Evaluation of INIT/FASTLINK fiber optic internet (which internet provider to choose in Lithuania)

Hello,

I present my unbiased assessment, at the beginning I will present my observations as reviews can also distort and make you choose the wrong choice. Who’s bored/focusing on instagram/tiktok is cooked, I immediately provide adoption:

Fastlink currently: 9/10. Speed/stutter test results: https://www.speedtest.net/result/19223945559 (Note: I have 10gb/s on their networks, but my hardware is only capable of 5gb/s so far).

Init limiting the assessment only as an internet provider: 8.25/10, but since they supported the TV channel vantikas until they closed it, I would not choose 0/10 (I only learned about such garbage when the Tapin case came out and they had to shake their pockets for lies).

I also want to say right away that this is just one person’s personal opinion/insight based on price/quality, there is really nothing wrong if you have the suppliers I criticize in this review and you are happy with them, that’s what the discussion/evaluations are for.

Why I’m rating:

Like everyone else, I choose products and services based on price/quality, and then reviews from mostly reddit/google reviews. I noticed while choosing that at certain moments the reviews are left only negative, or positive only for the players with the largest market, where the percentage of people who have it is more likely to be more satisfied. Also, as the years go by, certain companies also start to change their pricing, behavior in order to achieve their internal KPIs or to survive in the market. Partly forming an impression based on Internet reviews gives a certain distorted generalization about the whole market, because of which I want to honestly leave my rating, because the rating I will leave is exactly what I was looking for when choosing a new supplier. A plus will be a fresh review, because over time certain facts become outdated.

The context of why reviews of Internet providers are partially distorted:

When choosing an internet provider in the north of Vilnius, I googled all reddit discussions about it and basically the summary was as follows: A large majority of Lithuanian reddits recommend TELIA for stability and feel satisfied by paying much more for less, but with stability and internet without intermediaries (most internet lines belong to TELIA, all others are resellers with certain exceptions).

All the others who specifically answered about other suppliers, the majority were absolutely negative. Reading the comments creates a very negative image of other market players and it seems that if it is not TELIA, your internet will have 2x less data, crashes every month or week, nothing will be done about it.

Lithuanian internet providers basically (in a nutshell):

Telia:

Pluses: they are the most stable and the best, probably no one here will dispute that, they are monopolists and control the absolute majority of networks in Lithuania.

24/7 Technical Support: This is where they stand apart from other providers, apart from being the biggest. If this is extremely important to you, you can imagine that such a service is worth almost 2x the price for the same speed, which is exactly why I would personally choose TELIA.

A certain ecosystem: Another thing is a certain ecosystem, where TELIA can also get discounts for telephones, televisions (most are already catching up on this), more favorable conditions for buying the latest electronics, etc., because you get a bag of nonsense extra.

Service: I imagine the service will definitely be the best, the staff always try to be helpful when I ask about mobile or internet options, they don’t sound depressed.

Cons:

Price monopolists – They apparently don’t mind losing part of their customers in order to squeeze out the highest possible price for the same amount of data. Choosing Telia means you’ve learned the most expensive thing for less, period. Another aspect is that you basically support an established monopoly as well, although sometimes it cannot be otherwise, it is understandable.

Non-Lithuanian company (my personal opinion): Swedish EU company, everything is ok, but non-Lithuanian, when the quality/price is partly similar, I usually try to support Lithuanian capital or production, especially smaller ones, then the EU and

In reality, the whole other market (INIT, FASTLINK, Penki, etc.) except for other suppliers (as I have seen in Cgates/Balticum at the moment, but I cannot confirm):

Pluses:

2x/3x the price for essentially the same: Basically a myth that the internet will be absolutely unstable or bad/slow. My guess is that you will get the internet in real Telia networks for 2x/3x lower price for the same speed, unless there are some exceptions like the same FASTLINK, which has some of its networks in Vilnius and I am currently on it (spoiler alert: their networks have not disappointed so far). The speed contracts specify minimum, average and maximum speeds, so usually you won’t be hurt by that, and I haven’t experienced anything terrible about ping/latency/packets, etc., neither INIT nor FASTLINK while playing my competitive online games, which require a really stable and non-stuttering internet.

The possibility to further reduce the price: With all services that have more players and are not an absolute monopoly, more ambitious and smaller players can offer additional discounts, especially after signing up and at the end of the contract, when you say that you will leave, some internal fuses are immediately activated for them and they already have the freedom to offer absurd prices. Example: Init raised the price after the end of the contract, I said I’m leaving, they said sorry, we can’t do it otherwise. When I already submitted a rude letter that I refuse, I immediately received a call, and then magically I paid 10 eur, they wanted to raise about 13-14 eur, but now they already offered to stay paying 7 eur:). The same with mobile. network providers are, this must be played to get a normal price often.

Small companies with Lithuanian capital: it’s always a good feeling to support a small one, and Lithuanian capital (until you find out that there is some Russian stench among the shareholders :))

Cons:

There won’t be 24/7 help: here Telia is the only one who provides it, here is their horse.

The service will be more domestic: Well, maybe they will smile less, they will be less enthusiastic to sell you that internet, maybe the probability of talking increases, but basically you are not buying a person, but the internet, which after you connect it, you will see that service max 1-2 more times during the validity of the contract or even an extension.

Possibly bigger "non-discounted prices": one of the nonsense of these businesses is that with a discount, the prices on paper are 5-10 times lower than "regular’ price quoted by them. In my opinion, there is basically some kind of legal circumvention here, because they can’t impose penalties for earlier termination or transfer elsewhere, but everything is legal to set cosmonautics "the usual ones" prices and apply "very good" discounts, thus locking you in, because upon termination you will lose those discounts and basically pay a fine 😄. But I guess TELIA is probably not far behind in this, it uses the same trick.

My behavior after reading the reviews:

I didn’t ask reddit because already having INIT has not had drastic failures except once in two years when it disappeared on a Saturday night and then naturally fixed only on Monday morning. Even I myself will admit that I had left a dramatic review for some time that this is the worst supplier and I will not choose it again on Google, but in fact it is not the case (I would not choose it, because it gave ether to the vatniks).

Finally the feedback:

INIT (2 full years and about 5 months)

I chose it as a student who moved to Vilnius for the first time and didn’t have much money, because I was interested in the student discount of 9-10 euros for 1gb/s fiber optic cable.

Masters: 8.5/10, the only thing I remember was that they didn’t really know how to connect my router and left me to connect, everything else was basically ok.

Service: 7/10, nothing spectacular, when there was a problem it was hard to get in touch, sometimes even their website crashed when there were problems, but basically they fixed it over time, got in touch, got out to get what they wanted.

Internet 8.5/10: Well, the internet was really good, stable, the speed was good as ordered, I played my online games and had no problems, the only downsides were maybe 3-4 minor failures for about an hour in a couple of years, and then there was one big one on the weekend. Otherwise, everything was ok for me.

Moving to a new facility and no longer wanting a known waterman, I was interested in FASTLINK’s 10 gb/s offer, which no one else offers. A large portion of my paycheck goes to video games and other internet nonsense, so it’s kind of tempting for me to play at speeds that 95% of people won’t need.

FASTLINK (I have it for about a month, 17.90 eur/month for 10gb/s and suddenly the TV MAX app):

Masters: 8/10, Everything was basically a hatch, the master was a very good person, especially hardworking and he had to do all the work there changing the TV cable to fiber optic, only I realized that I had to clearly communicate what I wanted, because I wanted to connect my router again, and if I hadn’t asked to search and find only an internet sensor 10 gb/s, they would have already installed my router. It could also be seen that there were some misunderstandings between the foreman and the one who spoke with the manager, such as whether it would be necessary to pay for something, connect a TV app, etc.

Service: 8/10, The person I did the contract with was absolutely great, very energetic nice person and I felt very satisfied. However, my first experience knocks down the points significantly, because apparently the newly hired person was, or maybe mixed up, but I was categorically refused to provide FASTLINK services, because I wanted my router, not theirs. It was the first time and I thought that there might be something wrong with them with such an attitude, but it turns out that it was just an unintentional mania of the consultant.

Internet 10/10: So far, I really have no complaints, I use it intensively and I don’t see any signs of changes in the evening, where technically there should be the highest load of neighbors, etc. Their own networks, everything is stable, fast, no crashes or ping/latency/packet problems, everything is really great. And here is the most important thing in reality, because you will not live with the master and not with the service, but with the Internet.

TV 8/10: A lot of people also criticized their online app, but for me personally, although there are downsides, it’s really not tragic. At the moment, it is quite intuitive, performs its basic functions, although the UI may need to be improved in some places. I would say the biggest downside is the channels they offer, most of which seem to be of poor quality and I don’t watch half of them. There are also quite a few Russian ones, I personally do not watch this content. But I got it for free with the plan for some reason, so can I complain?
Summary:

I felt motivated at the beginning of writing, now I want to finish it, I will say it bluntly: chebra, TELIA is really not a no-brainer choice, TELIA is a monopolistic and non-Lithuanian price, it is just as good quality as really all the others and stands out mainly for its service and 24/7 support. In my opinion, it’s really not worth 2x 3x the price, but it’s up to everyone to decide personally, I really don’t care who wants that help/stability and doesn’t mind the higher price, to each their own. But another conclusion would be that the other players are described a little too badly, and TELIA gets disproportionately too much love. Hi there.