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Residents of Big Apartment Blocks Favour Ultrafast FTTH Broadband

Monday, Jun 13th, 2016 (4:59 pm) - Score 805

A new online survey of 2,000 Multi Dwelling Unit (MDU) residents in the U.S. and Canada, which was conducted by RVA LLC on behalf of the FTTH Council Americas, has claimed that apartments with pure fibre optic FTTH broadband suffered fewer service woes and attracted a higher value.

The results, which were analysed via various breakdowns including differences between MDU owners (condominiums) and renters (apartments), found that when given a list of common apartment amenities most renters (81%) rated very high-speed / reliable broadband as “somewhat” or “very important“; this made it the number one most desired amenity (i.e. above having a washer / dryer in the unit [76%] or a balcony / patio [69%]).

MDU owners also rated very high-speed / reliable broadband as 81%, although oddly it only achieved 2nd place here after the desire for a washer / dryer (82%). As a side note one of the other amenities listed was a “choice of multiple broadband providers“, which scored 60% for renters and 61% for owners (about midway down the table).

The research also indicated that MDU residents with ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) connections only had to “reboot their broadband” (we assume they mean a router) approximately one time per month, which compared to an average of two times per month for those with other types of broadband. FTTH users also reported making calls to customer service 1.4 times annually, compared to 2.0 times annually for other broadband users.

MDU residents were then asked if they would recommend their current broadband service to a friend and those with FTTH appear to be more likely to do this than people who use other methods of connectivity. In a similar way the study noted a possible link with the impact of broadband on overall property satisfaction (FTTH users said they were 74% satisfied with their MDU property and non-FTTH users returned a score of 65%).

mdu_broadband_study_recommendations

MDU residents were then asked a series of questions designed to determine if a non-FTTH based MDU homes would have to be discounted to be purchased or rented vs an FTTH residence and by how much.

RVA LLC Study Extract

Respondents were then asked what discount would have to be given for them to purchase or rent the non-fiber optic home over the fiber home (or the converse for the few that answered alternatively). Answers were based on a $300,000 [£210,940] condominium or on a $1,000 [£703] monthly rent apartment.

Netting all the figures, MDU renters noted an average monthly discount of $80 [£56] (8 percent) would be required to select the non-fiber apartment. MDU owners suggested an average discount of $8,628 [£6,066] (2.8 percent) to purchase a non-fiber condominium. (Note: Similar results were obtained in the parallel study for those considering purchase of single family homes.)

Broadly speaking what this boils down to is the fact that a good quality and ultrafast broadband connection does improve the experience of residents and may also affect property value, which is something that plenty of other surveys appear to echo. On the other hand we don’t know enough about the US and Canadian side of the MDU market in order to compare them with the UK.

However the decision about how much you pay for a house will always come down to the simple matter of personal choice, which is different for everybody, but for most people access to such connectivity is clearly now a key part of that equation.

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Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
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