- 1 Gig fiber broadband has become passé
- Operators must differentiate themselves with customer service and other factors
- By the way: What in the world are people doing with 10 Gig?
MOUNTAIN CONNECT, DENVER — In 2012 Google Fiber deployed fiber broadband in Kansas City, its first market, and people were astounded that they could get 1 Gbps symmetrical internet service. But now, of course, that’s standard. A panel of fiber operators at Mountain Connect today talked about the ever-increasing demand for faster speeds and how they're differentiating themselves from the pack.
Alberto Garcia, a regional government and community affairs manager with GFiber, said the reality today is that everybody is offering 1 Gig. “Just being a fiber-to-the-home network is not what's going to differentiate you anymore. It's what happens after the person gets that 1 Gig.”
He said GFiber is putting a lot of emphasis on customer service and making sure a “live human” is available to answer calls. And the company is transparent and quick if there is an outage. “If something happens, we're going to notify you through text and app,” said Garcia.
As practically every broadband customer in America knows from personal experience, when the network goes down, it’s really hard to get any information. Customers often have to resort to sites such as Down Detector to try and get some information.
Garcia said GFiber is quick to tell customers what it’s doing to try and solve the problem and how long it’s likely to take.
That would be so nice!
“So, it's really how you treat the customer after that fiber-to-the-home gets connected, and it's the price,” he said. “I mean, we've been $70 a month for 1 Gig of service since we started in Kansas City. That hasn't changed in over a decade.”
Dennis Pappas, director with NextLight Internet, talked about being a non-profit fiber provider in Longmont, Colorado. NextLight has built a municipal fiber network in a city with a population of about 100,000 people with 50,000 serviceable structures, and its fiber broadband now passes 90% of locations. It competes against Comcast and CenturyLink, whose fiber customers are currently being transitioned to AT&T.
Asked what differentiates NextLight from its competitors, Pappas said, “I think for us, it's customer experience. We go to a lot of different community events, and really, we don't hear about speed. We just hear the fact that their service has never been down, and that's how they talk about it.”
Roger Timmerman, executive director of the open-access provider Utopia Fiber, said, “Once you check the box of gig or multi-gig, it becomes more about reliability, reputation, customer service and just all the extras you can add on to that.”
“We're open access,” said Timmerman, “and it's interesting because we see different approaches from different companies riding on our network.” He said one ISP may focus on gamers, while another specializes in making sure Wi-Fi covers every aspect of a customer’s home and grounds.
Providing a little different perspective from a rural area, Matt Larsen, CEO with VistaBeam, an ISP based out of Nebraska, said one of the company’s primary focuses is simply providing access to broadband. The company uses fiber and fixed wireless access (FWA). “We have a lot of rural, and the demographic demand in rural is very different,” said Larsen. “Very few people are into the apps. Very few people are wanting to speed test everything. They just want their stuff to work. And so, one of the things we really focus on is making sure that good service is available outside the city limits to more people and at an affordable price. We've got price points, starting around the $50 range.”
He said a big driver for demand has been video streaming, because people are replacing legacy satellite TV with fiber or FWA.
1, 3 or 10 Gig
Several of the operators on today’s panel offer speeds above 1 Gig, including 3 Gig, 8 Gig, and all the way up to 10 Gig.
Timmerman said 1 Gig is the standard at Utopia, but more frequently, customers are requesting 10 Gig. “And it always gets questioned, what are people doing with 10 Gig? I don't know!” he said. But there are now hundreds of residential customers on Utopia’s 10 Gig service.
One person in today’s audience asked how people know if they’re receiving 8 or 10 Gig service because most internet devices don’t support those speeds. “Because for me, I think any home that needs 8 Gig is keeping up with the Joneses, or is the Joneses,” she said.
Garcia with GFiber said the company’s technicians have an app they can place near the router to show the exact speeds.
Similarly, Timmerman with Utopia said its technicians are all equipped with iPads with Thunderbolt adapters that can run a speed test.
He said there are definitely customers who just want the highest tier for status, even though their equipment won’t support it. But there are also power users who have newer devices and a 10 Gig Wi-Fi 7 router.
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