Thursday, February 23, 2012

LuxFibre / LuxFiber - The Real FAQ

Based on my experience with LuxFibre, here are some of the question you wish would be answered in the LuxFibre FAQ.
How long does it take for me to be connected?
In my case it took 4 month. Be prepared to wait, they claim the demand is high.
Do I get Fiber-Optics to my home?
Not necessarily. At least LuxFibre-30 is actually VDSL (FTTN). According to other sources, the LuxFibre-50 and LuxFibre-100 options could actually be FTTH.
What about the Fibre-Optics FAQ on the homepage?
All that applies only if you actually get fiber. This includes the speed promises.
The Internet-FAQ does apply.
So what speed do I get?
If you do get fiber-optics, you should get the full speed.
If you end up with VDSL, you get the maximum your line will give you. In this respect P&T is great - other carriers only give you whatever they think the line will do. In my case, I get 15/5 (promise: up to 30/10)
What about my phone line?
You will have a VOIP phone line. In practice this means that your analog phone needs to be plugged into your router. If you had multiple phone jacks in your house before, you are now limited to just this one.
Extra features on the phone line?
It seems like I now have number transmitted on both incoming and outgoing calls. This has changed from before.
And my IP address?
You will get a real IPv6 address (you may need to Enable IPv6 on the P&T site and on your router.)
You will get a private (NATed) IPv4 address.
What if I want a real IPv4 address?
You can book this separately as an option. It costs a little extra. Unfortunately you cannot request it on the phone, you have do to so in writing. I requested mine about 8 business days ago and it still have not got it.
What about my Integral package with unlimited download volume?
Beware! Some people I've spoken with said that their Integral was disabled, and that they raked up quite a high bill in the first month! Therefore I immediately checked with their support, and apparently my Integral package was kept.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

LuxFibre 30 - Fraudulent labeling

I was really excited: "P&TLuxembourg is very pleased to announce that Ultra High Speed internet access will be available in the Grand Duchy in September 2011! [...] For some years now, P&TLuxembourg has been actively preparing to install fibre optics throughout the country. Many districts are thus already connected and prepared for the commercial launch. The commercial name for the Ultra High Speed connection will be "LuxFibre". It will give Luxembourg households internet access at record speeds of up to 100 Mbit/s for both downloading and sending information, which is much faster than current residential connections.

When the offer is launched in September 2011, around 85% of households will be able to connect at speeds of up to 30 Mbit/s and around 25% for speeds of up to 100 Mbit/s.

See the full article LuxFibre at P&T.

Unfortunately, in September when LuxFibre started, my address was not eligible.

However in October I checked again, and LuxFibre-30 is available. The promised speed: 30 MBit downstream, 10 MBit upstream. Check out the LixFibre Homepage. Note that the only claim on that page is "Ultra high-speed internet access". Indeed, except for the name "LuxFibre" there is no promise of Fibre anywhere.

Of course, when you click on "FAQ", there is a special FAQ for "La Fibre Optique", explaining how the optical fiber works, and what appliances are needed. Read again: There is no connection between LuxFibre-30 and the FAQ about fiber optics. There is none. Would there be any obvious connection, then P&T would be falsely advertising. They are not. They are advertising "ultra high speed".

Today ( Feb 1st, about 3 month after I ordered ) I finally got LuxFibre-30. I was excited. Finally, a next-generation fiber-optical Internet? Then why did the technicians not put in a new optical cable? Why is all they added yet another vDSL Splitter? The answer is simple:

LuxFibre-30 is vDSL!

Now, as you can see from the links above, it is clearly my fault that I assumed just because it has "Fibre" in the name, that it would have anything to do with Fibre-Optics. It is also my fault, that I assumed, since there is an FAQ on fiber-optics, which claims fiber is soo much better than ADSL, that I would not get just another DSL.

It is even my fault that I did not see the fine print, where it states that 30/10 is the maximum speed, and since I'm too far away from the next  station, I only get 15/5 [at the full price of 30/10!]. By the way: the FAQ states, that with fiber-optics, distance to the next station would not be an issue anymore, unlike with ADSL.....