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bigspoutwhale867 t1_j4dnmrl wrote

If you have 60/5 now, you’d be set with even the 50/50 ($35) or 250/250 ($60). It has much lower latency than DSL (if routing is good) which will make a big difference for video conferencing and more. Just keep in mind that it’s intro pricing that goes up $20-25, after the first year. The pricing also assumes that you enroll in paperless billing, and auto payment. You can opt out of each if desired, for $2.50 apiece. I pay about $37.50 for my 50/50, as I opted out of auto payment.

If I worked from home, didn’t have a good cell signal for a data backup, and it was critical to be connected, I’d say just go 50/50 and keep the DSL around. You may also want to consider the slight possibility that you can’t reorder that DSL service if you cancel it. That would depend on FirstLight’s policies, and I don’t think Consolidated is starting to block access to copper from Competitive Local Exchange Carriers, at this point. I’m assuming that FirstLight is renting a Consolidated copper line, or two, to provide your DSL service, but I could be wrong.

I’ve had mine since October, and no complaints in that short time frame.

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Alkivar OP t1_j4dugh3 wrote

part of the appeal to changing service was to get more than 50/50 as the roommate games. 250/250 would work too. but for a difference of only $10 the 1GB package sounded better. and i'm fine with paperless billing and auto pay.

my cell signal is fine i've got Verizon, the issue is that I do a lot of remote desktop support, and I dont know if its reliable enough to use on any sort of regular basis for my daily tasks. In a pinch I'm sure I could use it to communicate, i just dont know about remote sessions and latency.

That is precicely why i'm investigating FirstLight told me they will NOT renew the service if I cancel it. My first plan was to see if I could upgrade bandwidth but they said no unless I switched to a business account but the pricing for that is about 6x as much as I currently pay for only a slight increase on the amount of bandwidth

FirstLight is rolling out FTTH in some locations in Maine, but they have no intentions of covering my area with that any time soon.

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bigspoutwhale867 t1_j4dy08d wrote

Gotcha. I’d say just keep in mind the $25 price bump in year 2. As long as it’s stable, it would beat the snot out of the DSL. I’d hope any growing pains with Fidium would be worked out by the time your area is live. As long as someone doesn’t get the ol’ fat fingers in your Fiber Distribtion Hub or the Ash St central office, it should be rock solid (barring acts of nature, pole hits, fiber cuts, and the large list of other stuff that can takes connections down).

And if you’re in a multi tenant building, just get your landlord on board (if applicable). Fidium will have to run a new drop, and then a fiber jumper to your desired location. They usually run the jumper on the outside and straight in via an ~1/2” hole, unless there’s conduit/interior path established that doesn’t require fishing and/or has a pull string.

And I know I don’t get why FirstLight let’s their FTTX network rot in L/A, in regards to residential service. Oxford Networks was gung-ho on it for a while, and decided to stop selling it to hyper focus on business even before FirstLight bought them out.

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Alkivar OP t1_j4f0hjy wrote

no worries about landlord... I own the building, tenants piggyback off my Wifi (I include it in the rent)... but they aren't around during the day (Bates students) when i'm working so they don't affect my bandwidth much.

yeah absolutely no idea why they are letting it rot. I remember going through having my street blocked for them to upgrade stuff on the poles and to pull fiber a while back so I know there is already fiber 50ft from my house on the pole. Oxford was so much better before Firstlight bought them. At that point in time I had upgraded to 150/20 DSL but when Firstlight bought them they removed that tier of service.

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