When people think of fiber they default to just 2 providers. TelOne and Liquid Home (Zol). Not many know of Telco and yet in my short time using their fiber it seems they actually are a competent alternative to the big 2. Service is really good, I have not had any faults yet so I am yet to find out what the response time is like in that scenario. Speeds have been as consistent as advertised. They are actually pretty good. So how do they compare on prices and speeds vs the competition?
In this article I will be focusing on just the fiber packages for each ISP. The categories they will be going head to head in are:
- Number of capped packages (More is better)
- Number of uncapped packages (More is better)
- Average speed of capped packages (More is better)
- Average speed of uncapped packages (More is better)
- Price per GB for capped packages (Less is better)
- Fair Usage Policy for uncapped packages (You decide)
Number of capped packages
| Liquid Home | TelOne | Telco |
|---|---|---|
| Fibroniks Zoom 10GB | Home Basic 10GB | Velocity 42 |
| Fibroniks Lite 40GB | Home Basic Night 10+10GB | Supervelocity 70 |
| Fibroniks Lite + (NO) 40+40GB | Home Extra 15GB | Supervelocity 95 |
| Fibroniks Basic Essentials 50GB | Home Plus 30GB | Supervelocity 165 |
| Fibroniks Basic Essentials + (NO) 50+50GB | Home Plus Night 30+30GB | Supervelocity 210 |
| Fibroniks Family Essentials 100GB | Home Premier 60GB | Supervelocity350 |
| Fibroniks Family Essentials + (NO) 100 + 100GB | Home Premier Night 60+60GB | |
| Fibroniks Come Alive 150GB | Home Surfer 100GB | |
| Home Boost 200GB | ||
| Infinity Pro 500GB |
The tally stands at 6 capped packages for Telco, 8 for Liquid Home and 10 for TelOne making TelOne the best when it comes to variety/choice.
(NO)-Night Owl
Number of uncapped packages
| Liquid Home | TelOne | Telco |
|---|---|---|
| Fibroniks Family Entertainment | Intense | Velocity Fire |
| Fibroniks Modern Family | Infinity Supreme | Velocity Ultra |
| Fibroniks Power Pack | Intense Extra | Velocity Xtreme |
| Fibroniks Turbo Pack | SuperVelocity Fire | |
| SuperVelocity Ultra | ||
| SuperVelocity Xtreme |
As for uncapped, TelOne makes do with 3 packages, Liquid Home has 4 and Telco has 6. So Telco takes the crown on variety of uncapped packages.
Average speed of capped packages
| Liquid Home | TelOne | Telco |
|---|---|---|
| Fibroniks Zoom 10Mbps | Home Basic 2Mbps | Velocity 2Mbps |
| Fibroniks Lite 10Mbps | Home Basic Night 2Mbps | Supervelocity 4Mbps |
| Fibroniks Lite + (NO) 10Mbps | Home Extra 2Mbps | Supervelocity 5Mbps |
| Fibroniks Basic Essentials 10Mbps | Home Plus 3Mbps | Supervelocity 5Mbps |
| Fibroniks Basic Essentials + (NO) 10Mbps | Home Plus Night 3Mbps | Supervelocity 5Mbps |
| Fibroniks Family Essentials 10Mbps | Home Premier 5Mbps | Supervelocity 5Mbps |
| Fibroniks Family Essentials + (NO) 10Mbps | Home Premier Night 5Mbps | |
| Fibroniks Come Alive 10Mbps | Home Surfer 5Mbps | |
| Home Boost 5Mbps | ||
| Infinity Pro 5Mbps | ||
| Average 10Mbps | Average 3.7Mbps | Average 4.3Mbps |
TelOne has the slowest overall capped speeds at an average speed of 3.7Mbps, Telco is ahead by a small margin at 4.3Mbps and Liquid Home has the biggest lead with an average speed of 10Mbps.
Basically all Liquid Home capped packages are set to 10Mbps. However this is what each ISP promises to give you. It does not mean that is what you’ll actually get due to factors like congestion during peak hours and depressed speeds when the network is not at it’s best.
Also note that 3.7Mbps is not slow. You can comfortably stream Netflix or YouTube videos with no buffering so it might be the slowest speed on the list but it’s plenty fast for browsing the web, scrolling in social media, streaming videos or music and even online gaming.
Average speed of uncapped packages
| Liquid Home | TelOne | Telco |
|---|---|---|
| Fibroniks Family Entertainment 20Mbps | Intense 20Mbps | Velocity Fire 10Mbps |
| Fibroniks Modern Family 30Mbps | Infinity Supreme 8Mbps | Velocity Ultra 15Mbps |
| Fibroniks Power Pack 50Mbps | Intense Extra 50Mbps | Velocity Xtreme 20Mbps |
| Fibroniks Turbo Pack 100Mbps | SuperVelocity Fire 10Mbps | |
| SuperVelocity Ultra 10Mbps | ||
| SuperVelocity Xtreme 20Mbps | ||
| Average 50Mbps | Average 26Mbps | Average 14.1Mbps |
Average speeds for uncapped. Telco is bottom of the pile at an average speed of 14.1Mbps but it’s already 4.1Mbps faster than the fastest capped package. TelOne is a good gap ahead at 26Mbps and Liquid Home is comfortably ahead with an average speed of 50Mbps.
Remember these are speeds that the different ISP promise. The speeds they will deliver may not always match the ones they promise for one reason or the other.
Price per GB for capped packages
| Liquid Home | TelOne | Telco |
| Fibroniks Zoom 10GB | Home Basic 10GB | Velocity 42 |
| Fibroniks Lite 40GB | Home Basic Night 10+10GB | Supervelocity 70 |
| Fibroniks Lite + (NO) 40+40GB | Home Extra 15GB | Supervelocity 95 |
| Fibroniks Basic Essentials 50GB | Home Plus 30GB | Supervelocity 165 |
| Fibroniks Basic Essentials + (NO) 50+50GB | Home Plus Night 30+30GB | Supervelocity 210 |
| Fibroniks Family Essentials 100GB | Home Premier 60GB | Supervelocity350 |
| Fibroniks Family Essentials + (NO) 100 + 100GB | Home Premier Night 60+60GB | |
| Fibroniks Come Alive 150GB | Home Surfer 100GB | |
| Home Boost 200GB | ||
| Infinity Pro 500GB | ||
| Z$111.62 per GB | Z$88.25 per GB | Z$111.01 per GB |
This one was very close. Liquid Home is the most expensive looking at price per GB by just 61 cents. TelOne is marginally cheaper. 20.7% cheaper on average than both Telco and Liquid Home. These prices are as at the time of writing this article so they can change. Just watch out for that.
Fair Usage Policy for uncapped packages
Also known as fine print. Fair Usage Policy (FUP) applies to uncapped packages and all it’s there to do is to ensure you don’t use more than what the ISP deems fair for the money you have paid.
TelOne’s FUP
For TelOne they have a data volume cap. So if you exceed a predefined number of gigabytes within a month on an unlimited package, they will disconnect you. This limit is 1TB or 1000GB for the Intense package and 2TB or 2000GB for the Intense Extra and the Infinity Supreme.
Liquid Home’s FUP
Liquid Home’s version works on your connection speed. When you use too much data especially during peak hours, at some point they will start throttling your connection speed. They have a health bar which shows you the level of throttling you will be experiencing and some possible ways of fixing it.
If the health bars are green you are safe and you have maximum speed. If they are orange then you might be getting slower speeds and you need to work on your downloads shedule. If it’s red then you are getting extremely slow connection speeds and you may want to either upgrade your package or be a night owl.
Telco’s FUP
At the time of writing, Telco informed me that they do not have any fair usage policy in place. Which is very interesting. I will definitely put it to the test since I am using it now and if anything changes I shall update this article.
That said, I personally would say Telco wins the FUP category because their unlimited has no buts…for now. TelOne comes second mainly because I’d rather empty my allocation at full speed rather than contending with a slow connection. Liquid home is 3rd because slow internet is worse than no internet for me.
Let me know which order you prefer in the comments.
Which ISP is the best?
The scores are up and before we celebrate I need to do some house keeping. In my scores, each category carries the same weight so it might not be ideal for you if you lets say put more weight on price per GB than on connection speed. And it’s ok. I have the tables in here with all the data so you can run a combination with a weighing that suits you.
I also did not include the FUP section in my tally because I think it’s subjective but if you think otherwise then come to the comments and let’s talk.
Right. It was close. Only 1 point separates all three ISPs which is impressive and also means overall you should get similar experiences across all of them.
Telco is 3rd on the list with 9 points. It’s strongest area was variety of uncapped packages and it weakest areas were variety of capped packages and average speed of uncapped packages.
TelOne is second on the list with 10 points and it’s strongest areas are variety of capped packages and the lowest price per GB. It’s weakest areas are number of uncapped packages and speed of capped packages.
Liquid Home is ontop with 11 points and it’s strongest areas are average speeds of both capped and uncapped packages with it’s weakest area being price per GB. But again it’s just a difference of 61c with Telco so they may as well be tied there.
That’s it. Liquid Home is the best ISP if we play with the numbers. I know this does not translate to the real world experience so I’m counting on you guys to give your experiences in the comments and help another Zimbo make a better buying decision.
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