FTTH Journey:
With the release of the new FCC Broadband Map we learned of my friend’s availability of Fiber to the Home from Windstream Communications. In the area normally Windstream was a legacy DSL provider with Service Electric Cablevision the only viable provider for any kind of speed over 20mbps. Though, recently with Windstream going private, they have promised FTTH to most if not all DSL customers in the next coming years, and in the area of South Eastern Pennsylvania they have hit the ground running opening up FTTH for a lot of homes in the area. After that awesome conclusion was found out putting all the pieces together for my friend Jacob and his mother to have the smoothest transition from their legacy cable provider to FTTH was the topic most important.
Pricing Differences:
As you can tell even after the introductory price it is still much cheaper for better technology and a faster speed and it was a no-brainer to switch.
Pre Requisites Before Install of Fiber Service:
With the journey, the first thing that needed to happen was getting their own equipment as currently they were renting from the cable provider and was fed up with how poor the Wi-Fi signal was in their 1940’s rail home. So I recommended the ASUS RT-AX55 a mix between speed and cost with a great WebUI and some advanced features on top of it all. 
Installation of Fiber Service:
Completing the signup for fiber service through Windstream went easy and soon was scheduled for Wednesday, November 23rd a day before Thanksgiving. Note, Jacob’s family did sign up on that Monday and he was astonished by the quick turnaround time supplied by Windstream. The closer the day came and on the 23rd Jacob got a message telling us when to expect a technician to arrive.
From what I was told by my friend Jacob, Todd was very friendly and we both were currently learning about Fiber in a CTC program and Todd was glad to answer any question Jacob could ask someone who has had first-hand experience on the topic. He was a very knowledgeable technician, his installation was also very minimal with drilling the smallest hole possible while filling it up to keep all the critters out once they were finished. Since Jacob elected not to get the Windstream router he was left with an ONT (Optical Network Terminal) which converts the fiber light waves into copper ethernet wiring to traverse through your home to most likely your Wi-Fi router. No Cable Modem is needed anymore! Todd before he left made sure the internet was working and everything was provisioning correctly.
Gotcha’s Or Maybe Not?
- In the terms and conditions you find this section calling your internet DYNAMIC HSI finding it out that your speeds could be from 500mbps to up to 800mbps! With you only paying the 500mbps price, I can confirm in regular speed tests performed throughout the day Jacob regularly hit’s near 800mbps wired with very low ping.
Speed Test Results
![ASUS Router SpeedTest]()
- The billing portal was promptly activated about a day after the installation took place documenting all the charges that took place. The only issue was they thought they were using the Kinetic Gateway but after a quick online chat with Kinetic Support it was cleared up and removed from our bill promptly.
First Bill Statement Costs:
- Service Cost: $39.99/month 12-month introductory price
- Auto Pay Discount $5.00/month
- One-Time Activation Fee $60.00 (Running the New Fiber Cable & ONT Cost) One-Time Charge
Consensus
Overall, from what I have been told by Jacob the service has been rock solid, and he is glad to have the increase in download speeds and especially upload speeds. Unlike cable, fiber is symmetrical so if you get 800mbps down you get the same back on your upload speed.
