Fiber to the House

Hello folks, some simple chit chat here.

I recently switched from Xfinity internet to CenturyLink. I had a 30MBps line ran to the house via a RJ 46 coaxial cable previously. Buried within the terms of service was a data cap of 1 terabyte per month. After that, a $10 fee per 50GB used.

We only have internet in the home. All streaming, no cable or TV package. Needless to say, I was getting screwed. With the overages - almost $160 per month.

So I switched providers, signed up online. The next day? Some subcontractors show up and I notice they are running a new line to the house! I work in IT so this excited me and I went out to ask the guys some questions.

They ran a fiber line to my house! Direct! Even more, they ran that sucker straight up through the crawl space and directly to the access point in my living room.

1Gbps internet connection people!!! That is just over 125MBps. (It is stupid but 1GBps is not the same as 1Gbps). But this is basically the fastest internet speed offered anywhere in the United States besides google fiber areas if you include upload speeds.

Only $80 per month, no overages, price is locked in for life. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. Ive got bandwidth for days now baby.

Anyways, I just wanted to ask, does anyone else have fiber to the home (x) locally? If so, how much are ya paying?

I can torrent the entire damn piratebay now heheheh.

a reply to: Lightdhype

Gongrats! I'm just waiting for my fiber. They have already installed the cable but there seems to be some trouble with the connection. I will go for 500Mbps and it will cost 42€ , 1Gbps would cost 96€ and I really don't need that much. 500 is enough to get a decent connection outside to your home server and that will be the main use of that speed

a reply to: Lightdhype

Is the adapter in the receiving device (laptop , desktop , etc .) a fiber adapter ?
A wireless card in a laptop will see a bit of performance depending on the adapter.
A desktop with a good copper adapter and a Cat 6e will see more of a performance increase
A desktop or laptop with a good 8gb HBA directly connected by a fiber cable will see the ultimate performance increase
Speed depends on the receiving device.

Seems strange that they ran fiber into your place I had Suddenlink (now bought by Alcatel), they upgraded to fiber back bones all through our little town of 12k people (when the two universities in town are in class lol) and now I have a 400/40 unlimited, they over a a 1gb tier and it’s still just fiber over copper, no fiber from the street so I’m not sure why they’d have to run full fiber to your modem for 1gig/sec, it’s not like they’re going to offer a higher tier anytime soon seeing as 10gig Ethernet is a bit beyond your average home user. I mean the fact that I can get 1gbps in this tiny town already blows my mind. My connection was 150/15 with a data surcharge over a set amount I thing it was .75tb I was paying almost $100 for the internet alone and had sat but they paid off my sat contract earlier and gave me the cable land line and cable all for 150 total a month and I’m super happy faster game downloads and it saves me $90+/month so kind of hard to argue with that.

originally posted by: Gothmog
a reply to: Lightdhype

Is the adapter in the receiving device (laptop , desktop , etc .) a fiber adapter ?
A wireless card in a laptop will see a bit of performance depending on the adapter.
A desktop with a good copper adapter and a Cat 6e will see more of a performance increase
A desktop or laptop with a good 8gb HBA directly connected by a fiber cable will see the ultimate performance increase
Speed depends on the receiving device.

It’s still a decoding modem and is provesioned like any other connection sadly so even if he had a 10gig Ethernet network he wouldn’t see much more than the 1gbps.

Fiber network is way overkill in a home considering you can do 10gbps over copper now and you’re not worried about super long runs.

You can always hit a direct fiber switch first so all other devices are faster and with glass you have wonderful lightning protection.

I want fiber to the switch at work but WOW (ISP) , wants a 5 year contract at $750 a month. They must be dreaming.

originally posted by: Nickn3
You can always hit a direct fiber switch first so all other devices are faster and with glass you have wonderful lightning protection.

I want fiber to the switch at work but WOW (ISP) , wants a 5 year contract at $750 a month. They must be dreaming.

You have total lightning protection at least via the the data side. I don’t see the point unless the OP is doing HUGE 4K Raw video transfers between computers on the network, otherwise it’s a waste of money to have a full fiber network for a household setup, even 10gig copper Ethernet is too cost prohibitive and overkill for home use IMO, full fiber is just ludicrous for home applications. Unless he needs more than a 100 meter run between the two farthest nodes he could use Cat7 Copper Ethernet but as I already stated I don’t see the point for a home gamer unless your hobby is editing 4K or 8k directly off of some insane Red Camera which costs $50k or so. 10gig is a very niche use case right now, it will become more prevelant but the amount of people that would utilize it to the fullest at home is so small right now.

That's awesome. I don't have the option for fiber. I pay Spectrum $40/mo for 100/10 (no caps) which is more than enough for our family of five constantly streaming. Speeds are almost always a little faster than that. I've tested up to 120+ several times. Having fiber sounds awesome but I'm not sure I would take advantage of it. I'm sure there will be a need for those speeds in the near future so at least you will already be good to go!

originally posted by: jtrenthacker
That's awesome. I don't have the option for fiber. I pay Spectrum $40/mo for 100/10 (no caps) which is more than enough for our family of five constantly streaming. Speeds are almost always a little faster than that. I've tested up to 120+ several times. Having fiber sounds awesome but I'm not sure I would take advantage of it. I'm sure there will be a need for those speeds in the near future so at least you will already be good to go!

Yeah my plan is 400/40 fiber over copper cable modem connection and usually I test at around 430/42 so they’re pretty generous with the provision. I was fine with my old connection but for less money I get more now and have no data cap to worry about so its worth it to me to know it’s going to be the same price every month and not having to pay for extra chunks of bandwidth. I don’t think I’ve ever had it hit 400 doing a real world download, even downloading a 60+ gig game from steam doesn’t saturate my connection and they have really good servers, downloading games on my PS4 is painful slow compared to the servers steam has and I still haven’t seen it go above like 250 down so I can be downloading 100s of gigs of games at the same time everyone in the house streaming and still have headroom so I couldn’t personally justify paying the $30 (iirc) more a month for the 1gbps down tier even though I’d like to have it for bragging rights, which is really all 1gbps is useful for in your average household and I’m a power user.

a reply to: BigDave-AR
Not full fiber, just fiber to the switch. Cat 5 or 6 switch to the device’s.

originally posted by: Nickn3
a reply to: BigDave-AR
Not full fiber, just fiber to the switch. Cat 5 or 6 switch to the device’s.

What would be the advantage of that? He already has fiber to the modem fiber to the switch would be much more expensive for literally no advantage and if you don’t run a cat 6 network with a 1gbps connection you’re blowing money on a speed you’ll only be able to utilize 1/10th of. What usage case would the the fiber to the switch be an advantage? Unless it’s over 100m from the next switch/router they’re would be no advantage over Cat7 that I can think of.

a reply to: BigDave-AR

Some valid criticisms here, but its not like I did the work myself or paid extra for it! I just signed up and the next day they are out there running a line. I sure was not going to stop them haha.

My guess is they are doing it solely for bragging rights locally, probably attempting to get their name onto the top 10 lists for provider speeds nationwide or whatever. They must have their reasons, regardless, no complaints here!

originally posted by: Lightdhype
a reply to: BigDave-AR

Some valid criticisms here, but its not like I did the work myself or paid extra for it! I just signed up and the next day they are out there running a line. I sure was not going to stop them haha.

My guess is they are doing it solely for bragging rights locally, probably attempting to get their name onto the top 10 lists for provider speeds nationwide or whatever. They must have their reasons, regardless, no complaints here!

Oh no problems it just surprised me they may be running a trial for higher tiers in your area, either way hard to argue with 1gbps down no matter how it gets to your network. Congrats on the new connection!

ETA- They’re working on a full duplex 10gbps standard for DOCSIS 3.1 which is just nuts! Right now I believe the max for copper under DOCSIS 3.0 is 1.2gbps down with the highest number of channels available.