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The quest for fiber-based broadband service from consumers has reached the point where many have decided to accept or decline offers to purchase property in new housing developments based on whether they’ll have access to fiber or not. Those were the findings in a study from the Fiber to the Home Council, which surveyed more than 600 existing fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) customers and 600 other broadband customers nationwide.
The results clearly show consumers love fiber optic broadband, far more than cable modems or DSL service from the phone company.
For example, 67% of FTTH users were very satisfied with their broadband speed compared to 58% of cable modem users and 46% of DSL users. A total of 70% of FTTH users were very satisfied with their Internet service up time compared to 64% of cable modem users and 55% of DSL users.
Consumers also reported that FTTH service was faster… much faster than competing technologies. The median tested download speed from FTTH users was 10.4Mbps. FTTH tested download speed was 51% higher than cable modem service and 593% higher than DSL (DSL has abandoned the speed war, having lost that race to competing technologies, and now prevails only on price and where other alternatives are not available).
Upload speeds offered by FTTH users blew away the competition. The average subscriber had 2.4Mbps of upload speed, which is 380% higher than cable modem users and 500% faster than DSL.
The survey also showed that robust competition, with at least one provider bringing true fiber to the home service to consumers, meant an average of six percent lower broadband bills.
Some cable and telephone industry executives downplay the lust for speed by consumers, claiming that most don’t understand the differences in speed, and don’t utilize services where speed matters most. But the FTTH survey found entirely different results. Not only are FTTH customers extremely loyal and happy with their service, they are reluctant to move to places that don’t offer it.
When asked to imagine purchasing a new home and given a list of five real estate development amenities, both current and non FTTH broadband users rated “Very high speed Internet from a direct fiber line” more important than other amenities such as green space/walking trails, 24 hour neighborhood patrol, a community pool, and a fitness center/club house. 69% of non FTTH users and 82% of current FTTH users said “Very high speed Internet” would be an important factor in buying a new home.
Even in this difficult economy, 49% of FTTH users said their broadband service would be the “last thing” they would give up. Only 11% said it would be among the first things to go.
The demand is there, but the competition is not in many American communities. Unless consumers reside in an area where an aggressive provider such as Verizon is willing to deploy fiber to the home, the chances of service arriving anytime in the near future is dismally low. Few telephone companies are interested in deploying widespread fiber networks to consumers, and most cable operators believe their existing hybrid fiber/coaxial cable networks are “good enough” for consumers. Only when a third player arrives in town, be it a private competitor or a municipally-owned fiber network, do telephone and cable providers get interested in performing their own fiber upgrades.
AT&T believes in its own copper-wire-based U-verse technology. Smaller independent telephone companies are doing only limited experiments with fiber deployment, primarily to multiple dwelling units like apartment buildings and condos, and other uniform, expansive new housing developments.
Until prevailing attitudes among providers change, consumers hungering for fiber may simply have to pack up and relocate to the lucky communities that already have it, or will soon.
Other stories of interest:
- Competition Equals Better, Faster Service: Fiber Is Good For You!
- Why Is Time Warner Saying “Costs Increasing” to Consumers, But “Decreasing” to Stockholders?
- X Files: Out of Touch Cable Industry Suggests Links Between Eric Massa & Corning-based Fiber Optics Manufacturer
- Verizon Business Introduces Tiered Pricing… Based on Speed – On Demand Bandwidth
- The Broadband Generation Gap: The Truth About Paying for More Than You Need
When we get our next house, it will be FTTH already. If that means building a house with fiber installed instead of a twisted pair or coaxial, then so be it. Fiber is the future and is so much faster than anything copper can sustain. I have AT&T Uverse right now and they can only do 25Mb total, telephone, internet, and IPTV, over their fiber-copper hybrid system. Eventually, they will have to drop that model and start bringing it to the home. I read, in certain new housing developments, AT&T does install FTTH on those new homes.
Also, AT&T, NEC, and Corning have improved on fiber speeds by getting 114Gigabits/second, over EACH of the 320 optical channels, with a new method of transmission. Also, this new method also allows almost twice the distance.
http://news.soft32.com/att-nec-corning-complete-record-breaking-fiber-capacity-test_7372.html
So there is room for growth in fiber. I was just thinking, these ISP’s, with one channel of this fiber, could fit 2280 customers at 50Mb download speed. Does that sound like a “bandwidth” crisis to you? And most people won’t even subscribe to the premium 50Mb connection.
Ah, but they don’t sell that bandwidth to 2280 customers. The current model (at least if you’re a cable company) is more like take the bandwidth of that channel and use 50% of it for video services. The remaining half is divvied up to 10,000 customers subscribed at various rates including 50 Mbps. Then when people aren’t watching TV but they’re all using the Internet you have congestion and slowdowns.
Overselling bandwidth is probably still common practice even with FTTH from the central office (CO) to the backbone. The only fiber that isn’t oversold is the line to your house from the CO. Overselling is not a problem unless the factor by which you do it is unsustainable. It’s highly unlikely for everyone to be online at once saturating their connections (unless, perhaps there’s some national event taking place and it’s being simulcast using streaming video on the web).
As to the article itself, I don’t think I’d go to so far as to say I won’t consider buying a home if FTTH was unavailable, but I would certainly be hesitant if I knew there was no competition for high speed Internet in the area in which I was looking (unless of course I don’t have a choice to move).
Lastly it seems something of a sad commentary on our lives to day if high speed Internet is “more important than other amenities such as green space/walking trails, 24 hour neighborhood patrol, a community pool, and a fitness center/club house.” Although these amenities sound like rental property amenities and not single family homes (except for townhouses / condos).
Still, as much as I need the Internet for my daily routine (bill payment and money management in particular) I’m loathe to give up green spaces just to have high speed access.
To each their own Personally I do not see the need to stay connect to the internet every minute of the day nor do I see the need to tweet what im doing every minute of the day. Speed sometimes a nice thing but if it takes and hour or a half hour the data will still get there. There is just no one that needs a 10 second download or upload. Those people will be driving themselves crazy in the end. I even ditched my cell phone. I did not need it. I could just picture me spending $2000 a year for an Iphone to stay connected just to be cool, for people calling me up because then need money… Family knows where I am and how to find me Different story. If you go away for a weekend you want to escape all that chatter or you would not go away in the first place. I can see a new wife / kids book “How I spent my vacation” with Mr. wonderful spending all his
Time on a connection device. Advice to the wife go alone bring the kids they will love the pool and you may get lucky.