Instability of Fibre

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#3360507 4-Apr-2025 09:27

This was just my opinion as my family has become to reliant on fibre . Will look at some back up options for 4g or starlink. Definitely off to buy alarms clocks today as well as rehook up Freeview.

lxsw20

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#3360514 4-Apr-2025 09:46

Just use your phone as an alarm?

I'd agree that Starlink is a better failover than 4G. The 4G is fiber fed too after all.

quickymart

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#3360520 4-Apr-2025 09:51

I would tether my mobile to my laptop for work if anything happened to my fibre connection, but I think I've had one? outage in the middle of the night in the 4 years I've been in this place.

allio

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#3360536 4-Apr-2025 10:00

I used to lose 90% of my VDSL speed every time it rained. Quite happy with fibre compared to that.

At the end of the day your internet has to come through some kind of pipe, and everything is susceptible to physical damage. 4G/5G maybe less so, but they have their own issues.

Starlink is very expensive for a backup option. Make friends with a neighbour and use a wireless bridge as your second WAN? Though if someone drills through the fibre cable it'll likely take you both out.

CYaBro

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#3360551 4-Apr-2025 10:25

MaxineN:

That is a VERY expensive failover.

Honestly a 4G CPE off Trademe is about $50-100, then you just get a prepay SIM and top it up enough to get enough data to last.

But 4G is not available everywhere and if it works for you, great! It's a good option to have.

Yea cell coverage here is pretty much non-existent.

And I got the Starlink hardware on special for $299. 😁

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

Talkiet

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#3360562 4-Apr-2025 10:39

Goodness, imagine the complaints if the OP was using figuratively any other form of internet access!!!!

Fibre is the most reliable connection available. If it's not reliable enough for you, then get a backup using a different access type and through a different provider.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

alasta

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#3360567 4-Apr-2025 10:49

My telco provides cellular data as a backstop in the event of a fibre outage. Is this not common practice?

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

huckster

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#3360579 4-Apr-2025 11:06

alasta:

My telco provides cellular data as a backstop in the event of a fibre outage. Is this not common practice?

As does mine https://www.spark.co.nz/help/internet/manage/outage-assist

Stu1

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#3360589 4-Apr-2025 11:28

Talkiet:

Goodness, imagine the complaints if the OP was using figuratively any other form of internet access!!!!

Fibre is the most reliable connection available. If it's not reliable enough for you, then get a backup using a different access type and through a different provider.

Cheers - N

Godness smart ass response like that good reminder to never use your service . Stats loss of phone on copper in 17 years 0, loss of ADSl/VDSl 2 , loss of fibre in one year =3

Stu1

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#3360591 4-Apr-2025 11:29

alasta:

My telco provides cellular data as a backstop in the event of a fibre outage. Is this not common practice?

2degress didn’t even offer that , even though it’s possible . Ended up getting unlimited plan on one for the month so can hotspot to laptop

Stu1

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#3360593 4-Apr-2025 11:34

allio:

I used to lose 90% of my VDSL speed every time it rained. Quite happy with fibre compared to that.

At the end of the day your internet has to come through some kind of pipe, and everything is susceptible to physical damage. 4G/5G maybe less so, but they have their own issues.

Starlink is very expensive for a backup option. Make friends with a neighbour and use a wireless bridge as your second WAN? Though if someone drills through the fibre cable it'll likely take you both out.

The whole street is out there is a cluster of 18 or so houses . Downer are there today but not sure how to fix it. The issue is the fibre was never installed deep enough . When they used the digger they dug to the required height the fibre cable is 500 m higher than the rest of the pipes. They are replacing pipes in the whole suburb. They will have to dig higher to accommodate how high the fibre was installed

richms

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#3360594 4-Apr-2025 11:35

I had multiple faults every year on copper with degraded or no connection at all towards the end of it. One it never recovered from and they called it fixed but it was crap and basically became useless and got worse when it rained.

Fibre issues were all when it was new and they were working a lot in the splices, and when they had to replace some overhead because they didn't attach it to the pole properly and it stretched.

Now everyone has it and there isn't someone in the splice box all the time, its physically been fine. Its the scheduled but not advised to me outages that have been the problems.

Richard rich.ms

cddt

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#3360599 4-Apr-2025 11:56

Stu1:

Stats loss of phone on copper in 17 years 0, loss of ADSl/VDSl 2 , loss of fibre in one year =3

When we were on ADSL/VDSL we were lucky if we only had three outages per day. You might think I am exaggerating, but it was like that until 2019 when fibre was installed, thank God.

My referral links: BigPipe | Mercury

KiwiSurfer

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#3360601 4-Apr-2025 12:02

Been on fibre for something like 5+ years with zero faults attributed to my LFC.

Some years ago when I lived in Mt Eden me and some flatmates happened to rent an apartment right at the tail end of the copper loop where we got the most minimal acceptable service. The next block over was a cabinet zone, but our block was direct to the MOD exchange because our block happened to be just under the threshold for conversion to cabinet-fed connections. On a good day we got ~10mbits (IRRC might have been lower that). But whenever it rained it'd tank all the way down to 1mbits. Every time I logged a fault, Telecom would send someone out to test a few days later and every time they dod so the weather was fine and it'd test at 10mbits or whatever the min speed was and they'd report back "no fault". Maddening.

Fair to say I much, much, much prefer fibre!

lxsw20

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#3360602 4-Apr-2025 12:06

Stu1:

Godness smart ass response like that good reminder to never use your service . Stats loss of phone on copper in 17 years 0, loss of ADSl/VDSl 2 , loss of fibre in one year =3

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