Is it worth a one time ?400 installation fee for a Fiber connection @ Home?

[capcom_suicide]

Hi,

After moving house my connection has not been as good as I hoped, and the promise of VDSL has failed as I am too far from the Exchange to get the best effects. This means I have been limited on ADSL2+ to 17Mbit/1.3Mbit with no means to improve it over copper. Downer

As a solution I have been invited to connect my house with fiber, on the following synchronise point to point plans:

30Mbit/30Mbit @ £37 a month
50Mbit/50Mbit @ £48 a month

The catch is that they want me to cover some of the installation fee of connecting my house to the main Fibre ring that connects Norway to the world. It's not cheap, it's £400 quid.

Being a brit abroad I do use Video Confercing home a lot, and I enjoy playing/hosting games, but I am unsure of the merits of fibre.

The Salesman claimed the following:

• Fiber offers far greater speeds
• Fiber line is just the backbone, I can pick and choose my services
• I can choose where in the house to have the main connection, and this is covered in the install fee
• He means I am "Lucky" to be in the area they are rolling out, as many people are asking for Fibre
• He suggests it will increase the value of my house by at least the £400 install fee
• He promises a point to point connection to the backbone, no sharing, I will have a 30 or 50Mbit upload if I want it.
• They are looking at recording all TV programs for 1-2 weeks and storing them at the datacenter, then we can just use the ISP like a "Big DVR" to catch up on shows etc.

But £400 is a lot of dosh.... I wonder what peoples thoughts are here?

C_S

[Paulos G]

I think it's a good call.

*cough* 16 player GRAW *cough*

[smouty]

I have almost the same connection speed as you at home and have no issues with video conferencing or gaming. My latency is <20ms usually.
I think you could host a pretty major site on a synchronous 30mbit line but I couldn't justify the upgrade.
50mbit in the UK at least would allow you to stream BBCHD at the highest bitrate they support currently - 3.2Mb/s but I can't think what else you would use that for at home.

[dataDave]

I'd be tempted if I was settled like you mate, but I'd want a test run first. No way would I take those numbers for granted.

But yeah, if it's all well then &#163;400 seems ok to me.

[charlesr]

My heart bleeds for you. (I'm maxed at 7down/1up)

[charlesr]

Why don't you spend that &#163;400 on visiting your relatives back home?
Or on a week's kitesurfing school.
Or on a holiday.

In a year's time, the same thing will be &#163;40

[capcom_suicide]

Why don't you spend that &#163;400 on visiting your relatives back home?
Or on a week's kitesurfing school.
Or on a holiday.

In a year's time, the same thing will be &#163;40

That's exactly what I was thinking. The monthly costs are covered by work, but 400 notes is tickets for the family and as Smouty says, ADSL2+ is pretty good for most stuff.

I spoke with my boss today, and as I've had a few issues with the ADSL line recently, (telco blames issue on ISP, ISP blames issue on quality of the copper) it could be that work will cover the install fee.

If they don't, then like you say, I think a "Wait and see" approach is sensible. I'm happy with my digiTV as the decoder is built into the Sony TV, so really I don't need the other services.

I don't do filesharing, so I don't have any other need of the bandwidth really. I notice todat that many websites don't manage more than 1Mbit anyway, so it's not like I can even use 50Mbit!

Thanks everyone for your comments!

[^Katsu]

The catch is that they want me to cover some of the installation fee of connecting my house to the main Fibre ring that connects Norway to the world. It's not cheap, it's ?400 quid.

To even be considering spending this, you clearly have the highest class uberpron available on stream there!?

I have 16Mbit/1.3Mbit no issues hosting so far, but clearly I could watch more blue oyster bar specials... I know you love your

->Open Spoiler<-

connection

mind!
The real question is can you live with it as is?

[dataDave]

If I wasn't saving up right now I'd pay ?400 to have my connection the same as it was back in 2005 even. The connection where I'm at now sucks the biggest balls and I can't really play anything online unless I want to force myself into RAGE mode.

[eastyy]

well would ask them anyone else nearby have it....then you can ask those people what its like

[Chunky]

My heart bleeds for you. (I'm maxed at 7down/1up)

I'd love to have those speeds. My Sky "up to 20mbit" line gives me 2down/0.5 up

[cavalcade]

I'd love to have those speeds. My Sky "up to 20mbit" line gives me 2down/0.5 up

I get 512k down and 128k up, so stop moaning.

[wonderboy]

You're lucky. You don't know when your well of ! I get 100k down and 12k up. Not sounding like one of Monty python's yorkshire men...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13JK5kChbRw

[capcom_suicide]

I had an unsurprisingly positive reaction to this at work, so I have put the order in. I think they plan to rollout by the end of 2010, so I'll post my impressions.

My decision was made to not bother, as I couldn't really see the point, but as work will cover it, then that's ok.

[eastyy]

OMG where we are...must be stuck in the stone age...i am Lucky if i even get 50kb a sec downloads