Fiber. Optic.
One of the things I was anxious to learn about the new house was whether or not we lived in an area that had been wired for the Utopia network. For the unfamiliar, Utopia is an initiative in Utah where a community pays to have fiber optic cable strung to houses. Then you can purchase a variety of services from companies that buy access to transmit on the fiber. The upshot is you get absolutely crazy internet speeds. Like 15 Mbps. Up and Down.
Well, it turns out that my neighborhood has been wired and I jumped at the opportunity to get that tasty fiber access. I went with mstar because they are the only company in the area right now that is offering internet and TV. They offer phone too, but really, who uses a landline anymore. I haven’t had a landline for over 3 years now and I don’t miss it one bit.
It took a few week to get it installed because they don’t wire it to your house until you request it, but it was worth the wait. This connection screams. I am pulling around 14 Mbps down and somehow I am getting nearly 38 Mbps up. Obviously, I wish that set of numbers were reversed, but 14 Mbps down is still fast. Very fast.
To give you an idea of what I am talking about, here’s a little example that might help. For those of you that have ever configured your computer to have a webserver running for web development, it is like the entire internet is hosted on your local webserver. There is just a slight delay from the time you hit enter (or click that link) until you are on the site in question. Almost a literal snap of the fingers.
I was on Comcast before we bought this house. It was a fast service too. At 4 Mbps you could easily surf and pages loaded quickly. My fiber connection slaughters it. It isn’t even really a competition. Oh yeah, it’s $13/month cheaper too. Almost 4 the speed for less money. I don’t know why anyone would even go with Comcast if you access to the fiber.
I’m in internet heaven. For an internet junky, like myself, this is like reaching Nirvana.