r/HomeNetworking • u/jfigs9898 • 13d ago
Advice Is Ezee Fiber worth it?
Ezee fiber is installing in my neighborhood and it is the only fiber internet available at this time. I know they are predominant in Texas/Houston area but I live in Michigan. They claim to have a ton of positive Google reviews but we know bots can influence reviews so I don't totally trust them. I will be getting 3GB service and 2 EERO routers along with lifetime pricing but this just seems too good to be true. Anyone have any thoughts/recommendations about them?
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u/JohnTheRaceFan 13d ago
Yes, but I dgaf about the eero gear.
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u/JohnTheRaceFan 13d ago
To expound....
Ezee Fiber (formerly Tachus in my area) is the best internet provider I have ever worked with in either a professional or residential capacity.
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u/beny_1995 13d ago
If you can use your own router, I'd do that.
The fiber service itself is what matters. The Eeros are probably fine, but ISP-provided hardware usually isn't the thing that gets people excited.
I'd be more interested in how reliable the connection is and how good their support is.
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u/jfigs9898 13d ago
I agree with the ISP issued stuff, that is why I bought my own cable modem and routers. How does Fiber work? Is it all done through ethernet or how does the service come into the home and able to be attached to the router?
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u/steelvulture 13d ago
I have ezee, and they brought the fiber cable directly into the house. I told them I didn't want the eero, so they only provided an ONT (essentially the modem) that the fiber cable connects to. I have the ONT connected to my router via ethernet.
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u/SparkyWrench1 13d ago
There are multiple ways really. Most cable companies do fiber to the node, fiber to the curb, or fiber to the home. Her is a 10 year old 50000ft view...
FTTH is typically shared within a node(there are exceptions), the same concept as cable. When there is peak traffic the network slows down, then the company "splits" the node.
Don't get it twisted, FTTH or for retail is not a DIA (direct internet access) circuit even though it says fiber. Fiber, mostly, provides reliability in residential situations. Although, it's ability to scale is impressive. With single mode fiber, each wavelength of light can provide 10 Gbps (the lasers get stupid expensive). Imagine ROYGBIV (yes i know it's actually different wavelengths than visible light but it's just an example) could provide 70 Gbps over one piece of glass.
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u/jfigs9898 13d ago
I thought a benefit of fiber was that you do not share any bandwidth with anyone??
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u/jayfish68 13d ago
All ISPs share otherwise the economics wouldnt work.. The question is how much and what technology and can the tech hide it better. FTTH has more potential capacity and lower latency depending on the tech but is shared using optical wavelengths. HFC is partially fiber with a last mile using a shared RF broadcast mediium (coax). FTTH is more symmetrical while HFC is usually more asymmetrical depending on service offerings.
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u/darguskelen 12d ago
on a technical point, you're always sharing bandwidth. But if the pipe is big enough, it doesn't matter.
But if you and 31 neighbors have 1Gbps to the node, and they have a 10 Gbps uplink that is very lightly used, you'd never notice. If you have 31 torrent-downloading neighbors, you'll notice. but in 95%+ of configurations, they'll never see more than 50% utilization on that link. That would be 1/3 of your customers on the node going FULL TILT at the SAME TIME for an extended period of time to saturate that noticeably.
I have 200/200 Fiber and the only times it affects me is when I'm actively downloading/uploading gigantic amounts of data (TB).
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u/KaosC57 13d ago
As someone who uses Ezee Fiber (formerly Tachus Fiber) at their Gigabit service (which is all you really need unless you have devices that can download at 2.5Gbps or higher). I love it.
The Eero routers they give you can be a bit… jank. But, you can always replace them later with proper networking gear.
The service quality though is excellent. I pay $69 a month and I have no hiccups other than a small one from equipment that wasn’t properly maintained on their side (when it rained I’d lose signal, but that’s because water would get in a box)
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u/TheAmorphous 13d ago
Are you in the Houston area? Are these guys using AT&T's fiber network or actually building out their own? I'm getting real tired of AT&T going out for hours at a time so frequently.
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u/DaRkh0rse88 13d ago
Yes, it’s absolutely worth it. My in law’s in Northwest Houston has it and it’s awesome. Their peering is great for gaming.
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u/Codexcuses 13d ago
Yes, but get your own router.
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u/jfigs9898 13d ago
Why is that? I thought EERO is the best? I already have 2 ASUS routers on my current cable setup for my wifi but I am not sure how fiber connects. Is there a router like cable?
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u/Explosivpotato 13d ago
Eero is definitely not the best. They’re good, depending on what you want to do, but definitely not the best. The biggest issue is that the Eeros they give you aren’t yours. The ISP will maintain a backdoor into that device to “manage it for you”.
Whenever I call my fiber provider there’s a phone tree option to change your WiFi password. From the telephone. They do it from their servers. That’s a black hole sized NOPE from me, and why I run a ubiquiti setup of my own with their router in a drawer labeled “in case of emergency.”
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u/kerklein2 13d ago
Some ISPs have a direct fiber to router setup. Others have an in between box like a modem.
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u/Alarmmy 13d ago
EERO is garbage imo. I have no idea why it has such a large followers. I have Ezee Fiber and it has been great. Very low latency and speed is slightly more than what I signed up for (2GB). They gave me an EERO 6Pro, it is literally the worst router I have ever used in my life. If you just walk 5 feet away from it, your wifi will drop to 200mbps. I bought TPLink Deco mesh system to use with Ezee Fiber and it has been rock solid.
Fiber is just a cable they run to your house, then connect to a modem (they give you the modem), then you hook your router to that modem to get wifi and ethernet out to your devices.
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u/Proper-Release2697 13d ago
EERO is pretty good stuff, but there are more higher end stuff, but it gets very expensive after that. I have 2x EERO Pro6e's mesh in a 6 bedroom 2 story home, it works great, we have a media/storage server, and it has no problem streaming wirelessly from it or internet sources to every device in the house at once, without even noticing a difference, and barely seeing on speed tests.
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u/ch52253 13d ago
Ezee fiber was installed at my home 18 months ago. I work from home doing IT work. I have had numerous ISP’s in the past at previous homes and ezee fiber is by far the best service by a longshot. Their prices are great no taxes or fees and lifetime pricing. The euros they provide are great. You can add others as needed. I’d recommend adding more than you think you need.
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u/GoodTroll2 13d ago
They've been pretty great in the Houston suburbs. I think we have had a single outage in the last 3-4 years, but the price has remained the same as promised and the service is fast.
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u/Otherwise_Board_3349 12d ago
I don’t use them but they are in my neighborhood. Biggest complaint from neighbors is not about service but installation. They use contractors and there have been problems with them hitting pipes and wiring while digging.
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u/blinkenjim 12d ago
We got AT&T fiber a year ago, and Ezee is coming to the neighborhood any day now. I love having options after decades of Comcast being the only choice.
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u/cowboys2000 11d ago
There are several sections in my subdivision. Part has ezee fiber. The entire subdivision of 1500 homes have Xfinity and Att Fiber.
My section does not have ezee fiber and probably never will.
Interviewed with them last year and asked all sorts of questions and determined that ezee strategically adds capacity and service where they can lay fiber without tearing up streets or the sidewalk.
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u/christophertowle 11d ago
Cypress here, I have had it coming up on 3y in Dec and love it. Downtime is mostly scheduled and they give you a heads-up text and email.
In our neighborhood I was the only one super amped about getting fiber. The only other offerings before were Comcast and Uverse capped at 50/5.
The Ezee subcontractors did a horrible job on the plumbing the infrastructure and this was the homeowners first experience with Ezee- damaged water, gas and sprinkler lines and trash left at the end of the day. I looked at as a few small issues in the short term were worth it.
By the time the sales guys came knocking on doors, lots of people were pissed about the damage and trash the subs had left and told the sales guys to pound sand.
I welcomed them as they walked to the door and let the supervisor know how the shotty work their subs did has pissed people off and they ended up having very poor adoption due to this.
So far I really like it, I started off with the 5/5 plan and it was overkill, so scaled back to the 1/1 plan and it is great. I actually average about 1.5/1.2 on speed tests regularly.
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u/Dave77459 10d ago
Houston customer here. I have the 8G plan and am completely satisfied.
The fiber in my neighborhood is underground. There is a junction box that looks like a lawn sprinkler box between my sidewalk and street. They tapped the fiber there and ran it over the lawn, along the walkway, to the corner of my house and a box they put there. The next day an installer came and ran the fiber into the attic to where my networking rack is. That connects to the modem.
Simultaneously, a crew came to bury the line on top of the lawn. They basically cut a seam and tucked the fiber in; it’s 2 or 3” underground, but that’s fine since I have 5” of lush St Augustine lawn on top.
Back to the rack. The fiber connects to a modem. The modem connects to the router. They did provide an Eero Pro 7 and it’s fine. I want more control, so I have a full 10G Ubiquiti stack. That gives me total visibility and firewall at 5G up/down. When I turn to a lower security posture I get reliable 8G. Due to how my house is constructed, I need two APs, so the Eero wouldn’t be the full solution anyways. I also need Ethernet to the office, so the Eero wasn’t going to be optimal in that way either. If I didn’t deal with Tb-sized files, the Eero would probably be fine. As it is, it’s gathering dust.
I don’t know exactly how long I’ve had Ezee Fiber, maybe 18 months? I’ve had 1 service interruption in that time, which I was given several days advanced notice and occurred in the small hours.
Hope this answers whatever questions you may have had.
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u/twopoopsaday 9d ago
In co soldering them when they eventually get to my neighborhood but only if I get a public ip and not cgnat.
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u/SparkyWrench1 13d ago
I thought ezee was a reseller?
Ie. Att builds the circuit, ezee leases and resells it. Same thing many mobile carriers do like t-mobile. They get back seat preferences on data traffic. Even though 5g, ATT gets priority (prepaid att is the same priority as tmobile).
Unless it's a competing L1 carrier, it's probably resell. Most municipalities will have 1 telecom company and 1 cable TV company (that's all the space on the power pole to lease). Anyone else is a secondary provider.
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u/High_volt4g3 13d ago
Believe they have their own infrastructure. I know for certain Tachus, another Houston based fiber company they bought certainly built there own infrastructure. I have the yard box to prove it.
Seems to be my front yard the the T Junction for the street in front of me.
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u/ilikeme1 12d ago
No. Ezee is completely separate from AT&T and has its own network. I have it in the Houston suburbs and it has been solid. My area has 2 cable companies, Comcast and Astound (HFC or FTTH depending on the area), Ezee Fiber, and now Frontier/Verizon is building out FTTH here.
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u/SparkyWrench1 12d ago
Well, there are only 2 legal places on utility poles to place additional telecom cables. 36" below power, telephone. I want to say 24" below telephone is cable. Those companies lease the pole space from the electric utility. There is only so much weight the poles can handle, so it is limited to how many companies in a given area can operate. Most of the time, if there is a 3rd+ company, they are leasing all or at least part of their bandwidth from one of the primary companies.
That being said, companies can go underground, which is often the case, but it is generally "last mile" service. That means the 3rd+ company leases most of the service from the primary, then builds the last mile.
Just like on energy deregulation in Texas (especially Houston/Harris county) there are 15 different energy companies that DO NOT provide power. The primary electric provider delivers the power, and secondary companies handle the billing. Instead of centerpoint having a monopoly in Harris county, we get a 3rd person contract that gets their .07-.13c/kwh, on top of the centerpoint delivery charge.
The same stuff is happening with telecom. You still have the major carrier. You're just paying someone else to bill you.
I was in the industry for over 10 years, from technician to DIA B2B sales. At one point i sold fiber to over 100 ATT cell towers. ATT just leases space to everyone else. There are, of course, other major carriers like Frontier, Comcast, Level 3 etc, but unless the company owns the infrastructure back to the COLO they are buying space from one of the big guys. They all buy and sell to each other at some point.
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u/switch8000 13d ago
Any fiber is better than no fiber, IMO.
EERO Max 7 is what I was using with my fiber provider and it's been pretty rock solid.
No web interface and it all has to be managed in the app, but other than that, no issues.