When moving to a new location, one of the most important questions in our minds is which internet connection options are now supported in that region. You certainly won’t want a 56K dial-up connection as it’s too slow for modern internet. Satellite internet can be very expensive and problematic right now. While cellular data is quite advanced, it’s still not quite on par with a wired option and is much more expensive. In this case, cable, fiber and DSL options are left.
What is cable internet?
Cable internet uses the same technology as cable television. Data travels through a coaxial cable, often referred to as “coaxial” for short. This cable consists of a dielectric insulator, a woven copper shield, and a copper core surrounded by an outer plastic layer.
Cable internet requires a cable modem in your home or office and a cable modem termination system at your carrier’s location. This system is the part that connects your modem to the internet.
Coaxial cable offers more than its capacity to provide both internet connection and television access at the same time with a large amount of bandwidth. For this reason, the two services are often offered together.
What is fiber internet?
Fiber internet is transmitted via fiber optic cables. Fiber optic cable contains glass or plastic fibers that transmit light instead of electricity. Whether it’s a phone call or a podcast, your data is in that light.
This process works thanks to total internal reflection. When light hits a material it can be absorbed, reflected or refracted. If the light is absorbed while trying to escape the wire, there is no connection at the other end, or the wire is broken, the data cannot reach the other end. For the data to reach the other end, the light must be constantly reflected from one end to the other.
Therefore, the fibers consist of two layers: the core and the coating. The inner and outer layers are both made of a type of glass such as silicon dioxide. However, the outer cover may have other materials mixed in to achieve a lower refractive index than the core. If the coating has a higher index, light will escape from the cable during transmission.
What is DSL internet?
DSL (digital subscriber line) stands for digital subscriber line and is a type of technology used to transmit data over telephone lines. Unlike dial-up, DSL does not prevent you from making simultaneous phone calls over a landline.
Because DSL uses existing phone lines, it can be offered more cheaply than cable or fiber internet, both of which often require digging trenches to bury cables underground.
Most customers have a speed known as asymmetric DSL and download speeds are higher than upload speeds. This concept may sound familiar as it is what most of us experience regardless of the type of internet we use.
Symmetric DSL is also available, with researchers achieving speeds of over 1Gbps in both directions using transitive copper telephone lines. But in practice DSL speeds are much slower.
While fiber is undoubtedly the fastest of these options, the gap is narrowing. Google Fiber promises speeds of up to 2Gbps. By comparison, Comcast’s cable plans max out at around 1 Gbps (Gigabit Ethernet), but the company states it will reach 2 Gbps speeds by 2025.
Which is better?
Internet connection speed depends on several factors. Your videos may be buffered more frequently if there are many people in your neighborhood accessing the Internet at the same time. This is especially true for cable, but fiber internet can suffer as well. Of course, limited competition among service providers also means that different types of services charge similar rates for versions at the same speed, so you may not be able to get very different services on a fixed budget.
However, fiber has many advantages over cable other than speed. Because fiber optic cables send data faster, they are more suitable for long distance communication and therefore make up the bulk of the internet.
Since there is no electricity, fiber internet connections are less likely to be interrupted during a power outage. Because they are made of glass or plastic, they are less susceptible to interference from power lines, electrical equipment or lightning.
Cable internet, on the other hand, has the advantage of convenient accessibility in most countries. It is usually offered wherever cable television is available, which means that most non-rural areas have access to this type of internet. On the other hand, fiber is usually restricted to certain cities and may only be available in certain regions, even within a city. In fact, you may have experienced the problem of not having fiber on your side when you have it on the streets across the street.
DSL is the only option in areas where cable and fiber are not available, but phone lines are no longer as necessary as they used to be. Cellular and satellite internet are increasingly replacing DSL as an internet option for people who can’t afford cable or fiber.
As for the cost, it can be said that there is a significant difference. Cable and DSL internet both rely on a company’s existing infrastructure (because cable TV and phone lines have been around for decades), while fiber often requires new cables to be laid in an area. On the other hand, fiber becomes cheaper to maintain over time. As for how much consumers pay, whichever you choose, the plans have pretty comparable prices.
However, despite all its comparable features, it can be easily said that the internet option of the future will be fiber.
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