Everyone needs internet in their everyday lives now. When I first arrived, I thought that getting internet in Odense, Denmark means to simply visit a chosen Internet Service Provider (ISP) to activate a service for internet access. 

I was wrong.

Shocking, but living in the convenient location that is the centre of Odense does not necessarily means getting internet of amazing speed. Most if not all of the ISPs that I’ve enquired services from gave me the quotes for 30/10 Mbps (download/upload) speed due to the central location. Confused about why only such slow speed can be provided in the central, I started asking around to gather more information on this.

Started With The Phone Lines

Turns out, most places were only connected by phone lines in the olden days. Even though there’s an increase in demand for bandwidth, these phone lines still restrict the speed. 

The cables for these phone lines are hidden underground in most of Denmark. To upgrade these infrastructures, they need to dig these old cables from underground. Therefore, it may not be the easiest and cheapest for a central location with a large amount of pavements and concrete.

On the contrary, suburban and countryside areas’ infrastructures upgrade more conveniently. Hence, they have access to faster and even fibre internet!

Choosing the ISP

Phone lines in Denmark are owned by TDC, and the ISPs are simply renting the cables from TDC. Theoretically, the ‘closer’ you are to the source, the better service you’ll get. Since YouSee is a direct private branch of TDC, I have decided to go with them as my ISP (most other ISPs are owned by Nuuday, hence not ‘directly’ to the source).

Not only that, YouSee was the only ISP who offered the fastest speed as opposed to other ISPs’ mobile broadband, i.e. 50-100/30 Mbps. The choice of mobile broadband was due to the fact that my location has no access to phone lines. However, I was warned that the latency of connection and lack of stability would be a hassle in everyday usage.

Turns out, it’s been 3 months of using YouSee’s mobile broadband. The latency is not as frequent as I thought it would be, but may not be the most ideal for gaming. It is, however, sufficient for a daily streaming. Trust me when I say that I have been testing the speed almost daily for a month!

The speed was never anywhere near 100 Mbps download. Sadly, I have been getting less than 10 Mbps download/upload speed for the first two weeks. I tried adding an antenna and spoke numerous times to YouSee’s customer service. Unfortunately none worked and the speed just did not get better. Magically (and ironically), after the trial period of 2 weeks, the speed bumped up to consistently around 50-60 Mbps download and 20-30 Mbps upload. So far, it has been good though I could not understand the sudden change, since it was way after I got the antenna.

Nonetheless, I can’t complain. It is still better and more convenient to be living in the centre of Odense!

Need information on other matters?

Need help with matters other than getting internet in Odense, Denmark? Remember to check out my list of useful tips and information here!