Many of us start looking at fiber optic broadbandand really are scared of the technology

Many of us start looking at fiber optic broadbandand really are scared of the technology. We don’t understand how it works, we don’t know why it works and wedon’t know what is best for our circumstances. After reading this article, you should be a little less fearful offinding a fiber optic broadband provider and you should know China FTTH ODN Suppliers how to do so too.We’ll go through a bit about how the cables work andhow it’s different to ADSL which is the most standard form of fixed linebroadband so that you can understand exactly what you should be looking at.How does fiberoptic broadband work?Fiber optic broadband works through fiber opticcables.  Essentially, these cables arepurposed designed for the transfer of internet data. 

The cables have a core of fiber opticmaterial and then a layer outside of this core that reflects back lightensuring the fast passage of data. Outside of this, there’s a plastic coating that protects the cables.The cables really are good at the job.  ADSL broadband is the broadband that comes into your telephone line and travels all the way over the copper cables of thetelephone infrastructure developed by BT. Unfortunately, the copper cables are far less able to transfer data thanfiber optic cables.  After all thatwasn’t the job they were built to do. That’s why when you go further from a telephone exchange i.e. the placethat your telephone equipment is installed close to you, you’ll get slowerinternet connections on ADSL.  However,with fiber optic broadband the connections remain fast because there’s no loss ofspeed over distance.This is the great thing about fiber opticbroadband.  It means you can have super-fastspeeds with fewer bottlenecks, higher levels of performance and better dataintegrity.  In the future, we’re going toreally fast fiber optic broadband connections up to a gigabyte per second.  In fact, they are already rolling out.  Generally, the max on ADSL is up to 24Mbps and youhave to be lucky to get that.  WithVirgin Broadband you can get fiber-to-the-home offerings at 100Mbps.  Let’s now have a look at the difference between thetypes of fiber optic broadband.Types of FiberOptic BroadbandOne of the most confusing aspects of the fiberoptics is that there are two types of technology.  One is a little bit similar to ADSL.  Let’s have a look how.Fiber-to-the-CabinetFiber-to-the-cabinet is broadband that offers goodlevels of speed but some loss of speed over distance.  Essentially, the fiber optic cables will goto your street level cabinet and then the final part of the journey will beover the copper or aluminium cables that come in to your home and interfacewith your telephone socket.  Youtherefore need a telephone line and you’ll have a bit of loss of speed andyou’ll feel a little bit like you’re on ADSL. However, the speeds on this type of connection are much faster than ADSLand the bottom level connections tend to be around 38Mbps.  Fiber-to-the-HomeThe true fiber optic broadband connections are fiber-to-the-home.  This means that the fiber optic cables comeall the way into your house, normally into your living room.  With Virgin Media, they carry their cable TVnetwork over the cables too and therefore you get your broadband and yourtelevision over these cables that are installed for you by an engineer.If you’re lucky enough to already have an NTL orVirgin Broadband fiber line brought into your house then you won’t need to payinstallation in most cases although an engineer may come out.  If you don’t have the cables you may need tohave a fee charged to your account although many companies will waive the feeif you take a decent level package. Obviously with the cables coming all the way into your home, yourinternet will be faster, and you’ll get more of the advertised speed.  Checking whetheryou can get fiber optic broadbandSo, you’re sold on the idea of fiber optic broadbandand now you want to know how to get it. The easiest is to jump online and do a post code search of yourarea.  Essentially, websites such as uSwitch,Broadband Choices, Broadband Expert, and many others enable you to pop in yourpost code and find out which service providers are offering their packages inyour area.  If you can’t get fiber optic broadband because thecables aren’t installed you’re out of luck and you have to be looking at mobilebroadband or ADSL broadband.  However,they may be several providers offering their connections in your area.  And if BT Infinity has installed their cableas they have in around 60% of the country, you may be able to have a choice ofproviders who sublet the BT Infinity service. If you can Virgin Broadband, you may be able to get the best speeds outthere at the moment.Other Things toConsiderMany of us perceive that when we jump on fiber opticbroadband, we are going to have an amazing but some people getdisappointed.  The reason for this isthat often companies have traffic management policies which infringe on yourexperience.  For example, Virgin Mediawill slow down person to person file sharin and have a traffic managementtiered structure that will affect certain other activities too.  On top of these, during certain times of theday, they may slow your connection so that they can manage their network appropriately. 

Even their unlimited packages can have fairusage cap so that if you use a certain amount of data during a certain periodthey will slow your connection and punish you by throttling.The truth is that Virgin Media haven’t had the bestreputation in terms of unlimited broadband. Nowadays, they do have the top speed unlimited broadband package,however, it is their most expensive offer and if you’re looking at the lowerpackage that doesn’t cost quite so much you may better off looking elsewhere ifthere are connections available to you.The Minefield ofBroadband AdvertisingAs a technophobe, you’ll probably be really confusedabout the broadband advertising out there. You should ensure that you understand the terms download, upload, andping and also usage allowances. Download SpeedDownload speed is the speed of connectiondownstream.  It’s anything that you’relooking at and taking from online.  Forexample, if you are taking pictures that have been sent to you for your e-mailyou are downloading; if you are looking at web pages you are essentiallyworking downstream.Upload SpeedThe upload speed at which you can send informationis important.  If you’re sending photosto Facebook, sending an e-mail or sharing files with people from your computerthen you are working upstream. Ping or LatencyPing or latency is the speed of response from theserver.  Essentially, if you are workingon a website and you send a request to move to the next page, it is the amountof time it takes to get the response that is happening.  It’s very different from speed and it’snormally measured in a response time. It’s like the reactions of the internet rather than their speed ofmovement.  Ping is important to thingslike online gaming and video chat online.

DownloadAllowancesYou should also be acutely aware of the downloadallowances of a package.  You shouldensure that you understand your usage profile so that you can get the rightpackage for your requirements.  Normally,with fiber optic broadband all the installations are done for you so it’s yourupfront research that enables you to get a decent connection.Sometimes with ADSL, you may well need to installthe router yourself.  It can be verydaunting but it is a simple process.  Ifin any doubt you will have neighbours and people around you no doubt that havedone the process before and will do it for you.Broadband is simple if you get it right.  It’s when you start cutting corners and usingequipment that shouldn’t be used that you start having problems.  Make sure that you get the right package foryou and get someone competent to install it.