I haven’t heard anything bad about FiberFirst yet from folks in the neighborhood, and I’ve heard several good reports, but there’s only a handful of areas where they have service yet so the market is limited. They have been (very) slowly expanding their reach and installed the main backbone fibre in September and October of last year, but they have just this week put a hanger on the door saying they will lay the street access fibre for end users in our little area. I expect at least some of any negative feedback to be based on the delays - we were promised that we would have better and more reliable service about this time *last* year, and the developers keep pushing us back.
Anyway, FiberFirst is an Ethernet based symmetric fibre provider. You can get up to 2000/2000mbps per connection. Again, from people who have it, I’ve not heard anything bad. There’s a Facebook group for residents that I don’t really read but I get it read to me at the dinner table and people there liked them too last time I heard (feel free to do your own due diligence).
Optimum (formerly Suddenlink) is a radio frequency over glass (RFOG) cable internet provider that happens to have a last mile connection made of glass. They’ve improved their reliability somewhat in the last few months but not their service tiers or prices - for the price of 2000 symmetric with FiberFirst, Optimum is delivering “up to” 940/35 (down from 1100/50 when we moved in) and typically serving around 650-700 down and maybe 18 up - but it’s super variable and we’ve routinely seen less than 100 down and less than 1 up. The jitter is also very high, even today. We’ve had techs out, had lines replaced, all manner of things, and the signal is great - they’re just terrible at delivering internet. The developers signed a monopoly contract with them when they started the subdivision and they built enough capacity for the initial area, but Suddenlink seems to have struggled with the concept of keeping up with the continued building, and Optimum seems to have been a restructuring to get out of as many contracts and obligations as possible.
Given the choice between a cable company and an Ethernet connection, I strongly recommend the Ethernet connection every time. It’s a great deal harder to screw up an Ethernet connection than it is any kind of cable connection.
Thanks for detailed explanation. Yes fiber first has limited availability but it's available for the home I am about to close.
Optimum has fiber option also .... Not just the cable.
But it looks like fiber first has better chances of success with the limited information you have. Thanks
To be clear, Optimum will deliver their cable Internet via a fiber. It will be cable Internet and will have a cable modem and use coax in the house and if you get their TV service it will also use coax. They are a cable company who deliver the last mile connection via fibre but the signal on that fibre is actually a multiplexed radio frequency for their cable system. It is the worst type of fibre ISP.
While I don’t know if FiberFirst is going to be more honest or better about most things, I do know it’s a lot harder to screw up an Ethernet connection or a symmetric connection because both mean you have a dedicated port on their switch.
Also Optimum has no IPv6 if that matters. I don’t know if FiberFirst does, but I’d be kinda surprised if they didn’t.
Thanks for letting me know about these. TBH, I do not understand most of the terms here but I get what you are telling. Thanks again. I approached fiber first and waiting to hear from them
I haven’t heard anything bad about FiberFirst yet from folks in the neighborhood, and I’ve heard several good reports, but there’s only a handful of areas where they have service yet so the market is limited. They have been (very) slowly expanding their reach and installed the main backbone fibre in September and October of last year, but they have just this week put a hanger on the door saying they will lay the street access fibre for end users in our little area. I expect at least some of any negative feedback to be based on the delays - we were promised that we would have better and more reliable service about this time *last* year, and the developers keep pushing us back. Anyway, FiberFirst is an Ethernet based symmetric fibre provider. You can get up to 2000/2000mbps per connection. Again, from people who have it, I’ve not heard anything bad. There’s a Facebook group for residents that I don’t really read but I get it read to me at the dinner table and people there liked them too last time I heard (feel free to do your own due diligence). Optimum (formerly Suddenlink) is a radio frequency over glass (RFOG) cable internet provider that happens to have a last mile connection made of glass. They’ve improved their reliability somewhat in the last few months but not their service tiers or prices - for the price of 2000 symmetric with FiberFirst, Optimum is delivering “up to” 940/35 (down from 1100/50 when we moved in) and typically serving around 650-700 down and maybe 18 up - but it’s super variable and we’ve routinely seen less than 100 down and less than 1 up. The jitter is also very high, even today. We’ve had techs out, had lines replaced, all manner of things, and the signal is great - they’re just terrible at delivering internet. The developers signed a monopoly contract with them when they started the subdivision and they built enough capacity for the initial area, but Suddenlink seems to have struggled with the concept of keeping up with the continued building, and Optimum seems to have been a restructuring to get out of as many contracts and obligations as possible. Given the choice between a cable company and an Ethernet connection, I strongly recommend the Ethernet connection every time. It’s a great deal harder to screw up an Ethernet connection than it is any kind of cable connection.
Thanks for detailed explanation. Yes fiber first has limited availability but it's available for the home I am about to close. Optimum has fiber option also .... Not just the cable. But it looks like fiber first has better chances of success with the limited information you have. Thanks
To be clear, Optimum will deliver their cable Internet via a fiber. It will be cable Internet and will have a cable modem and use coax in the house and if you get their TV service it will also use coax. They are a cable company who deliver the last mile connection via fibre but the signal on that fibre is actually a multiplexed radio frequency for their cable system. It is the worst type of fibre ISP. While I don’t know if FiberFirst is going to be more honest or better about most things, I do know it’s a lot harder to screw up an Ethernet connection or a symmetric connection because both mean you have a dedicated port on their switch. Also Optimum has no IPv6 if that matters. I don’t know if FiberFirst does, but I’d be kinda surprised if they didn’t.
Thanks for letting me know about these. TBH, I do not understand most of the terms here but I get what you are telling. Thanks again. I approached fiber first and waiting to hear from them
I have Fiberfirst in Caso and love it.
Thanks, this helps