Yesterday was an interesting experience of what it looks like when a major online resource that everyone depends on goes down unexpectedly. In this case, not one but two major Internet service providers (Spectrum and AT&T) went down or had major issues throughout most of Texas for almost seven hours. While most of our customers are back online as of this morning, we wanted to give you all some insight into how we mitigate situations like this and what your options are.
Most of our clients have routers installed that support dual Internet connections, though we have historically only recommended the second connection if downtime would cost more than Internet service. A combination of new competition in the market and falling prices makes this worth reviewing.
There are five major kinds of Internet service commonly available in Texas. In order of awesomeness reliable performance they are fiber, coaxial, Starlink satellite, cellular and microwave Internet.
Briefly examining each:
Fiber
Awesome when you can get it. Price varies wildly, as does performance. Anywhere from 50Mbps to 10,000Mbps and anywhere from $120/mo to $4,000/mo. Usually better as your primary service as it is quite reliable. Usually requires a long-term contract.
Coaxial
Your standard home Internet service. It is very reliably mediocre. Not bad speed, not bad cost, not bad reliability, available most places. Its main virtue is that it is cheap and very available. Often less than $100/mo with no contract.
Starlink Satellite
If we were ranking on awesome tech, this would be number one. SpaceX’s satellite offering is nothing like the old WildBlue and HughesNet satellites from 10 or 20 years ago. Performance is remarkably good, typically around 150Mbps up and down, with performance that is closer to fiber than anything else on this list. Sometimes glitches for a few minutes, but an amazing piece of technology. The main downsides are the upfront hardware costs (usually about $500, but it can be $2,500+ for higher-end hardware) and the occasional brief glitches in performance. A major plus is its extreme reliability. As service comes from a global network, local outages are almost unheard of.
Cellular
Seems like a good idea in theory. If in the right location, it can work really well, but usually more expensive than it is worth.
Microwave
Worse than Starlink in every way, avoid.
