Seeking advice on moving to AT&T from COX in SoCal
I'd like to preface my questions by simply saying I don't mind COX. It has been incredibly stable here in Escondido, CA. It drops maybe once a year and one of those outages was a bit longer but it turned out the Arris modem stopped working. Once I swapped it out, I configured it and was good to go. I have had COX for 8 years, but the pricing is simply a point of contention due to principle.
As far as being a customer of any internet provider, I'd classify myself as network oriented (Power?) user. I recently upgraded my switch and WiFi APs to 2.5g, so I'm pretty happy. But I would say the aspects of COX internet that bother me the most are probably the 2 most controversial -- paying for unlimited data transfer and asymmetrical speeds. 2.5Gb down with 110Mb up is absurd.
I host websites, share Plex with family and friends, serve files, download a ton of Docker images, manage remote networks, have 4-8 active users in my house depending on if family is visiting or not, and we all stream and work from home. I cannot get past the fact that COX robs me blind on base pricing for 2.5Gb + $50/mo for unlimited data transfer.
With that out of the way, I will say I did have AT&T Fiber for a brief period of time before buying the house I'm currently in and the service was terrible. It would drop daily for extended periods of time, and being an engineer that works from home, it's simply unacceptable. I could not get proper support from AT&T when that happened and it took me over a month to switch back to COX and get AT&T canceled. Thinking about this again is maybe making me consider if I'm stupid enough to try AT&T again, but I'm putting myself back out there to hear about how others either enjoyed or were disappointed in their migrations to AT&T Fiber.
So, here's what I am asking all of you lovely people... I need to know if it's worth the switch. It looks like the 5Gb option for $135/mo ($95 first 12/mos) will be more than sufficient.
I need either bridge or DMZ access, since I run my own firewall and APs. I host HTTPS, Plex, etc. Some ports are <1024 so I need to know if AT&T is capable of this as well.
Please, lay it all out there for me so I can make an informed decision.
Thank you for your guidance!