Proper Internet Access--Does It Exist?

hackel

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I know this question's been asked many times, but I thought I would try again to see if anything's changed. I've been searching for a decent internet provider in Buenos Aires for a while, and have been quite horrified with the results. Wondering if anyone has any advice or knows of any special deals. It seems that the major providers have completely duped Argentinean consumers. They all advertise mediocre-speed services as if they are the greatest thing ever (6 Mb/s? In 2012? Really?) but hide the fact that they have pittifully slow upload speeds less--than 1 Mb/s. It's disturbing. I'm coming from a 40M down / 5M up connection, and I realize I can't expect the exact same level of service here, but want to at least find something with decent (2M at least?) uplink bandwidth--that's really the priority. Of course I don't want to pay a fortune for this either, and I certainly am not going to agree to any long-term contract. Am I just SOL?

I've looked at Fibertel Evolution 30M down / 3 up, and even though it's fucking ridciulous for the upstream bandwidth to be only 10% of the downstream, I could still handle it if it weren't so bloody expensive! (More than double what I used to pay.) Also, I can't find any information about what the early termination fees are for the plans that require a contract. Anyone know? Sorry for all the questions.

Thanks in advance!
 
I know this question's been asked many times, but I thought I would try again to see if anything's changed. I've been searching for a decent internet provider in Buenos Aires for a while, and have been quite horrified with the results. Wondering if anyone has any advice or knows of any special deals. It seems that the major providers have completely duped Argentinean consumers. They all advertise mediocre-speed services as if they are the greatest thing ever (6 Mb/s? In 2012? Really?) but hide the fact that they have pittifully slow upload speeds less--than 1 Mb/s. It's disturbing. I'm coming from a 40M down / 5M up connection, and I realize I can't expect the exact same level of service here, but want to at least find something with decent (2M at least?) uplink bandwidth--that's really the priority. Of course I don't want to pay a fortune for this either, and I certainly am not going to agree to any long-term contract. Am I just SOL?

I've looked at Fibertel Evolution 30M down / 3 up, and even though it's fucking ridciulous for the upstream bandwidth to be only 10% of the downstream, I could still handle it if it weren't so bloody expensive! (More than double what I used to pay.) Also, I can't find any information about what the early termination fees are for the plans that require a contract. Anyone know? Sorry for all the questions.

Thanks in advance!

Well i can tell you that fibertel work very well for me, i have 6 mb but that is more than enough for me, you do have the 30 mb option is not so expensive if you have cable already but if you don’t is expensive, in any case fibertel is very stable at least in my neighborhood and much better than the 50 mb service i was using in Dublin in terms of work stability and speed to load pages, not sure why i was always having problems with my service providers back in Ireland, the download speed was very good but that was all, i was having problems with online gaming, skipe and lot of other problems like very slow speed at times and disconnections that the providers never solve. What you need for the 30 mb can i ask? with 6 mb you can watch full hd movies without load time, not sure the use you are going to give your connection but maybe if you need upload you should buy a business connection.
 
I have Fibertel too and have found no fault with it. I do large files at times and lots of downloads and don't see any problem. I agree with lamarque. My experience is similar. When I came three years ago, some people told me that they all go down a lot and that a lot of business people have both providers for that reason. I decided to just try the one and see how it worked. In two years there has been perhaps one time it was down but it was very brief. Perhaps a couple of hours. I do know I could buy a higher meg service but this works fine.
 
Argentina really is the 3rd world in internet terms. I know there are worse out there but the world has moved on ridiculously fast, in terms of internet speeds, in the last 5 years whilst Argentina hasn't improved much at all.

You would think a reasonably highly educated country trying to encourage local industry would invest in local technology and infrastructure but unfortunately this government seem to want to tax all technology and prevent Argentina from really capitalising on its potential.

To the people saying "i've got 6megs and its fine... why do you want more?" are you still using old ibm's with 640kb of ram? Why would you need more? :blink:

Technology moves on.
 
Fibertel Evolution is really good (for Argentina). I had 6 Mbps Fibertel before and would have problems with my Vonage line when I was downloading a torrent, YouTube videos would buffer, uploads would take a long time, etc.

Ever since upgrading to Fibertel Evolution those problems are gone. I can download torrents, speak on the phone, watch videos and my Slingbox from the States plays in HD too.

Our monthly cable bill for November was $532,90 which breaks down as:
Basic cable : $188
HD: $65
Multiproduct discount: -$20
Evolution 30 Megas: $450
Bonification por permanencia SBA: -$150.10
 
Consider yourself lucky! I have zero options and 1mb would be a VAST improvement. And I'm only 45 minutes from downtown Buenos Aires. Watching anything online - not possible. Uploading a 10 minute video clip - average 12 hours. It's a wasteland.
 
Fibertel Evolution is really good (for Argentina). I had 6 Mbps Fibertel before and would have problems with my Vonage line when I was downloading a torrent, YouTube videos would buffer, uploads would take a long time, etc.

Ever since upgrading to Fibertel Evolution those problems are gone. I can download torrents, speak on the phone, watch videos and my Slingbox from the States plays in HD too.

Our monthly cable bill for November was $532,90 which breaks down as:
Basic cable : $188
HD: $65
Multiproduct discount: -$20
Evolution 30 Megas: $450
Bonification por permanencia SBA: -$150.10

but you are paying almost 100 dollars a month for that broadband connection.

A Hong Kong service provider offers 500Mbps service for $37.34 per month. Providers in Tokyo, Riga, Seoul, Paris, Bucharest, and Berlin all offer services with 100Mbps download speeds service for less than $40 per month...

In Hong Kong, you can get a gigabit connection for $48.59 per month. Amsterdam offers a half gigabit for $83.33 per month. Tokyo residents can get a symmetrical 200Mbps connection for $26.85 per month.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/tokyo-seoul-and-paris-get-faster-cheaper-broadband-than-us-cities/
 
Raw bandwidth is not the only -- and perhaps not the most important -- consideration. Latency and packet loss, as they relate to the overall quality of the provider's routing core, upstream peering and oversubscription, is at least as important for a quality Internet experience.

I'd pay a 200-300% premium for a connection that offered slower last-mile line speed ("Mbps")--as low as 3-5 Mbps downstream and ~1 Mbps upstream would be fine--but a well-run internal network with well-managed peering, and QoS internally. At the same time, I would refuse a "fast" connection (~50+ Mbps down and ~20 Mbps+ up) that was oversubscribed to all hell, particularly cable segments run at very low contention ratios, for any price.
 
Raw bandwidth is not the only -- and perhaps not the most important -- consideration. Latency and packet loss, as they relate to the overall quality of the provider's routing core, upstream peering and oversubscription, is at least as important for a quality Internet experience.

That's a good point, and in fact is what often causes my connection to slow way down at certain times. There is a lot of packet loss and it comes in periodic intervals of 20-30 minutes.
 
Which is why South America needs to invest heavily in a local communication loop. Its apparently planned.
 
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