Funny you mention 'rural area' -- my in-laws all live in the wooded section of Troy, IL... total population is like 1,000 people.

Anyway, they have Charter cable over there - and for the last decade they have been asking me about 'Getting Netflix' - but with a maximum download speed of 3mbps I kept telling them "It's just not going to work well for you..."

2 months ago Charter bumped them from 3mbps to 50mbps.

My first thought was "well, looks like another cable company is moving into the area..."

My thoughts too. However, I live in a Charter serviced area and when doing my research when switching from ATT, I noticed they only offer 1 speed. There are no tiers. 1 speed, 1 price

Also, I just looked up a price quote for Troy (near city hall) and noticed they indicate their speeds start at 100Mbps for 39.99. Granted you said they live out farther, but they may be able to get more.

My wife's internet at her studio was recently doubled, but only after we called. They said they needed to see if her modem was "too old". It wasn't and they doubled it on the spot. She has a business account for that one.

100?! That's phenomenal... I'll give them a call tonight and ask them to check with Charter and see what is available (for a decent price/a price they are OK with).

Thanks for the heads up!

I just checked mine too and they doubled it. It was 30 and now it's 60. Not as great. They said it was already upgraded and I didn't need to call, but my speed tests were 30 before I called and 60 after I called....hmm.

what was the uptime on the modem? It might have just needed to be reset to pull in the new config. They can reset the modem remotely and they pretty much always do for support so I wouldn't read too much into your speed doubling.

To put 'Getting Netflix' into perspective for you, my home connection is 2 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up and I have no issue watching Netflix steams with good enough quality to be enjoyable. We choose to get this slow connection due to the cost ($15/mo) and see no reason to pay for higher tiers of speed from Time Warner.

Really surprising - I would have thought that would be a "total no-go" environment. Thanks for the data point!

Netflix and YouTube do a decent job of adjusting to the speed your connection is capable of (even if that changes during playback).

I'm sure I don't have access to your specific provider, but what kind of service is that? I've been looking to go cheap, all I really need is decent latency.

I have Time Warner Cable's "Everyday Low Price" package. Hopefully this link will work to show you their standard plans: http://www.timewarnercable.com/en/plans-packages/internet/in...

I'm not sure what you count as decent latency, but I don't believe there's any difference in latency between different TWC internet plans.

I find the AppleTV (iTunes) experience particularly irritating, in light of how pleasant Netflix adaptive streaming is over the same connection.

TWC also has upgrades planned under their maxx program. My plan was 20/2 and is now 100/10.

Over the last 5 years the cable industry has mostly completed their own analog-to-digital transition and now have a decent amount of spectrum to throw at faster data speeds.

That's a huge jump. Any idea what they were (or are) paying?

I think it was $59-69/mo -- I know it wasn't > 70 and not cheaper than 50 from the conversations I'm trying to recall in my brain.

Charter's lowest tier has been 30 or 60 down (depending on your market) for a long time now. Were you on some old plan or something?

There does appear to be significant momentum in leaping forward in fixed broadband speeds. It helps that there is now an immense, growing amount of political pressure coming down on Comcast, AT&T and Verizon. I don't see that pressure letting up.