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What happened to Charter Communications?

Dave Farquhar ISPs March 31, 2021February 28, 2021

The name Charter Communications has largely disappeared, after years of being one of the largest cable companies in the country. So what happened to Charter Communications? When did Spectrum buy Charter? The answer probably isn’t what you think.

Charter Communications still exists as a legal entity. It just transitioned to using the Spectrum brand name starting in 2014.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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Is AT&T Fiber good? Is AT&T Fiber worth it?

Dave Farquhar ISPs March 2, 2021June 10, 2021

Is AT&T Fiber good? Is AT&T Fiber worth it? As an IT professional who works from home full time and relies on my Internet connection to make a living, I have strong opinions about that. I think it also puts me in a good position to answer those questions.

While AT&T Fiber isn’t perfect, it does have a lot going for it. Depending on what your other choices are, it may be the best option in your area. Here’s how to know.

Dave Farquhar

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Is gigabit Internet worth it?

Dave Farquhar ISPs April 1, 2020February 10, 2025

Is gigabit Internet worth it? I want gigabit Internet. I wanted it for a really long time before I was able to get it. And not everyone can. Here’s why I want gigabit Internet and how I can justify it. If you can get it, it’s worth considering. Here’s why it might make sense for you.

If you’re working from home and have a modern enough home network, gigabit Internet can make a lot of sense. But a lot of home networks aren’t up for it, so you may be wasting money.
Read more

Dave Farquhar

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AT&T U-verse bridge mode

Dave Farquhar ISPs December 20, 2018December 15, 2018

AT&T home gateway devices don’t have a true bridge mode that you can use if you want to use your own router with their service. But there is an acceptable substitute. So here’s the closest thing you’ll find to AT&T U-verse bridge mode and how to enable it. This also works with AT&T Fiber and everything else AT&T calls AT&T Internet.

Dave Farquhar

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Upload faster than download? Try this

Dave Farquhar ISPs November 14, 2018November 14, 2018

Is your upload faster than your download with your Internet connection? This is a fairly obscure problem that seems to have started happening again. Here’s how to test to see if you’re actually having a problem, and how to fix it.

If your upload speed is slightly faster than your download speed, it’s not worth worrying about. On a symmetric Internet connection where the two are supposed to be the same, I expect to see them within about 10 percent of one another, and if download slightly outpaces upload, it’s not hurting anything. But if upload is faster when it’s supposed to be slower, something weird is going on.

Dave Farquhar

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AT&T Gigabit not fast? How to troubleshoot

Dave Farquhar ISPs October 25, 2018February 10, 2019

Last week I traded some tips with a neighbor who signed up for AT&T Gigabit on my recommendation. His speeds just weren’t as fast as mine. Is your AT&T Gigabit not fast? Here’s some advice that may help.

I’m able to consistently get speeds in both directions above 900 megabits on my AT&T gigabit connection, at least on my best hardware. Some of my older hardware lags behind that a bit, but still does much better than 500 megabits. So I’ll share my secrets.

Dave Farquhar

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DNS over TLS: Protect your network with Ubuntu

Dave Farquhar ISPs September 4, 2018October 11, 2019

Right now the only consumer OS that supports DNS over TLS is Android Pie 0r newer. But that doesn’t mean you can’t run DNS over TLS yourself to protect your DNS privacy. Here’s how to implement a local DNS server that uses TLS to talk to upstream DNS servers to keep your ISP and other hostile third parties from seeing your DNS lookups. As a bonus, it caches your requests to speed up your Internet connection, and you can filter out malware domains with it.

There’s a lot to like with this setup.

Dave Farquhar

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What is fiber wifi?

Dave Farquhar ISPs August 9, 2018March 3, 2021

I was in St. Louis near the Washington University campus when a billboard caught my eye. It was advertising apartments, and the key feature it touted was “fiber wifi.” What is fiber wifi? Isn’t that kind of like saying “metal wood?”

Dave Farquhar

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How to log into an AT&T router

Dave Farquhar ISPs August 7, 2018November 24, 2018

The residential gateway that AT&T provides with its U-Verse, Fiber, and AT&T Internet packages doesn’t have a logon button or logon screen like most other routers you’re used to. That can be confusing. So here’s how to log into an AT&T router.

Dave Farquhar

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AT&T Internet vs Spectrum Internet

Dave Farquhar ISPs, Saving money July 30, 2018April 15, 2023

I’ve had high speed Internet for about as long as anyone in my ZIP code–as soon as DSL was available, I signed up and paid through the nose for it. It took a while for fiber optics to become an option, but I switched once I did. I’ve been a Southwestern Bell/AT&T customer for a good 20 years. Over the years I weighed AT&T Internet vs Spectrum Internet. And for a while, I switched.

I switched to Spectrum in 2016, then back to AT&T in 2018. There are pros and cons to each of them, so I thought going through them might be helpful. Keep in mind Spectrum encompasses several legacy companies. Charter Communications started re-branding itself as Spectrum soon before it acquired Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Of the three, only Bright House Networks had a good reputation, but Bright House had low name recognition. Hence the use of the new name.

Dave Farquhar

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