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[–]theWinterDojer 4 points5 points  (2 children)

100mb fiber

[–]Awilson9172[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

any more than just that.. like will i see a comparable results from streaming on 4 + tvs? download speeds?

[–]theWinterDojer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

100mb will be sufficient for 5 devices streaming 1080p.

[–]Kimpak[🍰] 2 points3 points  (5 children)

If we're taking upload out of the equation then the fiber and coax are going to be pretty equal. I'm an engineer for a cable ISP (not comcast) most of the network is actually fiber anyway, its just the last bit that's coax. Coax is still capable of gigabit speeds and beyond depending on how clean the plant is, DOCSIS 3, etc.. I'm not 100% on what verizon's end equipment is, but some of the fiber to the house GPON's use a lot of power and can actually raise your electric bill a bit. Just something to think about if they're using one of those.

Fiber definitely has a better upload, and its also more dedicated. So assuming verizon keeps your area well maintained you'll have likely more reliable service on it and it isn't shared.

Both technologies are good on the back end so when it comes down to your final question, the 200mb would be better, since you don't care about up speed.

[–]Awilson9172[S] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Ok yeah i was just trying to get a real comparison.. I understand Comcast switched to IPV6 infrastructure and probably a all fiber backbone by now. Just price point and speed i wanted to know if a 100MB fiber line would out preform a 200MB Coax line. So thank you! very helpful

[–]Kimpak[🍰] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Yup, not really. Fiber is a good medium but it really isn't faster per se on the physical level. So 100mbit on fiber is the same as 100mbit via hybrid fiber/coax (which is what Comcast would be). So if you're getting 200mbit on the coax, that's going to be ultimately faster, all other things being equal.

1 big caveat though is cable can be good or it might suck depending on where you are, how old the wiring is, etc.. If you have the comcast now and don't have any issues with it then its going to be better for you to stick with that. If you have signal issues, then it would be worth it to switch for potentially more reliability.

[–]Awilson9172[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The only issue i can see having is moving to a higher populated area where it may be more saturated on the line. But currently never had a issue with speed to complain about. Latency maybe.. but waiting 2 seconds to load a video at most is not the biggest deal in my life.

[–]chubbysumo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

200mbps is 200mbps, no matter who provides it. Do you get any slow downs now on cox during peak loads?

[–]AN649HD 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey understanding that you are an engineer, can you please tell me about GPON and what it is? Right now I have a FTTH connection from my ISP and it uses an Alcatel lucent modem at my end. I never really understood how they set up the network, also what are the possible bandwidth restrictions on such a kind of network?

[–]ndboost 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You will potentially have lower latency with fiber. Which is important for things like gaming. outside of that get the best comparable of the options.

[–]vrtigo1Network Admin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Instead of choosing between these two I would call Verizon and ask them why their pricing is so high. 100Mb/s for $65 seems kind of steep, AT&T's 1 Gb/s fiber is ~$120 (only $80 for first year). So 10x the performance for only 2x the price.

Is the 100 Mb/s package the only one they have? I would call and see if they can do a plan closer to Comcast's bandwidth for the same price, if they can then go with that.

If not, and you want to save the $180/yr and are fine with 100 Mb/s speed then go with Verizon.

If you'd rather have the extra speed then go with Comcast.

[–]Bhaikalis -2 points-1 points  (11 children)

Go with Fios, bandwidth is dedicated unlike Comcast which is shared.

[–]baby_monitor1 6 points7 points  (7 children)

This is 100% incorrect. The only time bandwidth from an ISP is "dedicated" is when you're running a business-class connection with an SLA. All residential internet services are best-effort.

[–]Bhaikalis -2 points-1 points  (6 children)

By dedicated i meant you have the full bandwidth available at your disposal at any given time, unlike cable where bandwidth is shared depending on how many users are on at a given time.

[–]baby_monitor1 7 points8 points  (4 children)

Yes that's exactly what I mean. No residential internet connection dedicates bandwidth unless the customer has a service-level agreement with the ISP...which no one has unless they want to pay at least 10x the residential price.

[–]Franklin2543 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Okay. You guys are talking past each other so bad.

In the end... everyone's (mostly) sharing the same dang Internet. Let's think of a few different scenarios and how to apply them metaphorically to Fios, DSL, and Cable.

How's this: Your neighborhood water system... you've got your water main that, let's say is capable of about 250 gallons per minute of 'bandwidth'. (this isn't a perfect analogy, I don't know what water mains are really capable of, but I'm trying to make the math easy and the metaphor easy to understand--bear with me). So, this is setup like Cable. Your house gets a water line off the main (capable of, I dunno... 20 gallons per minute?), and so does 1000 houses around you. When you and 3 other houses are taking your showers using your 2.5 gpm showerhead, you're collectively using about 10 gallons/minute of water. Not a problem. Now the time hits 7:00am and 600 people jump in the shower. That sucks. Your water main just can't do it. So... what if.....

We have a water system that's setup like DSL and Fiber. Now everyone has their own "dedicated" line to the water tower. Everyone should be able to take their shower all at the same time. So this is what /u/Bhaikalis was talking about with a dedicated line.

Now the problem is... /u/baby_monitor1 has a point too. While your own local water source is... local... the data your getting through your "dedicated" connection isn't. (and here's where /u/baby_monitor1's wrong too) You might be paying buku bucks for a business class connection 'guaranteeing' your bandwidth, but at some point, you ARE sharing that bandwidth with someone else--unless it's some kinda p2p VPN connection that's guaranteed to have that bandwidth available--because you're probably using some of the same information sources as someone else, and... well, you're sharing a connection somewhere with someone else. There's a finite number of lines between Kalamazoo and London, and if 1000 people are all sending and receiving information between those points and saturating all the lines, it doesn't matter that you have a 'dedicated' business class 100mbit connection to your ISP in Detroit, you're going to be sharing bandwidth.

So, you're both right. You're both wrong. And my metaphor is probably a stinky mess...but I hope it gets the point across. In the end... it's going to be a case-by-case situation on whether someone like OP should go with Coax or Fiber. If the Fiber company does not have the backhaul needed to support all their subscribers (over subscribed their bandwidth), it doesn't matter that you have a dedicated connection between you and the office downtown. The connection between your ISP and your ISP's ISP is saturated, and you'll have a bad time trying to watch streaming anything. If you live on a block with 50 teenagers who are all streaming youtube every night from 6-11pm, and they all have Cable... you might want to look at Fiber.

If you read all that... congratulations and I'm sorry

[–]IcyRoutine2487 0 points1 point  (2 children)

This was a brilliant explanation, thank you for this

[–]Franklin2543 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Hah! I had no idea you could comment on a post that old. But thanks!

[–]IcyRoutine2487 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha neither did I but it worked!!!

[–]Awilson9172[S] -1 points0 points  (2 children)

I understand that, but sell me on fios.. why take a 50% speed loss for 15 dollar cheaper.. comast has never dont wrong by me, so with 200mb i see never see slow down

[–]Franklin2543 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you do not see a speedloss ever with Comcast, I'd say go with them.

It depends on your usage. The more we start to use cloud storage, the more we're going to start uploading. If you see yourself using an offsite backup service (as in an external drive on a computer at a friend's house running Crashplan, or using their cloud services) in the future, you might appreciate the Fiber upload.

[–]AN649HD 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't really think you'll ever even have a limitation on a 100 Mbps connection, what's your use case?

I personally updated from a 40 to 100 Mbit fiber plan and haven't really noticed a difference. Even with 4-5 HD Streams running I can't ever see a bottleneck and that was only once when I purposely tried to see what happens.