OK, so what does all this mean in English? It means that with broadband service from your cable company you are sharing
bandwidth on that “last mile” with some or all of your neighbors.With FTTP you have a direct dedicated link back
to the switch at your providers Central Office.
Let’s say both providers offer 5Mbps connection speed. With cable broadband this would technically be true, you
could connect and achieve throughput speeds up to 5mbps, but only if all of your neighbors go on vacation at the same time
and don’t invite you. With fiber to the premise, your connect and throughput speed is constant, at least as far as the
Central Office.
There was an article in the Boston Globe recently about cable companies contacting customers who they consider bandwidth
hogs and warning them to throttle back on their usage or face disconnect. This is understandable as they need to be more concerned
with the overall user experience than with any one individuals performance. Understandable but not desirable. As more and
more people turn to downloading music and video from the internet, more and more people fit the bandwidth hog profile.
So, the providers delivery method is a big concern, other factors include:
Some of these are things that you can control yourself
and we’ll delve into each one at a later time. First we need to choose a method of connection.
Home networking tip #1 is: If FiOS
is available in your area, get it.
If not, or if cost is more of a factor than performance, here's a brief rundown
on all of your options:
Cheap dialup service:
Pros - For as little as $9.99/month you can use your existing phone line to
connect via modem to a dial-up service like Netzero, Earthlink or AOL. Netzero even offers a free service, but it comes with
a barrage of banner advertisements which severely downgrade the already poor performance.
Cons – Your phone line is constantly busy when you are online and downloading
pictures or software updates can take hours.
DSL:
Pricing begins at about $14.99/month.
Pros – Speed is faster than a modem and varies with price, starting at
768Kbps and topping out at 3 Mbps. It's an "always on" connection like broadband and
it doesn’t tie up your phone lines like a modem. Another benefit of DSL that often gets overlooked is that it utilizes
your current home wiring. With just the addition of a filter, POTS (plain old telephone service) is available at any jack
in your house. Unfiltered, data is available at any jack in your house through a DSL modem. Doesn't suffer from "last mile"
overload like cable broadband.
Cons – Not as fast as broadband. The distance from the Central Office
and the condition of the wiring determines the top speed available. If you're more than a mile from the closest CO you can't
get DSL. You can usually enter your phone number on your telco's website to see if it's available in your neighborhood.
Cable Broadband:
Pricing starts around $45/month.
Pros – Speed 6Mbps. Has "power boost" - described as a 12Mbps
burst of speed when downloading large files.
Cons – Suffers from bandwidth issues stated previously.
Fiber Broadband:
Pricing starts around $45/month.
Pros – Available in 5, 15 and 30Mbps packages. Always on connection.
Another bonus is the improved quality on your voice lines. Can also deliver stunning fiber optic TV signal simultaneously
with no speed degradation.
Cons – Requires installation of a fiber drop from the pole and a powered
ONT (optical network terminal) with a battery backup unit near an outlet. An ONT is a fiber optic transciever that converts
the line from fiber to copper so it can be tied in to your existing wiring. The ONT is housed in a 12" x 16" weatherproof
box. Install time can take up to 4 hours. That said, it's worth it. There's no installation charge and the technicians are
well trained. I had mine mounted inside the house right next to my wiring blocks (see pics below). The tech fed the fiber
in thru the hole where the old copper feed came in from the NIU with just a little widening needed (The NIU is the telco box
currently on the side of your house. It will be removed during the conversion.).
Satellite:
Requires dish install and basic TV service. Top speed around 1.5Mbps. Can be
subject to atmospheric disturbance. Great if you live out of range of a telco or cable company. Fahgeddaboudit
if you have any other choices.
One last piece of info for you, just in case you're not confused enough already.
DSL and broadband connections are asymmetric. This means your upload speed is always slower than your
download speed. It's usually not that noticable a difference as the majority of users download data more than they upload
it. So if you have a 5Mbps connection, it's 5Mbps for downloads and only 2 or 3Mbps for uploads.
That's it for now. Next time we'll talk about the best way to set
up your internal voice and data network, both wired and wireless.
