1 Comment
· 6 years ago
Both Claro and Movistar are OK for Netflix, but beware
My experience with both of these ISPs: -Movistar: Must be doing some "creative bandwidth management". I have 45Mbps (with presumably a guarantee of 40% of that) for some time, but it is not reliable. Often times I can't even get 1Mbps when watching videos, even though if I switch to my browser and run a speedtest... it usually shows around 45Mbs... yeah, right!!! My guess is that speedtest goes to the nearest server, while real access to Netflix and other video sources route through some pretty sluggish pipes. Also, if you have technical issues in the area of your home... it could take forever to get them resolved. I once had a situation where I tracked the problem to a specific IP of a piece of equipment near my home, reported the information to Movistar and nothing. It took over 100 phone calls, 6 months, and getting refunded 3 months when I presented them with clear evidence of the problem before they finally fixed the issue.
Also a word of warning, what they sell as "Fiber" isn't. It is fiber to a hub a few blocks from your home, and coax/cable from there. - Claro: They can give better service "when it works", but their policies and customer service is so horrid that it is not worth it to deal with them. I recently signed up to their 20Mbs service in order to have a fallback when Movistar failed. They don't tell you when you are buying, but they block you from accessing their router to configure the internal network and they won't let you use your own router while using their device just as a coax modem (they say that service is only for "business customers"). So, if you use a LAN-based printer or need to communicate between the devices in your home you either can't or have to deal with an extraordinary hassle due to their restrictions and interference that prevents you from normal use of your internal LAN. This might be OK if you are completely technologically illiterate, but it is a major problem if you are used to take care of your internal network.
To add insult to injury, Claro's telephone customer service is appalling, and you are going to need to go to their "customer service centers" in person for just about every problem, which will usually eat up 1-3 hours of your time (counting traffic and horrendously long lines at their centers). They have no fiber, only coax/cable. - There are other ISPs in Lima (smaller outfits), but I have no experience with them. - One other issue with coax-based ISPs in Lima is that they normally bring only one cable to an apartment building, then use splitters to divide the signal among the various apartments which degrades the signal. They do not normally use any kind of powered booster for the signal inside of a building. - As far as I can tell there is not a single ISP at the level of quality that we might be used to see in the USA or Europe... at any price.
My experience with both of these ISPs: -Movistar: Must be doing some "creative bandwidth management". I have 45Mbps (with presumably a guarantee of 40% of that) for some time, but it is not reliable. Often times I can't even get 1Mbps when watching videos, even though if I switch to my browser and run a speedtest... it usually shows around 45Mbs... yeah, right!!! My guess is that speedtest goes to the nearest server, while real access to Netflix and other video sources route through some pretty sluggish pipes. Also, if you have technical issues in the area of your home... it could take forever to get them resolved. I once had a situation where I tracked the problem to a specific IP of a piece of equipment near my home, reported the information to Movistar and nothing. It took over 100 phone calls, 6 months, and getting refunded 3 months when I presented them with clear evidence of the problem before they finally fixed the issue.
Also a word of warning, what they sell as "Fiber" isn't. It is fiber to a hub a few blocks from your home, and coax/cable from there. - Claro: They can give better service "when it works", but their policies and customer service is so horrid that it is not worth it to deal with them. I recently signed up to their 20Mbs service in order to have a fallback when Movistar failed. They don't tell you when you are buying, but they block you from accessing their router to configure the internal network and they won't let you use your own router while using their device just as a coax modem (they say that service is only for "business customers"). So, if you use a LAN-based printer or need to communicate between the devices in your home you either can't or have to deal with an extraordinary hassle due to their restrictions and interference that prevents you from normal use of your internal LAN. This might be OK if you are completely technologically illiterate, but it is a major problem if you are used to take care of your internal network.
To add insult to injury, Claro's telephone customer service is appalling, and you are going to need to go to their "customer service centers" in person for just about every problem, which will usually eat up 1-3 hours of your time (counting traffic and horrendously long lines at their centers). They have no fiber, only coax/cable. - There are other ISPs in Lima (smaller outfits), but I have no experience with them. - One other issue with coax-based ISPs in Lima is that they normally bring only one cable to an apartment building, then use splitters to divide the signal among the various apartments which degrades the signal. They do not normally use any kind of powered booster for the signal inside of a building. - As far as I can tell there is not a single ISP at the level of quality that we might be used to see in the USA or Europe... at any price.
