Is All Fibre Unreliable? How to find a quality service provider

There’s a big noise about how fibre prices are tumbling as it reaches a lot more towns and communities faster than ever.

But there’s also a bit of steam developing around an increasingly pressured pot of fibre contractors wrecking local infrastructure and disrupting other networks in the process. And it’s having a big impact on everyday home and business Internet users in many areas outside the major metropoles.

The upshot is, people aren’t sure fibre’s the way to go and, if they’re willing to give it a crack, which providers can they trust?

How Do You Know Who’s Reliable?

The trouble is the way these networks are installed. People in some communities are furious about the indelicate operations of these inept contractors bungling basic civils contracting tasks like trenching.

For ordinary people, it disrupts the delivery of essential services and it has made the concept of fibre reliability a bit of a joke in many areas outside the major centres. So much so that many people who switched from wireless to fibre hoping for exceptional bandwidth at low prices have swung back. They prefer the dependability of a professional offering at a good price.

But which service providers can you trust? It’s hard to tell and the troubles around fibre never seem to involve the names of companies that commonly appear in the media.

A lot of the fibre service providers don’t install it themselves. They sub-contract. While the fibre guys themselves have a licence that binds them to regulated standards and service levels, their sub-contractors have escaped this oversight. Unregulated and ungoverned, these inexperienced and unskilled contractors are ripping up neighbourhoods, towns and their important infrastructure, like electricity and other internet networks.

Routinely wrecking electricity and fibre networks makes them unreliable so people who subscribe to these services suffer constant interruptions. Because several contractors tend to swoop on an area simultaneously, there is a lot of opportunity for this type of problem. And they seldom own up to their blunders, which means repair crews for both electricity and the other fibre networks first have to find a break before they can repair it, which can take hours or days.

Why You can depend on these Fibre guys

Wireless networks do use cables, often the fibre itself, but not typically in the neighbourhoods where these contractors are messing it up. They use it to connect multiple towers or to connect wireless networks from one town to another, so it doesn’t get interrupted.

Most wireless Internet service providers (WISP) are WAPA members. WAPA exists to regulate the industry, working with government and service providers to ensure regulated standards are applied and adhered to. This means you can trust a WAPA member to provide a quality service, regardless if it's wireless or fibre. And you can find a list of approved service providers on our website. Use our Find a Provider tool and they will contact you.

Find a Provider now.