What is the Deal With “Fiber”?
One of the biggest questions about cable internet today is “Are cable connections ‘fiber optic’ connections just like Verizon FiOS?” The simple answer is “no”, but it is slightly more complicated than that. Here’s a quick and simple summary of how most cable networks work and how they differ from Verizon FiOS.
Cable networks are actually comprised of 2 different types of cable: fiber optic and coaxial. Fiber optic cable is like the Cadillac of cables: it’s far superior for transmitting data than coaxial cable, offering much greater bandwidth, higher top-end transmission speeds and higher quality data transmissions. Note: This is fairly basic description of the differences between coaxial cable and fiber. Check out our Verizon FiOS page for more detail.
Historically, cable companies’ have used fiber optic cable for the main transmission lines that form the backbone of their network, and coaxial cable for connecting individual homes to those lines. This setup is known as FTTN, or Fiber to the Node (or Neighborhood), because fiber is run from the cable company headquarters to neighborhood communications boxes that are in turn connected to many homes via old-school coaxial cable.
But… Why Not Go With Fiber For the Entire Network?
The 2-cable approach was adopted mainly because, when cable companies were replacing their legacy networks with fiber optic cable in the 90’s, it was much cheaper and less labor intensive to replace just the main transmission lines with fiber, rather than replacing both the main transmission lines and every single cable that runs between people’s homes and the main lines.
It was in the best interest of the cable companies to upgrade as much of their network to fiber as possible, and the main transmission line approach was good way to do it at a lower overall cost. Also, demand for higher-bandwidth internet/TV features like song and movie downloads, video conferencing, HD television on demand, etc., was much less. So FTTH, or Fiber to the Home, seemed like expensive overkill at the time they were upgrading their networks.
This has left cable companies with what is now known as an 80/20 network: 80% fiber optics and 20% coaxial cable.
So getting back to our original question “Is my cable network a ‘fiber’ network?”, the real answer is “yes” cable companies utilize fiber optic cable for part of their network, but “no” they are not truly fiber optic networks like Verizon FiOS.
This could definitely change as cable companies seek to compete with the increasingly popular Verizon FiOS, so make sure to check in frequently with High Speed Experts for the latest on FiOS, cable internet and more.
