天美麻豆

vsimple wrote:

I am 100% certain it would have taken much longer (without repeated calling). TVcable and Puntonet offered fiber optic, I opted for Puntonet because they have a 1:1 upload/download ratio, whereas TVcable didn鈥檛. CNT didn鈥檛 have this service and I鈥檓 not sure about Netlife. The connection is stable and fast as advertised.

Fascinating stuff.

Thanks for including the names of TVCable and Puntonet as other possible providers.聽 Friends of mine have had Netlife install fiber optic at two different locations, so I know they have made it available where there is no wiring prohibition.

The dogged yet polite persistence you and your friend employed is a great strategy for dealing with the bureaucracy involved in such an effort.

cccmedia

MikeGB wrote:

While fiber is nice to have it is not essential. I have good success with TVCable here in Cuenca without fiber. I do all kinds of work on the Internet but do not have the need to download or upload large files frequently like some people do. The large files I do download I use a P2P client to accomplish. It takes longer but is not an issue for me. I get 3 Mbps down and .5Mbps up. They do offer higher speeds over coaxial cable but I have not found I need the extra speed as of yet. However the 1:1 upload/download that Puntonet offers with fiber is a plus and would be useful for me when I am away from home because I could more efficiently pull video and other content from my server at home. But I don't do this a lot, at the moment, so not a big loss.

The other comment I would make is that V.Simple must have incurred a significant cost to have the fiber run into his location. I have checked into having this done in Cuenca and the companies are willing to do it but you are on the hook to pay them to run the fiber into your location (i.e., because you are the first you pay the cost of them laying the fiber. Subsequent clients do not have to bare this cost).

In Canada, where I am from, the companies do not do this. If they plan on offering fiber service they will bare the costs of running the fiber in the street to your building.

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Whether or not fiber optic is essential is relative but it鈥檚 necessary for us. The apartment we鈥檙e renting came with a 3Mbps down/.5Mbps up and it was impossible to use the internet in the manner we are accustomed to as latency, download/upload speed were all a hindrance. The sharing ratio was also abysmal.

Upload speed is not simply about uploading large files as a poor upload speed hinders two-way communication. For example, video chatting was frustrating when possible, gaming online was impossible and poor upload speed bottlenecks the internet when several computers or gadgets are simultaneously online.聽

We can now use the internet without any bottlenecks to simultaneously:

- Stream multiple 1080p videos flawlessly.

- My son can play online games with friends on Steam without latency issues. Good luck with hitting a moving target with poor latency, or even being allowed to play on a server.

- Other computers/gadgets can surf, facetime (video chat), youtube , etc.

And again, simultaneously, previously we couldn鈥檛 even enjoy a frustration-free facetime even if we used only one gadget to access the internet.聽 As for sheer download speed, a 1GB torrent download takes about 10 minutes. Put it this way, the internet is not even a thought now, and personally the way it should be. We鈥檙e simply pleased that Ecuador has available what is pretty much the norm in many countries.

As for installation, the cost was $80, this included an Optical Line Terminal, Ethernet router and Wi-Fi聽 router. Clients who use more than 300 meters of fiber optic cable are charged more, but that wasn鈥檛 the case for us as there wasn鈥檛 a charge on the invoice. Sometimes they have promotions for free installation, especially on holidays. The only obligation is a 1 year commitment.