Fiber internet vs. cable internet

Owners and operators of small and medium sized businesses need network infrastructure they can rely on for transactions, communications and day-to-day business activities.

Take Xperience Brokerage Network, a real estate agency with 600 agents in Western Oregon. With listings, meetings and large-scale transactions going on all the time, they needed a network that wouldn’t let them down.

“You can’t be glitchy when you’re growing several multi-million-dollar businesses,” says Xperience’s Katlin Gamble. “We need to operate just as quickly, reliably and efficiently as our urban counterparts.”

For Xperience, fiber connectivity made all the difference. Fiber internet’s speed, reliability and bandwidth provide measurable improvements for businesses over cable.

If you’re running a small or medium-sized business, there are some key differences between fiber internet and cable.

• Speed: Fiber-optic internet uses pulses of light rather than electrical signals to transmit data, which means that it travels at much higher rates and with higher fidelity and lower lag, jitter and packet loss. A critical differentiator of fiber internet over cable is fiber’s symmetrical speeds, meaning that upload and download speeds are equally fast. Cable, due to being designed as one-way transmission, cannot offer uploads speeds that match download. Furthermore, cable speeds tend to max out around 1 gigabit/second (Gbps), while fiber technology can reach 10 Gbps or even higher.

• Reliability: Fiber-optic technology is less prone to signal interference and weather disturbances than cable. Cable internet also loses signal strength as it travels over long distances, while fiber internet maintains signal integrity. And while fiber internet isn’t immune to damage or disruption, it’s less prone to vandalism by copper thieves.

• Bandwidth: Fiber internet has high bandwidth, and unlike cable, it offers dedicated connections, so your business has its own bandwidth and won’t be affected by network congestion or throttling. Cable connectivity relies on shared connections, which can slow speeds down when the network gets busy.

• Future-proofing: Cable is a legacy technology built for telephone and television. Fiber-optic internet is designed for high-volume, ultra-fast internet use — and it can handle entertainment and communication, too, with streaming and VoIP services. It’s a network infrastructure built with the future of telecommunications in mind.

Which industries benefit from fiber internet the most?

Fiber internet has few downsides. It’s a future-proof technology that is superior to cable and has tremendous speed and bandwidth growth potential, so you won’t have to overhaul your system as your business grows. It’s an investment worth making upfront, because it’s built to last.

However, if your business is small and your data needs are low, there’s also nothing wrong with sticking with cable. Cable will give you adequate speeds at an affordable price point, depending on your plan. Larger businesses, or businesses with security concerns, should consider fiber internet for its resiliency, uptime, speeds and reliability. Areas like tech, healthcare, hospitality and governance can benefit from fiber connectivity for its network security, ability to handle large data loads and fast symmetrical speeds.

About Ziply Fiber

If you’re in the Northwest, Ziply Fiber may be the right solution for your business networking needs. Our network is 100% fiber-optic and fully owned and operated by local experts with decades of industry experience. Our core backbone is fully redundant, and route diversity steers users clear of congestion and protects from single-location incidents such as construction or inclement weather events. Additionally, we cap our network at 40%, so there is always plenty of headroom.

A vice president of a primary care facility in North Idaho found that Ziply Fiber was the right choice for critical communication and uptime:

“Ziply Fiber is instrumental in connecting patients with our diverse service lines, even in rural areas. We have experienced better uptimes with Ziply Fiber than their competitors. Additionally, their extensive footprint allows us to provide robust connectivity through a single, reliable vendor.”

Regardless of what field you’re in, fiber internet from Ziply Fiber can make a difference by increasing productivity, communication, uptime and reliability — benefits that will trickle down to the customers, patients and stakeholders who rely on you.

Check out our plans for small business, as well as our fact sheets for industry leaders. Contact us to learn more by calling 1.866.947.5988 (Small Business) or 1.844.287.8807 (Enterprise).