Fibre internet — Misleading, Misadvertising, Mistake

False Advertising Any business will always want to show their best when it comes to advertising.  You don’t exactly go around seeing burgers falling out of buns in the adverts now, do you?  You see a nice, delicious, perfectly presented burger like that on the right.  This is going to be true of all advertising and fibre internet is one that you’ll particularly want to take a closer look at.  The reason being is that there was a recent rule change and it’s had a huge impact on them. In the past, all one had to do to be able to advertise “speeds up to” is have 10% of consumers able to access that speed.  Not exactly the average and it can certainly be misleading, can’t it?  Now, broadband providers are going to have to actually have 50% of customers able to access that speed.  Surprise — their advertised average speeds are plummeting.  These changes will be coming any time from now to May.  If possible, I’d check around then to see what the speeds really are.

Confusion over what is and isn’t Fibre.

Other than a necessary part of your dietary needs, fibre is also another way of communicating over long distances.  Rather than using electricity to carry information, it uses light.  As we all know from sciences classes, light is faster than… well pretty much everything.  With that knowledge, one would think that fibre internet would be the absolute fastest and that’s precisely why some advertise as fibre when they’re really something else. Fibre and part-fibre could not be more different, and yet both can safely be advertised as fibre with none the wiser.  If they were cars, fibre would be a Lamborghini and part-fibre would be an unused muffler.  Yes, that’s really how different they are.  Part-fibre tends to still use the old copper wires and so what you think you’re getting might not be true at all.  You’d be surprised just how many are doing this, too.  Over 90% of consumers right now are receiving only part-fibre services.

Choosing fibre, you STILL might not even get the speeds you’re promised.

Many companies out there now offer a service allowing you to see what speeds you can expect.  This can be based on many different aspects from how many people around you are using it, the type of internet you’re buying, and the technology available there.  They’re not always perfect, but you can usually get a good estimate.  The biggest problem though comes when nobody can really be held accountable for the moment you fall through the crack… I, myself, have been with an internet company for two years and only recently (FINALLY) gotten the speed I was paying for.  The problem is that sometimes, you end up in just the wrong spot or with just the wrong technologies nearby.  Unfortunately, there’s really no way to know what speed you might be getting from choosing fibre until you plunk down for the first time and do a speed test.  If you’re lucky, you’ll get exactly what you’re paying for.  If you’re not… well… there’s always Baltic Broadband to consider!]]>