Fiber Optics – What you should know

Today more and more people are working and learning from home and requiring more and more bandwidth. Content streaming to multiple devices, file sharing, gaming, and home monitoring systems are all pulling bandwidth. So which is better, cable high speed internet or fiber optics? Fiber Optics is the best choice to meet these demands.

Let’s look at cable high speed internet. Data is transmitted through electricity with a coaxial cable just like the cable programming to your TV with cable internet plans maxing out at around 200 Mbit/s.

Fiber optics are very different, they transmit data through light instead of electricity. Your data, be it a phone call or a podcast, is contained within this light. Fiber optics promise speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s.

Fiber has many benefits over cable other than speed. Since fiber optic cables send data faster, they’re better suited for long distance communication, which is why they power much of the internet. They’re also less likely to go out during a power outage as there’s no electricity involved. 

However, cable internet has the advantage of availability. 85% of Vermonters have access to broadband (cable internet) 100mbps or faster. Fiber Optics availability is very limited at 21.5% of Vermonters having access to fiber-optic service.

To summarize fiber optics offer greater capacity, reliability, security and speed. Though not widely available today, it is the future of the internet and networking.