We are moving in early Feb. and seriously considering dumping Comcast when we do. The new house has a satellite dish so we'll likely go with Dish TV for cable and are considering City of MPLS for internet service. We each have cell phones and would use those for phone calls.

How happy are those of you with US Internet/City of MPLS wireless?

What other options are there besides and Dish and USI wireless?

What am I missing here?

Gracias!

You moving into an older home with stucco? I don't specifically have experience with Mpls Wireless but stucco sucks up wireless signals like a supermassive black hole.

I'd absolutely give the wireless a shot if i were in your shoes. Good luck!

I haven't used USI but I was looking into it a couple months ago and the reviews I found were all over the board from "Absolutely the best ever!" to "Absolute horseshit!" though I think most of the complaints came from gamers.

As long as you've got a good line-of-sight to the network radio in your neighborhood and you don't have a stucco exterior (metal lath = Faraday cage) you should be OK.

I have a friend who has USI who says it's pretty good. She also says she can't access youtube because USI is too slow for it.

We have had mixed results with USI. We were about 3 blocks from the nearest transmitter. It was generally good for everything including gaming. However, there was a noticeable lag on the system during peak usage. From about 6-9pm we could not download streaming video and sometimes even checking email became impossible.

We now use Centurylink (formerly Qwest) and have had almost no issues.

We have had USI for 3+ years and it has treated us really well, especially in the last 2 years after they worked out some kinks. We have the 6Mbps service and it is fine for streaming Youtube, Netflix, and HBOgo. Our service isn't always at 6Mbps, but it is almost always above 3Mbps. We are 1/2 block from the nearest node btw.

One thing that kept us with USI after an outage in our first year of having it was their customer service. They are VERY good at getting someone to your house to fix the issue free of charge.

Not sure if they do this now, but they used to offer a free one month trial to see if you like it. It's worth a shot to see if the signal for your house will cut the mustard for your needs.

Have you considered dumping the cable/satelite TV all together? We got a Roku box recently, and between Netflix streaming, Amazon streaming, Hulu Plus, etc, there is a lot of TV available to your TV just over the intarwebs.

Of course, if you are a big sports fan, or have particular channels, this may work for you, and I'm not a huge TV watcher to start with... You'd also want to make sure you have fast enough internet.

I had USI wireless for my backup connection and didn't like it. I guess the backup connection needs to be more reliable that the main connection . Anyway. I still have the wireless modem, in case comcast goes down and I need to use USI for 24hours, or 3 days. You can borrow my wireless receiver for a couple of days if you want to check how strong the signal is at your place.

Usually with Stucco houses the USI people will run an antenna from the "modem" to the outside of the house. Wireless N adapters are also pretty good at picking up their signal if you don't want to get their "modem".

I've had it for two years and in the last month or so, it seems that their bandwidth has maxed out during peak hours for me too. I've complained and they've comped me for December. It's usually pretty good, but the customer service is truly what keeps me a paying customer. A human answers the phone and can usually help on the first call.

A solid B, it would be A- if it weren't for the fact that their network is overloaded.

Stucco house == outside antenna.

Look into Clear too. I'm thinking I may get that to augment my internet presence.

talk to the people living around where youre moving to. and/or bring out a comp yourself and see what kind of signal you get. ive had really mixed results depending on my neighborhood and specific location. in general: uptown/central ish area seems to be much better than longfellow.

I signed up for USI wireless for a month and it sucked majorly. The speed also varied greatly with time - peak hours I was lucky to have my e-mail load in under 5 minutes. Considering that this is $20/month, not worth it. I live in NE btw.

I cannot recommend Clear.

I had trouble with their customer service when I had modem problems. I had to either send it back and wait two weeks, or BUY a new modem and wait two weeks to see if it was a warantee issue, and IF they would refund my SECOND $100. IMO, that is unacceptable "service".

Call me what you will; a self absorbed, entitled American but im not going to stick with a company that keeps me waiting for half a month, HOPING they see the obvious - that their device is a POS. I took it apart, because I figured I now own it, and I could maybe fix it faster than they were going to help. Alas, surface mount chips are hard to re-solder. The power connector had snapped off, due to poor enclosure design.

I am pretty sure their call centers and customer service is based in SA, and the operators have zero latitude when dealing with customer satisfaction, so they have no real retention plan. Their policy: "dont like it? Sux to be you".

I went through three levels of management before I got more than the standard company line. By that time I was so frustrated, I just told the guy (who was offering all kinds of things to keep my buisiness, I might add) that I would not be keeping Clear, and how they need to treat customers like they actually want them. The damage was already done.

Maybe im just spoiled, but I have had great experiences with Keen, Patagonia, Chef'n, Mountain Hardware... not to mention REIs no questions asked return policy. In my world, when a company doesnt immediately try to resolve the problem, and keep me, the paying customer, happy (especially with monthly services!), I will write them off. Obviously this is hard when it comes to ISPs, so I guess we take what we can get. Which is a$$ rape by a mega ISP like comcast.

I have heard some good things about Clear, their customer service, and the desktop modems from maybe two people, but I personally had a really bad experience with them. Read the fine print.

I ended up paying a neighbor $15 a month to share his 6Mbps comcast connection, and while it gets slow at times, I prefer it to the Clear debacle.

We've been using USI for 2 years in south Minneapolis. My distance to the node and experience has been the same as reptile - speed almost always above 3mbs, usually closer to 6. Excellent customer service.

We have also experienced the drop-off during peak hours. Sunday nights seem to be the worst. We kept calling and complaining, and I think they did something about it because it seems better lately.

We had signal issues inside our house (wood siding) usually during storms (both summer and winter), and they came out and moved the antenna to a high point on the exterior. Problem solved.

Oh and don't bittorrent stuff you shouldn't, because they don't like that.

In addition to proximity to the antenna, you should consider the type of antenna. A unidirectional antenna and a directional antenna will give different results depending on your angle to the directional antenna.

The flat plate will broadcast best in a line perpindicular to its plane.
The one that looks more like an antenna will broadcast well in a circular place perpendicular to its line.

Here's some diagrams.

So a lot of these base stations will have a unidirectional to try to keep all the close houses covered, and the directional to get the properties at the other end of the block (or on other blocks in the same direction).