So I finally got Fiberlink installed on 9th of January (almost two months after ordering and paying for the connection). Seeing how many people are still in doubt over whether or not to get a Fiberlink connection, I thought I would share my experience to help them in their decision a bit.
First of all, I would like to thank everyone on this forum who have shared their experience in the past. It was through this forum that I came to know about Fiberlink and realized that there was a way to get relief from constant mental torture by PTCL. I won't go into much detail about the condition of my PTCL connection as I am sure nearly everyone is aware of their infrastructure and treatment of their customers.
I ordered Fiberlink on 8th November. The process of ordering the connection was very simple. I messaged them on Facebook with my number and everything else went along fairly quickly. I was promised a deployment time of about 30 days by their representative from Karachi, from whom I initially got all the information on packages and installation cost. However, the rider which came along to receive payment told me that they will take a minimum of 45 days to start the installation. Upon inquiring about why that was the case, he gave some vague answer about licensing procedure and getting permissions etc. He did advise me to stay in contact with Usman (03125811481) and urge him to deploy my connection faster. I paid a total of PKR 7,850 (5,000 installation fee plus 2,850 for the first month of 35 Mbps connection).
When about 30 days had passed, I started trying again and again to contact Usman, but he never picked up the call. In the end, when no other option manifested, I called their support number (021111456123) and asked them to look into the matter. They gave me Shuja's number (03132204032) and told me to contact him as he apparently oversees deployment of new connections in Lahore.
Shuja is much more gracious in receiving calls as compared to Usman and he assured me that he will see that my connection is installed within two weeks (a month had already passed since my payment). He did not keep his promise though and I had to call him again and again to get a new tentative date of installation. In the first few days of January, his number always started going busy. So I decided to try some different way to get their attention. I called the support number again and told them about the whole situation. They asked me my details and said that they have forwarded the complaint to Lahore office.
The very next day Fiberlink's team came to lay down fiber till my home. They completed the wiring and splicing and told me that a different guy would come later to install the modem and router. Another guy came two days later to complete the rest of the setup. I was under the impression that they were going to provide the router along with the ONU device, however, the policy seems to have changed now and he only installed the ONU device. He gave me the username and password for the connection and told me how to set it up on the Wi-Fi router.
Fiberlink binds the MAC address of your router or PC to your particular connection. So you cannot directly use the modem with any other device without first contacting them or cloning the MAC address of your previous device. I changed my router soon after installation so I had to contact the support on WhatsApp to ask them to change my MAC address to the new router. It's a five to ten-minute process and they obtain and update the MAC address automatically.
So it has been about a week since I have been using Fiberlink and it has been an awesome experience so far. I was a bit skeptical when I read about some issues which people faced on this forum, but then I thought how much worse can it get as compared to PTCL? I know it is still early for me to say but I am very happy with what I am getting with Fiberlink. Here are the speed tests that I have conducted since Fiberlink was installed. Speed has been fairly constant throughout and saying that pings have been satisfactory would be undermining the results. I don't game a lot so I cannot speak about that aspect but streaming and downloading have been very good so far. YouTube nearly always streams at 1080p without any issues. There was a period of about 5-6 hours when I was getting slower streaming speed, but that was solved automatically and hasn't arisen again since. Netflix works like a charm and I am yet to notice the automatic video quality going below FullHD. I get about 4 to 4.5 MBps transfer rate on IDM. On torrents, I am yet to get speeds higher than 3.5 MBps, even during double speed time period after 2 AM. Fiberlink does give synchronous uploads and downloads speeds. I saved my photos and video collection (about 200 GB) on Google photos in under 20 hours. I do get double upload and download speeds (8 to 9 MBps on IDM) after 2 AM till 11 in the morning, so that is also a huge plus point.
The only downtime I faced was on 16th January after 1:30 AM, which lasted till 10 AM. I contacted the support through WhatsApp (it's actually pretty amazing that they replied at that hour) and they told me that it was some issue in the setup at Lahore office and it will be resolved in a few hours. Other than that the connection has been very stable and reliable. It's still early for me to judge the reliability aspect but so far I have no complaint whatsoever.
In the end, I would like to say that this is probably the cheapest and best internet option in Pakistan as far as I am aware. I don't know how long it will last or if it will keep working as it is now, but at the moment I am more than satisfied with their services and can easily recommend this to anyone. There will be a long wait before installation but believe me when I say it, what you get will be worth the wait.
First of all, I would like to thank everyone on this forum who have shared their experience in the past. It was through this forum that I came to know about Fiberlink and realized that there was a way to get relief from constant mental torture by PTCL. I won't go into much detail about the condition of my PTCL connection as I am sure nearly everyone is aware of their infrastructure and treatment of their customers.
I ordered Fiberlink on 8th November. The process of ordering the connection was very simple. I messaged them on Facebook with my number and everything else went along fairly quickly. I was promised a deployment time of about 30 days by their representative from Karachi, from whom I initially got all the information on packages and installation cost. However, the rider which came along to receive payment told me that they will take a minimum of 45 days to start the installation. Upon inquiring about why that was the case, he gave some vague answer about licensing procedure and getting permissions etc. He did advise me to stay in contact with Usman (03125811481) and urge him to deploy my connection faster. I paid a total of PKR 7,850 (5,000 installation fee plus 2,850 for the first month of 35 Mbps connection).
When about 30 days had passed, I started trying again and again to contact Usman, but he never picked up the call. In the end, when no other option manifested, I called their support number (021111456123) and asked them to look into the matter. They gave me Shuja's number (03132204032) and told me to contact him as he apparently oversees deployment of new connections in Lahore.
Shuja is much more gracious in receiving calls as compared to Usman and he assured me that he will see that my connection is installed within two weeks (a month had already passed since my payment). He did not keep his promise though and I had to call him again and again to get a new tentative date of installation. In the first few days of January, his number always started going busy. So I decided to try some different way to get their attention. I called the support number again and told them about the whole situation. They asked me my details and said that they have forwarded the complaint to Lahore office.
The very next day Fiberlink's team came to lay down fiber till my home. They completed the wiring and splicing and told me that a different guy would come later to install the modem and router. Another guy came two days later to complete the rest of the setup. I was under the impression that they were going to provide the router along with the ONU device, however, the policy seems to have changed now and he only installed the ONU device. He gave me the username and password for the connection and told me how to set it up on the Wi-Fi router.
Fiberlink binds the MAC address of your router or PC to your particular connection. So you cannot directly use the modem with any other device without first contacting them or cloning the MAC address of your previous device. I changed my router soon after installation so I had to contact the support on WhatsApp to ask them to change my MAC address to the new router. It's a five to ten-minute process and they obtain and update the MAC address automatically.
So it has been about a week since I have been using Fiberlink and it has been an awesome experience so far. I was a bit skeptical when I read about some issues which people faced on this forum, but then I thought how much worse can it get as compared to PTCL? I know it is still early for me to say but I am very happy with what I am getting with Fiberlink. Here are the speed tests that I have conducted since Fiberlink was installed. Speed has been fairly constant throughout and saying that pings have been satisfactory would be undermining the results. I don't game a lot so I cannot speak about that aspect but streaming and downloading have been very good so far. YouTube nearly always streams at 1080p without any issues. There was a period of about 5-6 hours when I was getting slower streaming speed, but that was solved automatically and hasn't arisen again since. Netflix works like a charm and I am yet to notice the automatic video quality going below FullHD. I get about 4 to 4.5 MBps transfer rate on IDM. On torrents, I am yet to get speeds higher than 3.5 MBps, even during double speed time period after 2 AM. Fiberlink does give synchronous uploads and downloads speeds. I saved my photos and video collection (about 200 GB) on Google photos in under 20 hours. I do get double upload and download speeds (8 to 9 MBps on IDM) after 2 AM till 11 in the morning, so that is also a huge plus point.
The only downtime I faced was on 16th January after 1:30 AM, which lasted till 10 AM. I contacted the support through WhatsApp (it's actually pretty amazing that they replied at that hour) and they told me that it was some issue in the setup at Lahore office and it will be resolved in a few hours. Other than that the connection has been very stable and reliable. It's still early for me to judge the reliability aspect but so far I have no complaint whatsoever.
In the end, I would like to say that this is probably the cheapest and best internet option in Pakistan as far as I am aware. I don't know how long it will last or if it will keep working as it is now, but at the moment I am more than satisfied with their services and can easily recommend this to anyone. There will be a long wait before installation but believe me when I say it, what you get will be worth the wait.
