for us.

Both our connections are supposed to be 3gbps downloads, and we get close to that rate often, except Fibertel does slow down significantly more during peak hours and also has more latency issues than the DSL connection. But just as captdave says, we get better speeds with Arnet DSL (most of the time). However, when it comes to reboots, we have to reboot our Arnet DSL modem at times (maybe once every 2 weeks or so), while rarely have to do this with the Fibertel cable modem.

If you're not sure you're getting what you're supposed to; you can test your connection speed online at http://speedtest.net -- Choose a server outside of Argentina (eg., New York, Washington, San Francisco) to test against, as this will give you a more accurate usage result than testing against the local Argentina server (which will always be faster).

Fibertel (BA <-> DC):


Arnet (BA <-> DC):

 

[HDM]

I tried that, using a server in the States, and my average did drop from 3 gigs to 2.3 and 2.6, the two tests I ran the last hour.

 

[Neil]