Thursday 21 January 2010

Confession of an FTTH-geek: I chose cable over FTTH

(don't forget to take the poll, to tell me what you would have done)
You've seen it in recent posts already. I switched to UPC. That really means that all despite all the FTTH pictures on my blog, I'm not actively connected to the internet over fiber at all. This has been tough for me to swallow. I really wish I could have done it differently. But business is business even if there is some emotion to it.

So why did I choose UPC Fiber Power 60 in december? Well, KPN made me do it. I wanted FTTH so much, I waited for 6 months to switch to UPC, even though I had already concluded it was the sensible thing to do. I just thought that KPN would get its act together. Then came the investors call of December 15. For me as a consumer, it wasn't good. All KPN could promise was, we're working on it. No timelines, no debate on how they would fix half year backlog and worse somewhere in the second quarter KPN would offer symmetrical speeds over fibre, but still at a too high price point.

So here I am, I chose UPC Fiber 60, because I get 60mbit/s that performs reasonably well and beats Alice DSL 6 times. I have the international calling package, which saves me from bill shock whenever we call in Europe, can't get that from KPN. I have the Royal digital TV package with a year free Film 1 movie channel, including a 100 movies on download. Can't get such a package from KPN. And the best thing is. It worked within 24 hours of walking into a UPC store, with minimal fuzz. All that for 25 less then what I would pay KPN and 5 less than what I paid Alice+UPC combined.

It's the economy.

Hopefully next year December XMS will have crossed the canal between Almere Buiten and my home and they serve my area as well. They offer 50mbit/s symmetrical at a reasonable price, but their phone offer is quite bad. I can't move away from UPC any time soon for the content as my wife likes it too much.. So all in all anybody who can offer symmetrical internet and international calling for 50 euro is my friend.

1 comment:

  1. Here in Czech Republic we have this Fiber Power from UPC, 50Mbps/5Mbps for 50 euros also, but no calling package at all. For 65 Euros you can have the 100/10Mbps one. I think it's a reasonable price, mainly because if I'm not mistaken they are int heir 1st year offering it. Pity that they don't offer in my street yet. =(
    For 60Mbps, I would have chosen the same as you. The only thing that really bothers me on asymmetrical plans is that two things that are getting common nowadays in the end don't work well, High Definition Video Conferences and Home "clouds" where you can have all your files on your shared drive at home but access it through the internet (Back to my mac as an example from Apple)

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