I am pretty interested and waiting to get excited...

I seem to recall that, when fiber optic data transmission first became a thing (and it has been a while), the talking point was all about -huge- bandwidth but at the expense of some additional hardware cost.

The local telco is now touting "Fiber, direct to your house!" but the bandwidth they are claiming (not to speak of what one might actually get) is only slightly better than my budget plan cable internet. But it's slightly cheaper now, there's a free trial period and, best of all, it's -not- the cable company (Comcast) so I thought, "Why not give it a try?".

Fortunately, I was smart enough to have it installed well before letting the Cable internet service expire. The installer had to drill a hole in an exterior wall to run the fiber in. He carefully figured out where to drill and drilled the hole form the outside. On the inside, his drill bit caught the drapes and wrecked a curtain rod. Got that all settled. He did a quick connectivity test to verify the router and that I could see the router's wifi on my phone. I made sure to get the credentials and procedure for logging into the router itself and made sure I had the customer service phone number in case I ran into any trouble.

Well, I could connect to the ESSID of the router but couldn't get -any- internet traffic. Using the login credentials given on the decal on the router itself, I could not log in to the router to even attempt trouble shooting. I never managed to actually speak to anyone at the customer service number. And they had the gall to send a bill due well before the free trial period was up. I -did- manage to contact someone at their billing department and told them to send someone to collect their hardware.

Though the uninspiring bandwidth claim was a bit of a let down, I understand they might have a hard time servicing fiber-worthy connection speeds for any large number of customers but it begs the question, "Why fiber instead of existing wire technology?" My guess is that it's simply cheaper for the ISP while providing no tangible benefit to the customer. It all comes to nothing though when the ISP drops the ball in so many ways.

@KGIII - I know you're a long way from suburban Pittsburgh, but you might want to get first hand reports on the provider before dropping 8 to 10 grand on the cable run.
 


I remember the bad old days of copper cable...very slow with 6MB download and 4MB upload and when you used your monthly allowance they slowed you to a crawl.
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Then in 2013 we got Fibre...we were lucky to get FTTP...Fibre To The Premises because we got 100MB download.
Connecting to the NBN...No Bloody Network costs nothing. They run the Fibre cable down the street underground then run a Fibre cable from that cable underground to a box on the side of the house.

Then other guys come and connect the Fibre cable from outside to another box inside...sounds simple...well no.
The guys who connected the cable inside said it doesn't work because the morons who ran the cable to the house didn't connect it correctly.

Then when it finally worked...I was only getting about 20MB instead of 100MB...when I complained I was told we're having teething problems...yeah right.
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Sometimes I get dropouts but nothing like the old days...the big two here in Australia...Telstra and Optus got into serious trouble a few years ago for selling high speed plans to people who had FTTN...Fibre To The Node which cannot get 100MB...lucky to get 50MB.
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Our Landline is also connected to the Modem as it's all Fibre now but all calls are unlimited. I mostly use my Mobile...who doesn't these days as it's more convenient...you can't make video calls or use the internet on a landline can you.

Someone mentioned VOIP...I know what it means but I never see or hear it mentioned anywhere in Australia...sounds like something from the past.
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These days I could get 780MB download speed but it costs heaps more and a new Modem which isn't really worth it as I'm happy with what I've got for now.
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@KGIII - I know you're a long way from suburban Pittsburgh, but you might want to get first hand reports on the provider before dropping 8 to 10 grand on the cable run.

So far, I've heard just good things about the company. They're a local company that's working on bringing broadband solutions to remote areas in a financially stable way.

As for the cost, I've yet to check with the neighbors. This one is going to be a bit pricey.
 
As a gaming enthusiast, I need fast internet for streaming. I currently use a 100Mbps connection, and I'm quite satisfied with the service. Plus, eCommerce sites load quickly such as Koe Wetzel Hoodies, making online shopping a breeze. Reliable internet keeps my gaming and shopping seamless.
 
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They've started running the fiber down the main road in my area.
 
They've started running the fiber down the main road in my area.
Your lucky, full fibre stops about 3/4 mile [1K] from my village when we moved in 22 yrs ago ,I asked if they would be extending the network to our village, answer no! Reason .. Not commercially viable for just 260 houses and 5 farms.
 
Not commercially viable for just 260 houses and 5 farms.
Here in the states, there is federal funding set up to get high speed internet into rural areas. I don't recall if it was Obama or Trump that got it started.

The house I grew up in was at the end of 1.5 mile long gravel road. My brother still lives there today. It wasn't until about 15 years ago that he and the few neighbors finally talked the phone company into running a line up the road. And they got high speed internet 3 years ago due to the fed $$$.
 
there is federal funding set up to get high speed internet into rural areas.
we were supposed to have something similar in the UK, but there are many outlying areas still on dial up or BB via phone line, when we moved here we got just under 1 gb, over time it has got up to 39gb [its now fibre to the distribution box and copper for the run to the house.], but that has taken 25 years,
 
They called and confirmed it this afternoon. I have set up my account with them and everything.

They're still installing fiber and the deadline (for me) hasn't changed. It's still 'hopefully by February'.

I'm optimistic but skeptical. That is mid-winter in my neighborhood. Getting things done is significantly more difficult than one might think.

Also, I'm not sure how reliable the fiber is going to be. We have regular power outages due to the stormy weather. I believe that fiber isn't supposed to bend more than 30° or it degrades rapidly. So, trees on the line are eventually going to be a problem and I don't think they have the personnel to fix things quickly in the event of an outage.

Still, it's fiber!

I'm going to download the entire internet! I'm going to need more storage!
 
I live in a very, very rural area.

The nearest hospital is an hour and a half away. The village that's closest to me has fewer than 1,000 residents. The town I live in is technically not even a town, it's an unincorporated township - which means I have zero municipal services. There are no town police. There's no highway department. There's no local elected officials. None of those things apply to me.

There is a 'main' road that's a numbered route - a state road - that runs though the area.
You are a long ways from me... I'm in the South-West, high desert, close to 5000ft. Things here are also pretty much as you describe your remoteness. One exception is we have Fiber-Optic service.

Oh, yeah, we also have blistering heat, monsoon floods, ice, tornadoes, high winds, rattle snakes (some have two legs), wild pigs, bears, mountain lions, buzzards big enough to haul off cars (well almost HA!),eagles that have taken small domestic dogs and cats. And occationally during the deep of Winter, an inch of snow and we came from 3ft to 9ft on the ground 3-4 months of the Winter. Reality... our snowmobiles don't do well here.

We have one state paved road... two lanes, speed limit 65mph. If you do under 75-80mph it will take you "forever" to get anywhere. Downside? Head-on's are a mess.

During the summer the black top all but melts and during monsoon season you may find miles washed out. But through state and county efforts we have very usable, safe hiway 98% of the time. The dirt roads... make life interesting. Move back to "civilization"? You know the answer... otherwise you would not be at home where you are.

Oops, back to fiber,

I know how exciting the possibility of Fiber/High speeds are. I'm sharing this as my experiences in two locations in the US 1700 miles apart - two different Providers. Fiber is a game changer - and even though there seems to be challenges, it is far and above better than back in the day I had 8 ISDN lines, multi-plexed into then a "blistering" speed. So below is not to be a discouragement but "keep your eyes open" to all "stories" as there may be something to them. I was chuckling as I wrote... but here it is.

I've been told that Fiber has been here in our area for at least 8+ years or more. When we first moved here the ISP recognized we were from a high-tech area and because of the (IT) work we had crazy speeds on fiber. So they gave us a year free of their high speed services - If I recall correctly something like 300/100. They expressed their goal as wanting me to be interested in even higher speed commerical services.

I never intended to go up in speeds. I did some testing over 6 months and I will be happy with 100/10 to more than meet our needs/wants. Retired, grumpy old men do not (have) to move that fast. and neither does my wife... she also is retired, does nort move that fast, but not grumpy (how did that happen?)

My "neighbors" explain it as having the faster/est speeds somehow provides stability??? WHAT? I told them they were nuts and thay said..."you'll see"

If that is the case, in our past location we would not have experienced any unrelability - we had very fast connection, so with this "theroy" we would not have experiencesd any unstableness.

Still sounds crazy.

In our current location I have no explaination other than my 100/10, reliability is an issue. Also, interrogating my connection shows me receiving my connection(s) from servers that do not exist. The company admits they do not have equipment/servers anywhere near the list of towns/cities.

The ISP told me that one piece of equipment that can correct this was not part of the original installation at their main server farm and Co-Lo's. They admit they "should" have been installed BUT they "should" be "coming soon". (4 years ago). Personally I think the grant covered the equipment for all their locations, but since it may not have been absolutely necessary years ago (with closer distances and many fewer users) that portion of the funds/grants were "set aside" to be used at a future date.

To correct the current misinformation and unrelability, I was told I could have a temporaly "fix" (ie covered up) using a Static IP which I do not want, use, or want the expense and a much higher speed package which I do not need. So it's free for me for now - if I keep reminding them monthly of their offer. (pain). A bit of "enhance service" for one, may be a cost effective effort instead of - now - installing new hardware in multi server rooms. Other folks using the same ISP (hundreds of miles away) have similar "stories". All I do is listen to them.

Sounds crazy, so I will not go further. What I will note is what I am seeing happening in this area. It's one thing to have high speed fiber at home no matter how remote. Moving around here on Fed Freeways and State hiways is at best a gamble as because of the distances and environment.
More area than you want does not even have cell phones (Sat phone only) and the distances here are enormous.

Folks are are getting creative with their StarLink and they are getting blazing internet where nothing else exist. No WiFi, ethernet, fiber, cell reception or other connections. My extended plan after removing Microsoft, etc and on LinuxMint, is probably StarLink. There are locations I want to explore for days to weeks but need to stay "connected" to make it safe and practical.

I really do wish you a great, fast , clean, reliable fiber optic connection. I don't wish what I've got on anyone (regardless if the "theroys" are anywhere near correct or not.:):cool: Sounds crazy to me !
 
I really do wish you a great, fast , clean, reliable fiber optic connection.

Those with the service from this company seem to uniformly be quite happy with it. I'll keep a backup service, just because I don't trust the company to restore service quickly and I'm expecting quite a few outages because they're draping the lines from the poles rather than using trenches.

I actually have all the equipment needed for StarLink. So, there's that...
 

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