by Eric Rosenberry on July 13, 2022 at 12:00 amJuly 15, 2022 at 10:51 am
There’s a lot of talk about fiber these days, but what’s all the buzz about? How does it work? How’s it different than cable? And how does it benefit you?
Fiber internet…everybody’s talking about it!
Each week news comes out detailing legislation surrounding broadband expansion funding, subsequently followed by stories of fiber infrastructure builds happening across the country. Many big cities already have it, while thousands of smaller and more remote towns are trying to find ways to bring a fiber-optic network to their community. It makes you wonder…what’s all the buzz about?
At Ziply Fiber, as we work to expand our fiber footprint across the Northwest, we hear that question all the time, commonly paired with “What’s the difference between fiber and cable?” “How does it work?” and “How will it benefit me?”
The truth is…the buzz around fiber is totally warranted.
Switching from a legacy cable network to fiber not only resolves many day-to-day connectivity frustrations, it also helps prevent future disturbances like connectivity restrictions, slow speeds and device limitations. Moreover, communities with access to a fiber-optic network help their residents and businesses grow economically and socially.
To understand the benefits of fiber, let’s go back to the beginning…
Fiber proves superior performance to cable internet in numerous ways, from design and engineering to reliability and capability. Fiber is faster, more reliable, more durable, can expand over longer distances and overall is easier to build out. But wait, there’s more. Here are 10 reasons the hype around fiber is real:
Cable systems were designed to send TV signals into your home and not for the two-way data transport of today’s internet. So, they’ve had to be modified with a lot of complicated engineering. Fiber, on the other hand, was designed specifically for high-performance data networking and telecommunications over long distances – just what today’s internet ordered.
Sustainability is a top priority for a lot of people and fiber is an environmentally-friendly, low-energy internet solution. It takes a lot of energy to mine the copper needed for cable wiring. Fiber on the other hand requires commonly available silica sand. Additionally, as fiber consumes less energy, it also generates less heat. Coaxial cables generate enough heat to require a cooling tool to regulate temperature. Fiber does not require this, so the infrastructure saves more energy and emits less carbon dioxide. Cable equipment on poles also requires power to operate, whereas fiber equipment is passive, only requiring power at a Central Office and at the installation point, thereby drawing less energy from the power grid.
Cable is a much less “clean” transmission medium for signals than fiber. When transmitting data, cable systems leverage technology known as “forward error correction,” which allows some data to be corrupted along the way but still recovered and fixed prior to delivery to the end user. This comes with a cost as far as latency is concerned. Forward error correction induces a certain amount of latency and is also power hungry. Fiber offers a much cleaner transmission resulting in much lower latency.
Unlike cable and other RF (radio frequency) based technologies, which are very sensitive, fiber is impervious to external interference. A single user leaving caps off unused wires can cause over the air TV transmissions to leak back in the COAX lines, causing internet and TV issues for hundreds of other subscribers. Additionally, in cable, the integrity of the signals can be affected by factors including electromagnetic waves, electrical or lighting issues, leading to external noise, reduced speeds or loss of network. Fiber, however, is non-metallic and therefore is not susceptible to these external interferences. Essentially, fiber offers a noise-proof and tamper-resistant network.
In addition to external interference issues, cable systems can interfere with wireless transmission. They must regularly monitor their systems to ensure they are not causing interference to others. Fiber does not emit harmful interferences. Therefore, this is an entire class of issues fiber providers do not have to worry about.
Fiber is the undisputed winner when it comes to signal attenuation, aka, the reduction in signal strength over distances. Signal attenuation in cable is massive compared to fiber. RF-modulated signals over cable need to be regenerated every 1,000 feet or so, which requires powered electronics, inevitably degrading the signal. Signals sent over fiber, on the other hand, are typically good, depending on configuration, for anywhere between 20 to 80 kilometers… or 65,616 to 262,467 feet without the need for regeneration.
Once again, fiber is the clear winner in bandwidth capabilities due to the fundamental physics of the technology. Cable internet uses coaxial copper wiring that was originally designed to carry television channels and provides less than 1000MHz of usable bandwidth. Today, our needs focus mainly on data, which is transmitted using electrical pulses. Fiber uses thin strands of optical glass to transmit data pulses using infrared light at roughly 2/3 the speed of light. Fiber provides about 50THz of usable bandwidth which is 50,000 times more than cable, so for nearly all uses, fiber bandwidth is effectively unlimited.
One of the most glaring issues with cable is that it is asymmetric in nature. While it is common for cable companies to sell packages claiming gigabit download speeds, upload speeds are vastly more limited (typically 40 megabit or below). This is due to the inherent asymmetric nature of cable TV plants, which were originally designed to SEND TV signals, not have two-way data communication. Fiber, on the other hand, offers fully symmetric upload and download speeds. While this historically has not mattered as much to residential subscribers, now with remote video conferencing and working from home being the norm, it is one of the major reasons people choose fiber.
The first thing most people think about when they think about their internet service is…speed!. Fiber networks like ours at Ziply Fiber provide businesses and residents with ultra-fast speeds – Gig, 2-gig, even 5-gig. These speeds allow the download of HD movies in 5 seconds, 1,000 photos in 2 seconds and much more. Cable cannot compete with fiber in terms of speed capabilities. Not only is fiber generally faster due to being transmitted via pulses of light rather than electrical signals, it also has less of a chance to experience throttling – when your ISP intentionally slows your connection without telling you in order to provide bandwidth to other customers. Inherently, cable systems are a shared medium with typically hundreds of customers sharing the same upstream/downstream channels. While some fiber technologies do use shared connections, the sharing is typically limited to no more than 31 other customers, thus allowing for consistently fast speeds and no need for throttling.
If you haven’t experienced an internet outage at a crucial time, you’re lucky. But let’s face it, most of us have, often due to an unforeseen thunderstorm, a killer heat wave or other circumstances completely out of our control. This was all too common with cable. While we can’t avoid every scenario that leads to an outage, fiber is much more impervious to weather-related outages than cable as there is nothing to short out electrically and there are no outside plant electronics to be impacted by temperature and humidity swings or loss of utility power at an intermediate point in your neighborhood. Fiber is less likely to suffer disruption from electromagnetic discharges such as lightning strikes and it only requires working power at a hardened Central Office facility and at your house (nowhere in-between).
I’d argue that fiber-optics to every home isn’t the future of the internet any more. It’s the present! It’s the undisputed winner in terms of today’s network infrastructure.
Regardless of the extent of your internet needs, and we all have them, connectivity is key for our world today. At Ziply Fiber, we have recognized this and are dedicated to expanding fiber infrastructure and updating our Central Offices to ensure that cities large and small across the Northwest have access to the best possible internet for decades to come.
We believe that everyone, regardless of zip code, deserves stress-free access to a fast and reliable internet connection. And that’s why I say when it comes to fiber, you should believe the hype!
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