Originally Posted by
Snoopy
Enable rolled their cable past my gate around five years ago. I remember an Enable guy came around asking if I was interested in switching to broadband fibre, which I said I wasn't. Then he had another go asking if I thought I might change my mind in the next six months. This is fair enough and sensible marketing. Although nothing happened as I presume the neighbours at the time didn't want fibre broadband either. Subsequent neighbours did want fibre broadband. But that installation required permission from a third property tenant which they did not give (my immediate neighbour and the third party tenant did not get on). So nothing subsequent happened on that second occasion. Roll forward to today and there is -apparently- a kind of 'push' strategy going on: to get customers onto fibre that have not ordered it. Maybe Enable are taking the very long term view and such a strategy is sensible? Or maybe their installation contractors are 'in between new suburbs', so Enable need to find them work to do in the interim? (these days if you let contractors go, you might not get them back).
There is little doubt that fibre broadband is the best broadband technology from a performance perspective. But there is also little doubt that many broadband users find something 'less than the best' (in your case VDSL, in my case fixed mobile) more than good enough. The key comment you make about switching 'being a low priority' certainly resonates with me. And with the likes of Spark dangling so called 'fixed mobile' deals in front of their customers, there is often a low priority to seek out fibre alternatives when fixed wireless is offered. Perhaps the only way to compete with 'fixed mobile' is to have fibre broadband ready to go on the doorstep?
We have a special case in Christchurch where Chorus own the copper wires and Enable own the fibre. So maybe Enable are on a mission to 'get rid of Chorus' from Christchurch? I say that because once an alternative service is available, Chorus plan to eventually phase out their copper line service (which means more customers for enable or one of the fixed wireless providers). But if Chorus pull out their copper lines from Christchurch, then that means they are guaranteed to lose customers. I guess network dynamics are different when the owners of the copper and the owners of the fibre are different!
SNOOPY
P.S. Note that if you do decide to move away from VDSL but you change your mind later, your phone company will most likely not allow you to go back.