Internet choices for the greater Omaha area

[thenewguy]

cox is a rip. Consistent, sure, but waaaay more money for slower speeds. A friend of mine has century link (or whatever) and pays 70 a month for twice the speed. I pay 130, so i can't wait to get google fiber

You pay $130/month for internet? Ours is $60 and we get 500 mbps, so basically 1/2 gig.

You may have to call them and get a lower rate....that is the one thing I hate. Each year I always have to call and talk to their retention team to get our rate lower.

i did it about a year and a half ago and they gave me some money off for a few months. I haven't called back yet because i just want to be done with them and can't remember if that would extend my contract or not

[OPlaya]

Got a notice that Ubiquity is going to lay fiber in the ground on our street soon. Interesting part, all our power and communications are above ground on a pile in the back yard and this company is going to bury fiber along the street in the front yards.

Ubiquity
https://ubiquitygp.com/

Yeah that's what they did in my area. Right now I'm waiting for the final stage of this install. Had a guy run a line from the vault to the side of my house this past Wednesday. Hopefully soon before I'm compelled to pay Cox again for another month.

[Big E]

FWIW, if you have a choice between Allo and Great Plains, avoid Great Plains like the |expletive| plague. Absoulte trash customer service.

[nebugeater]

FWIW, if you have a choice between Allo and Great Plains, avoid Great Plains like the |expletive| plague. Absoulte trash customer service.

Both have wired (fibered) my neighborhood in Gretna. I am still with COX but was waiting to evaluate after both new options went live. Allo is live, and GP is not yet. Care to expand a bit on the concerns with GP?

[americomnetworks]

Hello Omaha!!!!

We are Americom Networks and have noticed a few posts about us on the forums here.

We are a group of folks from Omaha who used to work for major Internet Service Provider companies in the Metro area. We've recently started up in Downtown Omaha and are currently servicing the Nustyle Development locations of Highline and Atlas apartments.

At the moment, we are constructing services for The Wire and The Bank apartments, aiming to have them up and running within 60 days or less. Additionally, we will be bringing our service to other Nustyle properties in the near future. We're also collaborating with other development companies in the Downtown area to bring our affordable fiber optic service to everyone.

Please check out our website for more information. While we are excited about our progress, it’s been quite challenging as many development companies are difficult to work with when it comes to gaining access to their buildings.

Thank you for your support!

Americom Networks

[Brad]

As I mentioned before we switched from Cox to T-Mobile 5G to CenturyLink…

Cox was expensive and not that fast(no fiber in our hood).

T-Mobile ran the TV’s fine but slow on the computers and upload speeds were terrible.

So now we are on to CenturyLink. After a couple months I’m here to report they have a lot of outages. Seem to be almost daily. The lines in our hood are brand new so who knows what the deal is. The price to speed ratio is fine if they could get these outages to go away.

[nebugeater]

As I mentioned before we switched from Cox to T-Mobile 5G to CenturyLink…

Cox was expensive and not that fast(no fiber in our hood).

T-Mobile ran the TV’s fine but slow on the computers and upload speeds were terrible.

So now we are on to CenturyLink. After a couple months I’m here to report they have a lot of outages. Seem to be almost daily. The lines in our hood are brand new so who knows what the deal is. The price to speed ratio is fine if they could get these outages to go away.

I think outages with CL are common no matter where you are at. I don't have it here, but I did when we lived in Oakland for a few years. Outages were common, and my research indicated that it didn't matter where you were a customer. That was the case a few years ago, at least.

We use COX in Gretna. Allo is now available in our area. I have not looked too hard at switching yet, but I plan to. Great Plains Communication has also wired our neighborhood, and as I understand, they are live. They have done NO marketing that I have seen, though

[almighty_tuna]

I've seen that Centurylink fiber is way more reliable than their other products. Over the past few years of having CL fiber there have maybe been one or two brief non-construction related outage.

[Renovator2559]

Century link Fiber is not prone to downtime.
I have had the service for quite some time and my network equipment monitors downtime with ISP. I've had zero downtime. For my servers and network equipment.

[WorldStreet]

I'm digging up this thread to see if anyone here has made the switch to Google Fiber. After years of disruptions and price increases with Cox, they have been much more stable during this past year and they stop raising my bill two years ago (the most recent time that I called and threatened to leave). However, I still pay about $100 per month.

Google Fiber is available in our neighborhood now and we're thinking of making the switch. I'd love to hear from others who made the switch to Google.

[ChadJK]

Great Plains Communication has also wired our neighborhood, and as I understand, they are live. They have done NO marketing that I have seen, though

Great Plains sent out a mailer for a limited time 1GB fiber for $49/month locked price for 2 years. I think it's normally $99/month.

[Big E]

Great Plains sent out a mailer for a limited time 1GB fiber for $49/month locked price for 2 years. I think it's normally $99/month.

Going to continue to reiterate avoiding Great Plains (and Cox too, for that matter - no experience with Google) and go with Allo if you have the option.

Admittedly GP may have gotten their |expletive| together in the last year, but I had nothing but problems with their customer service previosuly - both business and residential. Outages happen. I can live with that. I do not suffer dismissive and unresponsive customer service.

[GenX]

With all this expansion going on, I just wanted to remind everyone that if a company is offering to lay fiber to your house for free as part of their rollout, take them up on the offer, even if you don’t end up getting service from them. I’m sure many of you have seen how expensive it is for a company to come lay that same line after all the work has bern completed.

[nebugeater]

Great Plains Communication has also wired our neighborhood, and as I understand, they are live. They have done NO marketing that I have seen, though

Great Plains sent out a mailer for a limited time 1GB fiber for $49/month locked price for 2 years. I think it's normally $99/month.

I got that mailer too now. Came in Saturday's mail. Leaving in the trash

[OmahaRedWing]

Was getting my haircut a couple weeks ago on a Saturday at my long-time salon Hair Etc. Their service from Centurylink had been down a couple days. They had a hard time getting answers and were finally told it wouldn't be fixed before the following Wednesday. Have no idea why anyone would put up with CenturyLink.

My office had them briefly and it was a disaster. We went back to Cox.

[skinzfan23]

I have heard so many of these stories from family that had Centurylink. They offer great deals at first, but customer service is poor and the rates go way up after the promotional offer ends. Granted, Cox is kind of the same, but I call them each year and talk to the retention dept and they get my rate to stay the same or very slightly increase.

[WorldStreet]

I have heard so many of these stories from family that had Centurylink. They offer great deals at first, but customer service is poor and the rates go way up after the promotional offer ends. Granted, Cox is kind of the same, but I call them each year and talk to the retention dept and they get my rate to stay the same or very slightly increase.

When Google Fiber is an option in a neighborhood, I think it is a very good option as I've had no problems with Google Fiber since installing five months ago. I was reluctant to make the change from COX, but the upload and download speeds are faster and the basic service included a small Wi-fi expander for the other side of the house. My total bill is $71 each month.

[skinzfan23]

Is that just for internet? Is it gig service? Mine is only $50 through cox for 500 mbps. Of course the cable part is high though (around $150 but it gives us all the channels, HBO and Max.

[WorldStreet]

Is that just for internet? Is it gig service? Mine is only $50 through cox for 500 mbps. Of course the cable part is high though (around $150 but it gives us all the channels, HBO and Max.

Google Fiber is only for internet. My latest speed check was about 850 MB for downloads. For tv, we previously used Youtube TV during the Fall sports season. It is easy to record shows/sports and then fast forward through the commercials. The cost is around $80 plus probably $20-30 to add on HBO and Max. We also have a box from Taiwan that allows us to watch every channel from about 20 different countries, including the US. These boxes are actually available on Amazon.

[WorldStreet]

By the way, a pretty good site to quickly test your actual internet speed is: www.speedtest.net

[skinzfan23]

By the way, a pretty good site to quickly test your actual internet speed is: www.speedtest.net

Yes, that is what I use to test it, just be thankful we live in a bigger metro. My mother-in-law is in Cedar Rapids, IA and all they have is mediacom and some other brand called I'm On. When I was there last, her speed was 35 MB.

[Greg S]

I have heard so many of these stories from family that had Centurylink. They offer great deals at first, but customer service is poor and the rates go way up after the promotional offer ends. Granted, Cox is kind of the same, but I call them each year and talk to the retention dept and they get my rate to stay the same or very slightly increase.

I do the same with Cox. This time they had me get a new equipment for free and it's been faster than ever.

Last year after one of the big storms, Cox was the first internet provider in our area restore service. Since I work from home a ton, it was a big deal. When Metrolink was in our neighborhood adding their lines, they cut box Cox and CenturyLink's lines. Cox had service restored in hours, CenturyLink, took a week.

[Garrett]

By the way, a pretty good site to quickly test your actual internet speed is: www.speedtest.net

Yes, that is what I use to test it, just be thankful we live in a bigger metro. My mother-in-law is in Cedar Rapids, IA and all they have is mediacom and some other brand called I'm On. When I was there last, her speed was 35 MB.

It's crazy to think that just a few years ago 25 MB was fairly standard good service

[Stan]

I switched to CL a few years ago after I couldn't take Cox and their raising prices along with starting to charge extra for data overages after not charging for the longest time. We've had a few decently annoying outages over the years and customer service is dog |expletive|, but the service tech we got to our house was very good at his job. Lately, service has been more spotty than it used to be and we need wifi because our neighborhood and house is in a cellular dead zone. Once Google Fiber comes out west to our neighborhood, I'll likely give them a try too.

[BRoss]

I have CL fiber and haven't had many problems. Did have a couple blips over this past weekend though.

Just setup monitoring through Prometheus, so curious to see how stable it really is.

[nativeomahan]

I have had Cox for eons. I get at least 500 MB indoors and over 100 MB on our back patio and back yard, where I spend much of my time during the warmer months. The price, with cable, is high, but service is highly dependable and customer service is excellent 95% of the time. Our neighborhood recently got fliers promoting that Google Fiber would be available soon. Not sure how they define “soon”. My sister has Verizon for Internet in NW Omaha and absolutely loves it.

[Greg S]

Allo has had layoffs this month in Nebraska:


https://www.1011now.com/2025/07/03/allo ... utType=amp

[nativeomahan]

I met twice with a rep for Quantum Fiber, and have signed up for their 500 Mb service to be installed when I return to Omaha in late August. Cox could not tell me when our neighborhood would get turned on for fiber, and could not match Quantum’s pricing. Right now I will have the Quantum people set us up (they use OPPD’s power poles), and I will run both Cox and Quantum parallel for a week or so to see if there is a difference in speed or coverage at our home. If I don’t like Quantum I can cancel in the first 14 days with no charge.

[nebugeater]

If you haven't found your new Internet provider and are still using AOL dial-up, you need to hurry.

AOL is ending dial-up service on Sept 30 after about 40 years!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/202 ... 601554007/

AOL is set to shut down the dial-up internet service that once was the symbol of internet connectivity after over 40 years.

A company webpage titled "Dial-up Internet to be discontinued" states that the service will stopped on Sept. 30.

The company says on the page that the shutdown follows a routine evaluation of its products and services.

The hum and whir of a dial up modem was how many people first connected to the internet.

At its height, a dial-up connection could manage up to 56 kilobits per second under ideal conditions, according to Apple Insider. Modern connections are measured up to gigabits per second.

EDIT
Now I know this is for real.... Just heard it on KFAB too!!!!

[HskrFanMike]

Was getting my haircut a couple weeks ago on a Saturday at my long-time salon Hair Etc. Their service from Centurylink had been down a couple days. They had a hard time getting answers and were finally told it wouldn't be fixed before the following Wednesday. Have no idea why anyone would put up with CenturyLink.

My office had them briefly and it was a disaster. We went back to Cox.

If I had issues with CenturyLink, I would look at alternatives...but probably not Cox. I'm in a cellular deadzone; one bar on my phone. Center of the neighborhood, too far from the antennas. But I've been on CenturyLink internet for over 20 years. It was really rough about 12 years ago before the Prism upgrade, but it's been super-reliable the last 10 years or so. I can think of two outages. I have a "price for life" from CenturyLink, and it's consistently lower than Cox's promo deals with usage caps.

CenturyLink's customer service is horrific, but my brief dealings with Cox have been almost as bad.

[remline]

If you haven't found your new Internet provider and are still using AOL dial-up, you need to hurry.

AOL is ending dial-up service on Sept 30 after about 40 years!

Yikes! What do we do with our AOL CDs now?

[BRoss]

If you haven't found your new Internet provider and are still using AOL dial-up, you need to hurry.

AOL is ending dial-up service on Sept 30 after about 40 years!

I can't believe it was still around!

[Big E]

AOL is ending dial-up service on Sept 30 after about 40 years!

Try 30 years.

So many memories. So many slow, boring memories.

[Big E]

Here's an old article about the early AOL CD marketing:

https://www.internethistorypodcast.com/ ... an-brandt/

And if you've never heard of Eternal Septmeber, we're still living it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

You can read between the lines and wallow in the schadenfreude of AOL and Blockbuster being directly responsbile for the mass uptake of the internet which eventually killed both of them.

Hopefully the same thing happens to Facebook et al soon.

[nebugeater]

AOL is ending dial-up service on Sept 30 after about 40 years!

Try 30 years.

So many memories. So many slow, boring memories.

The article says 40

The Internet says AOL started in 1985, and to access it, you had to dial in. 1985 is 40 years ago... That hurts to type.

[Big E]

I stand corrected. I thought they weren't a thing until early 90s.

[Stargazer]

In other news, Metronet slowly moving up N 156th towards my town of Bennington. Seeing them digging all over town. Anyone with experience with them?

[Big E]

I stand corrected. I thought they weren't a thing until early 90s.

Minor mental victory... they weren't actully *called* America Online until 1991, so I'm gonna give myself the W here.

[ChadJK]

AOL is ending dial-up service on Sept 30 after about 40 years!

Try 30 years.

So many memories. So many slow, boring memories.

The article says 40

The Internet says AOL started in 1985, and to access it, you had to dial in. 1985 is 40 years ago... That hurts to type.

I think I dialed into AOL for the first time in probably 1992. I installed it from a 3.5" floppy. Their big competitor at the time was Compuserve.

a/s/l

[nebugeater]

AOL is ending dial-up service on Sept 30 after about 40 years!

Try 30 years.

So many memories. So many slow, boring memories.

The article says 40

The Internet says AOL started in 1985, and to access it, you had to dial in. 1985 is 40 years ago... That hurts to type.

I think I dialed into AOL for the first time in probably 1992. I installed it from a 3.5" floppy. Their big competitor at the time was Compuserve.

a/s/l

I remember what I think was called Prodigy as a competitor too.