[m2stech]

what's this etisalat's FTTH (Fibre to the home technology) exactly?
do we have to have like 16mb connection to feel the difference ?!

[badben25]

afaik it's an infrastructure upgrade. they use fiber optic cables now in all new buildings. it is supposed to make it more efficient and future proof.
your net connection speed will remain based on what subscription you have. if you've registered for a 512kbps connection, you will still have 512kbps unlike what some rumours were.
16mbps is only being associated with FTTH because the older cables being used for ADSL cannot support that speed, so if you want the 16mbps connection you need to have optical fiber cables in your building/house.
we recently moved to a new place and we have fiber here, and it's not much of a difference but i can still say it's kinda more 'reliable' now, as i don't have any random slowdowns and my downloads work very well. the ping i get when i play online has also reduced a bit but nothing even close to special. but overall i'll still the say the difference is negligible.

[Intel_P4]

Well we have this on the Palm as well in our villa and we have a 2mb line and when I'm downloading something such as a torrent it will usually go up to 220kb with no hiccups:)

[Life_Saver]

Fiber To The Home can be achieved through different technologies ..
Etisalat is using a technology called "Gigabit Passive Optical Network" aka GPON

GPON use passive equipment up to the home .. The final device at your home is called the Optical Network Terminal aka ONT .. This is the only active equipment (needs power)


The ONT Gives you 4 connections for your home .. Those connections are all RJ-45 that can be used for Phone line, Fax line, ISDN PRI (Not BRI), Cable TV and Ethernet Based Internet.

Each connection (In Theory) can go up to 100 Mbps .. However, A splitter connecting 32 Homes connects with 1 Gbps connection to the backbone .. so if we assume each home is using Full 100 Mbps on all 4 ports .. this makes it 12.8 Gbps which is bottleneck ..

Hence, Etisalat has put a limit of 16 Mbps per port .. which results total of 2 Gbps for all 32 homes ..

In reality, it's impossible to find 32 homes in an area with ALL of them having 4 Connections of 16 Mbps .. so in reality .. the backbone of 1 Gbps is good enough ..

For business areas, it's different, Etisalat uses splitter of 8 offices instead of 32 which allows business users to go much higher bandwidth (even up to 100Mbps)

If your home is covered already with GPON, then you can apply for Etisalat's new Internet Packages :
8 Mbps - 499 Dhs per month
16 Mbps - 549 Dhs per month

The plan is to cover All Abu Dhabi island by GPON by end of June.. For that, Etisalat has brought lots of technicians from PTCL (Pakistan) since they own PTCL now :)

For any more info, don't hesitate to ask ..

[Life_Saver]

Intel_P4 said:

Well we have this on the Palm as well in our villa and we have a 2mb line and when I'm downloading something such as a torrent it will usually go up to 220kb with no hiccups:)

I'm having 4mb connection on old technology ADSL .. and I still reach 500k in downloads :)

Of course, FTTH is much cleaner ..

[QuadDamage]

Thanks for input, Life Saver. Do you think Etisatal will slash the prices for 8/16MB and other palns any time soon?

[snipermk0]

QuadDamage said:

Thanks for input, Life Saver. Do you think Etisatal will slash the prices for 8/16MB and other palns any time soon?

No, they'll just make you sell your kidneys on ebay.

[QuadDamage]

Yeah i know man...

I've got the fibre so the 8/16MB bandwidth goodness is one phonecall away. But i refuse to pay over $150 for a ****ing 16MB there's no way those greedy mofo's are gonna get my money for a measly 16MB line i can get back at home for like 30/40 euros a month or maybe even less now.

[snipermk0]

Yep, true that.. There's nothing much you can do when its just ONE internet company playing the monopoly. Competition is unheard of and these corporate giants wont stop milking people off their money any time soon.

[Life_Saver]

QuadDamage said:

Thanks for input, Life Saver. Do you think Etisatal will slash the prices for 8/16MB and other palns any time soon?

8 and 16 are just introduced .. it's unlikely that prices will go down soon ..

But there might be a price drop on lower speeds during DSS or Gitex