Andrew’s fibre broadband journey
Tell us a bit about yourself and your family?
My name is Andrew and I’m a computer engineer, I’m married and have three sons. There is a lot of technology use in our house, each of the kids has a computer, games console and iPad and it’s quite common they are all using more than one device at a time – playing online games, talking to their friends over Discord and sometimes also streaming.
When did you switch to fibre broadband?
Multiple users in our household caused a lot of problems for us especially during the lock down. For instance when there is an update to a game we need to download, it would be difficult to then stream content on our smart TV or working on our own laptops. It was especially challenging, with my wife working from home and the kids being home in the day, there were times we had to ration use.
We switched this year as soon as fibre was made available to our home. We had been informed via a letter 6 months prior that fibre would be available soon. For us since we were very keen to switch it was a matter of keeping track of when we got the next letter to inform us that fibre is now available.
Have you noticed any difference in performance after making the switch to fibre?
Since changing to fibre we haven’t had to limit simultaneous use and it’s made a big difference. Downloading files and updates is so much quicker, and we don’t seem to have issues any more with impacting each other’s ability to get online.
Tell us about the process? Did it meet your expectations in terms of time, price and convenience.
Once we were able to signup we were given an installation date which I was happy with, I think it was only a couple of weeks. The engineers visited us just before the switchover to check our access and on the day itself it was done very quickly. Because we don’t use the landline anymore we were given the option of a cheaper package than what we were already paying. This allowed us to upgrade to a higher speed option at the same cost which we were paying with the copper broadband and this meant we were getting much better value for our monthly bill. Overall I am very pleased with the switch to fibre and the fact that there are no more squabbles over who is using more and who should switch off makes my life with 3 teenage kids a tad bit easier.
