More families are working and studying from home this month, and many are wondering if their broadband has the capacity to handle it. With UTOPIA Fiber you can sign up for symmetrical speeds of 250 Mbps, 1 Gbps, and 10 Gbps. Speeds that are guaranteed to keep your family happily streaming, learning, and downloading with zero lag time.

We talked with a UTOPIA Fiber customer who has 1 gig speeds to see how he is fairing during this unprecedented time. Scott is a software engineer who lives in West Valley City and works on high-end data storage systems. Here is what he had to say about his 1 gig residential service from UTOPIA Fiber.

Are you currently teleworking?

I am teleworking. I started a few months ago for only a few days a week. Then we did a ‘Clear the Air’ event at work in February and I worked 4 days a week from home for the month. Then came the pandemic, and now I work full time from home.

How long have you been a UTOPIA Fiber customer? Did you start with 1 gig speeds or upgrade?

I have been with UTOPIA Fiber since May 2018, and I was thrilled when I got it. I was lucky in the sense that the crew came to install the fiber just as we were building out the basement. The ceiling was open and that made for an easier install. I started with 250/250 Mbps and then moved up to a gig when it became clear that I’d be working from home indefinitely.

How many devices does your household typically have connected to internet?

My internet connection currently supports up to 26 devices, including computers, a camera, a couple of TVs and some smart speakers.

What do you typically use the internet for?

We typically use the internet for video streaming, music, blogging, browsing, online banking, and education. I have never seen any buffering or lag. We have had a very snappy connection, even at 250/250 Mbps.

What speeds are you getting with a direct wired connection? What speeds are you getting over Wi-Fi?

I haven’t done a direct wire to modem test, but I’ve got a good wired connection to test from. Ookla results show usually 800-900 Mbps up and down. Wi-Fi speeds are often lower, my best reading recently was around ~600 Mbps using a Google Pixelbook Go with Google Wi-Fi routers. Typically, I get 300-400 Mbps.

After experiencing 1 gig fiber network speeds, would you move into a home or neighborhood just because they offer a fiber connection?

Yes. Before we bought our first house, I had been plotting to get a home that was connected to UTOPIA Fiber. We moved here in 2014 and I was still lobbying and advocating for UTOPIA Fiber. For 10 years I had made phone calls, contacted my city council, wrote articles and showed up at city hall meetings to get it. Now that I have it, I’m not moving, and I have no plans to move in the foreseeable future. And I still advocate for UTOPIA Fiber when an opportunity presents itself.

What do you consider the biggest benefit of having 1 gig speeds in a residential home?

Even with 250/250 Mbps, I never came close to saturating the network. But I figured I could upgrade and try it out to see if there was much of a subjective difference. I think I notice a difference when I’m working remotely. Google Drive seems much faster now. All I know for sure is that what I have now, UTOPIA Fiber service, is vastly superior in every respect to the service provided by incumbent ISPs. Price, performance, reliability, and customer service with UTOPIA Fiber are unmatched by any other ISP I’ve ever worked with before. I’ve never seen an outage. Thank you, UTOPIA Fiber, for a fantastic service that I would heartily recommend to anyone who might inquire.