"All our connections are now very smooth"

Hilde is in a cheerful mood as she invites us to sit down at her sleekly designed kitchen island in a handsome new house in a residential suburb of Bruges. She has just turned 50 and has clearly taken this milestone as an opportunity to enjoy life from now on. "I just returned from a trip to Madeira with a friend. And soon I will be skydiving!" she enthuses.

"But the big change, of course, is this house that my husband built. We moved here a year ago from Zedelgem, a very rural community. Here we also live on a quiet street, but within cycling distance of bustling Bruges. Great!"

A favorable surprise

Another big change is their recent switch to Proximus fiber. "When we moved, they happened to be building fiber on our street. But we had no intention of switching. We were kind of stuck with Telenet, even though we weren't very happy with it. You know how it is: you've been with the same provider all your life, and changing seems like way too much trouble. But then, suddenly, there was a man from Proximus at the door. He was very friendly, and moreover, he was handsome. So I just let him in," Hilde laughs out loudly.

"I had heard about fiber on the news, of course. So I knew it would be faster than with coax and extremely reliable. What I didn't know, was that it was also a lot cheaper. We now pay twenty euros less per month than we did before. That's a nice plus, isn't it?"

Soccer is nicer

As for the quality of the connection, Hilde looks to her husband Marc, who has since joined us. "You noticed a big difference right away, didn't you? He watches soccer, and immediately he noticed that the picture was much sharper. But our other connections are also very smooth today.

Our Internet used to go down from time to time. We would have to call a call center and wait a long time to get someone on the line.

Since we've had fiber, which has been a year now anyway, we've never had a problem. When I work from home - which I do twice a week - I find that the connection is much faster and more stable. It's handy when you need to make a video call. And when I was in Madeira and someone rang the doorbell here at home, I was even able to chat very clearly and smoothly through our video doorbell."

Smooth installation

"To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to the switch," Hilde readily admits. "As I said, we were a bit stuck with Telenet. I had no desire to change. You get a different decoder, so your TV channels all change. But it wasn't that bad. It only needed a small adjustment, and you get used to it very quickly. The administration also went very smoothly. I didn't really have to do anything myself."

"Even the installation itself took less than two hours," adds her husband Marc. "The pipes were already up to the storage room. So they didn't have to drill anywhere."