What's the best thing about fibre broadband? Well it's not TV on demand, not even HD movie streaming, and definitely not video calls with your granny. The best thing about fibre is never having to think about your internet connection again. Programmer Darryl Clark lifts the lid on life in the fast lane...
The first rule of fibre club is: you do not talk about fibre club (or at least not after the first month of having it). Why? Well, do you remember when you had dial-up? You couldn't use the phone at the same time as browsing the internet! You had to plan downloads in advance. You didn't stop thinking about your connection speed - or lack of it.
Then you moved to ADSL and were overcome by the dizzying speeds. Along came YouTube, Flash websites and possibly children to drag your connection back to a crawl. Now there are tablets, smart phones, interactive televisions, iPlayer, games consoles and a myriad of other connected devices all sucking the life out of your national average 6Mbit/s ADSL broadband speed (Ofcom Nov 2012). And you're back to thinking about your connection speed again.
Make the move to fibre optic and the connection speed average is 41.0Mbit/s. During the first month you'll shout this from the rooftops. You'll lose on average 12.4 friends on Facebook who will be bored to tears by your constant bandwidth boasting. Then suddenly your fibre optic connection will no longer be the first thing you think about in the morning. Why? A falling out? No need for it? No, because it will become like everything else useful, a stalwart, a silent hero, the 4th emergency service.
Nobody yearns for a faster electricity connection or ten times more gas pressure. If I want to turn all of the lights on in my house then I'll do it without thinking. It's the same with fibre broadband. If all four members of my house want to be connected on a device whilst we also watch Paul and Mary mock lopsided Victoria sponges on iPlayer then it will just happen.
The only time I think about my connection now is when it's cruelly robbed from me by a cursed technical glitch (less likely as fibre optic is more stable than full copper broadband). It's only then that I realise how much I need/want/depend on/demand/can't live without my fibre broadband connection.
My name is Darryl Clark. I have "up to 40Mbit/s" fibre optic broadband and the last time I checked my download speed was 38Mbit/s. Unfriend me if you want but I am superfast and proud.
Darryl is a programmer for Westhill Communications
