[yuri]

We have two service providers where I am in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada: Bell MTS and Shaw Cable. Bell started using fiber optic and ran it to my house last year ( dug up yard ) and the neighbors, Shaw still uses copper. Shaw says they can provide the same speed 500 Mbps and fiber is no better as it is the/their or Bell's server speed and power that matters not the wire/cable type.

I am switching to Bell and fiber Monday as they gave me a great 2 yr deal and a $150 VISA card to lure me over. They say their fiber optic cable goes directly to the "head office" and Shaw's copper goes to a neighborhood hub and when their hub is overloaded everything slows down. Somebody must be lying or telling half truths.

I have noticed the occasional You Tube slowdown and freezing ( rarely ) in the last month and wonder if Shaw and their " hub " for the neighborhood and technology is the issue. Does the fiber from Bell go to some hub and not straight to head office as they claim.

Anybody know how these providers actually provide?

 

[Half-fast eddie]

I have xfinity fios. Really fast. Considerably faster than the copper it replaced.

The statement their fiber optic cable goes directly to the "head office" is clearly a lie. That implies every house has a 5 or 10 mile long fiber back to the neighborhood office ... not likely.

 

[Steve2444]

500 Mbps thru copper or fiber optic is still 500 Mbps, I have 300 Mbps and I can stream movies without any slowdown on my part.
Now sometimes there are slowdowns from the "Sender" of the video, which neither copper or fiber can help with.

Even IF your local hub slowed down to 25% of the rated 500 Mbps your tube vids should not be affected.

A lot of the "hype" of faster speeds is just that "hype" most people don't need more than 50 Mbps to be happy and trouble free.
100 mbps should be just fine for about 90+ % of anyone.

How Much Internet Speed Do You Need for YouTube? | HighSpeedInternet.com

You can watch YouTube on very slow internet connections. But it’s important to have a faster, more reliable connection for better video quality.

www.highspeedinternet.com

 

[yuri]

I have xfinity fios. Really fast. Considerably faster than the copper it replaced.

The statement their fiber optic cable goes directly to the "head office" is clearly a lie. That implies every house has a 5 or 10 mile long fiber back to the neighborhood office ... not likely.

I know as I worked in a Convention Center with Cat 5 and 6 and all the latest Internet tech but I did not want to argue with them as they are probably reading from a script.

" I may have been born in the day but it was not yesterday".

 

[yuri]

500 Mbps thru copper or fiber optic is still 500 Mbps, I have 300 Mbps and I can stream movies without any slowdown on my part.
Now sometimes there are slowdowns from the "Sender" of the video, which neither copper or fiber can help with.

Even IF your local hub slowed down to 25% of the rated 500 Mbps you tube vids should not be affected.

A lot of the "hype" of faster speeds is just that "hype" most people don't need more than 50 Mbps to be happy and trouble free.
100 mbps should be just fine for about 90+ % of anyone.

How Much Internet Speed Do You Need for YouTube? | HighSpeedInternet.com

You can watch YouTube on very slow internet connections. But it’s important to have a faster, more reliable connection for better video quality.

www.highspeedinternet.com

Yeah they used to have 100/300 and 500 and even higher speeds but now they are going 100 or 500 unless you are running a business. They dropped the 300. Told me Professional photographers need 500 to upload to clouds. It was only 7 dollars more so I went 500 but could likely get away with 100.

Glad to hear someone is getting better results with fiber.

Going to have to buy myself something nice with my $150 VISA gift card. I had to use all my Pro haggling skills to get it though. Us Slavs are born to haggle and it is a blood sport in my family. We never pay retail.

 

[yuri]

I have xfinity fios. Really fast. Considerably faster than the copper it replaced.

The statement their fiber optic cable goes directly to the "head office" is clearly a lie. That implies every house has a 5 or 10 mile long fiber back to the neighborhood office ... not likely.

Glad to hear your fiber is faster.

 

[Steve2444]

Yeah they used to have 100/300 and 500 and even higher speeds but now they are going 100 or 500 unless you are running a business. They dropped the 300. Told me Professional photographers need 500 to upload to clouds. It was only 7 dollars more so I went 500 but could likely get away with 100.

Glad to hear someone is getting better results with fiber.

Going to have to buy myself something nice with my $150 VISA gift card. I had to use all my Pro haggling skills to get it though. Us Slavs are born to haggle and it is a blood sport in my family. We never pay retail.

Now Uploading is different than Downloading, sorry just had to say that.
Uploading has nothing to do with you streaming Vids.

Your service is seperated into uploading and downloading as is mine.
I have 300 down and 30 up.

To be honest I don't need 300 or 30, but it's thier lowest set of speeds.
I had 100/10 before and they upgraded everyone for no charge (competition and all)

I stream all the time and I don't see any diff with the new speed.

 

[snic]

I stream all the time and I don't see any diff with the new speed.

That's because both 100 and 300 Mbit/sec far exceed the rate needed to stream a movie, which is at most something like 14 Mbit/sec for 4K HD. If you have 7 people in your family and everyone wants to stream a different 4K movie at once, then you might start noticing the difference between 100 and 300. With only one or two people streaming at once, if you notice hiccups it's not because your purchased internet speed is to low. It's because there are lots of nodes between the server and you, and any one of them can get overloaded and slow things down.

As someone wrote above, internet speed nowadays is mostly hype to get you to spend more on what you don't need. There's a very small number of people for whom it matters (gamers, apparently, need things very fast), but for the vast majority of us, 100 Mbps is plenty.

 

[Steve2444]

That's because both 100 and 300 Mbit/sec far exceed the rate needed to stream a movie, which is at most something like 14 Mbit/sec for 4K HD. If you have 7 people in your family and everyone wants to stream a different 4K movie at once, then you might start noticing the difference between 100 and 300. With only one or two people streaming at once, if you notice hiccups it's not because your purchased internet speed is to low. It's because there are lots of nodes between the server and you, and any one of them can get overloaded and slow things down.

As someone wrote above, internet speed nowadays is mostly hype to get you to spend more on what you don't need. There's a very small number of people for whom it matters (gamers, apparently, need things very fast), but for the vast majority of us, 100 Mbps is plenty.

Exactly.

 

[skyking1]

The big distinction between fiber and copper is isolation. Fiber does not reach into your home on a really bad day and zap your electronics from a power surge or lightning.
Isolation is where fiber rocks.

 

[RockyMtBeerMan]

Living in the mountains, dsl would always drop during rainy or windy days. With fiber, I get 250 down, 250 up, disconnects gone. 🐻

 

[Nealtw]

I have xfinity fios. Really fast. Considerably faster than the copper it replaced.

The statement their fiber optic cable goes directly to the "head office" is clearly a lie. That implies every house has a 5 or 10 mile long fiber back to the neighborhood office ... not likely.

Don't be so sure about that. Multimode fibre is only used for short distance so for 10 or 20 mile run it would be a single all the way.
A single shines a light down the center. A multi bounces different signals off the sides at different angles and it degrades over distance.

 

[Half-fast eddie]

Neal … back in the day i worked in the sales and marketing department of a small fiber optic cable manufacturer. We had a draw tower where we melted the glass and drew our own fibers. We had several types of fibers, short distance (rated by signal degradation) to long distance, in plastic, silica and quartz. It’s been a while, but i am fully versed in fiber theory.

 

[user_12345a]

These days in major cities and suburbs copper based systems use fiber to node and it is only the last bit of line that's copper.

Fiber is overkill for most users.

Ditto for 100mb+.

The small providers that lease the lines from phone company or coax cable company provide the best value.
Bell is a total rip off.

 

[Nealtw]

Neal … back in the day i worked in the sales and marketing department of a small fiber optic cable manufacturer. We had a draw tower where we melted the glass and drew our own fibers. We had several types of fibers, short distance (rated by signal degradation) to long distance, in plastic, silica and quartz. It’s been a while, but i am fully versed in fiber theory.

i only know what I have read. How many signals can you run in a long distance multi?

 

[SW Dweller]

I went from wired 1 mbs to wireless 8-10 mbs. I would be beside myself with 100 mbs.

 

[rogerwh]

About 10 years ago we dropped Comcast, copper wire, internet and wired phone service. We dropped it for Fiber service and we were some of the first Fiber customers in the area. The internet service and phone service is twice as good as the copper wire service. Then about 3 years ago we dropped the cable TV side of Comcast copper wire and went with HDTV and smart TV. We have not missed the cable TV at all.

 

[rjniles]

When camping I use a 5 MB Hotspot on my phone (Visible) to stream to my TV. Works fine with no lag or buffering.

Sent from my SM-T500 using Tapatalk

 

[carpdad]

Your computer? I recently replaced 16 yr old desktop with i5 processor but the rest is about basic computer and it makes everything faster. Most notable is response speed between button click and page changes. Fiber and ethernet to modem. Everybody else is wifi and no complaints.

 

[yuri]

My computer is a year old top notch Dell with 11th gen I5-11400 processor and lots of RAM. It is wickedly fast. When I renew with them I will go with the 100. Issue was I had 300 and felt if I went slower I would be mad at myself if I did not like it and I had to make the deal in real time as I was talking and haggling with the manager of the initial rep. Did not have time to check with my comrades on the DIY forum.

Got a great deal and a gift card so I am happy with it.