Fibre Rollout now in my area

[Sunshine]

Hi there,
Sorry if I am posting in the wrong section/website but I do live in the sticks and looking for some advice. 
I got great advice in the past. 
I use a sim box with a Vodafone sim for getting internet into my house. I have never experienced much trouble with this set up.
I think it went down twice and used my phone with a gomo sim as a hot spot on those occasions.
I work from home full-time so really need 100% reliability.

I had a visit from a Vodafone salesperson this week to say that fibre is now in my area.
They are offering a package for €40 per month and thereafter with 500 mbps download speed.

I was surprised to learn fibre was in my area so did a search on nbi website and my house is listed.

So I am now thinking I should switch to fibre but with which provider?
What are the advantages of this over the current set up with modem?

I ain’t techical minded. 

We don’t do gaming and only use internet for Netflix and my working from home. I use teams for meeting as well.
Thanks all for advice.

[Seán]

If your current mobile broadband set up is working well and fast enough for your needs, it might be worth holding off depending on the price you are currently paying or until you notice a deterioration in your speed.

I wish I could say that about the Three service in my area, which has severely deteriorated due to their recent energy saving measures reducing network capacity, e.g. switching off 4G band 1 cells. For comparison, there have been a few evenings where we could not stream TV without constantly seeing the buffering circle.

The main benefit with Fibre will be better latency, so if you had any issue with Teams, WhatsApp calls, VoIP, etc. such as glitchy audio, this is one thing fibre would improve.

The only main drawback I hear about fibre is reliability as there is a risk of losing service such as from trees falling on lines during storms, underground damage from construction, etc. Even then, you can use your phone as a hotspot during a fibre outage.

Vodafone does have a catch with its broadband pricing - They increase it by 3% + CPI every April, which they call their Annual Price Adjustment. For example, the annual CPI to January 2023 was 7.8%, so they increased the prices of existing customers by 10.8% in April:

Annual Price Adjustment: If you are a new, upgrading or re- contracting customer on or after 31st January 2023 with a minimum term of 6, 12, 18 or 24 months, your agreement will be subject to an annual price adjustment in April of each year. This means your monthly Price Plan charge will increase by an amount equal to the annual Consumer Price Index rate published by the Central Statistics Office in January of each year (this is the “CPI rate”) plus an additional 3% of your Price Plan charge to reflect ongoing investments we make in our fixed network, products and services. This will be applied from your April bill. In the event that the CPI rate is negative, then no CPI amount is applicable but the additional 3% will still apply.

On the other hand, most providers work out more over the first 12 months on average and especially after the 12 months are up, e.g. Digiweb is €35 for 6 months, then €50 for the next 6 months and €55 thereafter.

The following page shows the list of broadband suppliers that use the NBI service:

https://nbi.ie/where-can-i-buy/

[Sunshine]

Thanks for that feedback.
Yes I am happy with sim box and I am only paying 20 a month.
So it's doing me fine.
I guess I would get higher speed with fibre but my speed at the minute suits my needs.
Looks like they are ahead of the rural fibre roll out which is good for those that need it.