Fiber Optic Internet: Same as T1? Better than Cable/DSL? (1 Viewer)

[Michael D. Bunting]

I'm moving into a new place here in the next couple weeks. It's a brand new apartment community that will soon be offering "Fiber Optic" Internet Connections. Is this the same as a "T1" connection?

I assume that this is "faster" than regular Cable or DSL service. Am I right?

Another question I have is:

Will this "Fiber Optic" cable still connect with my Linksys Router? As I plan on having 2-3 PC's wired in my new apartment, not to mention a couple of TiVo's on the Home Media Option, wired also.

Thanks for any help...the apartment complex is still being built, so all the details are kind of sketchy right now..but it looks like a great setup. If you are bored, here...have a look:

Sierra Sun Luxury Apartment Homes

 

[Scott L]

hmmm, I think it's the same thing as cable internet. Comcast spent a buncha time & money upgrading all their wires around here.. I assumed it was with fiber optic.

Here's what it says on the website you gave:

"High-speed T1 internet access will be provided for the community as well."

Tell us how fast it goes. I've seen T-1's implented both horribly and very smooth.

 

[Michael D. Bunting]

Scott, thanks for your post...

Yep. I too read that blurb from the website about T1 access. However, the folks at the community keep insisting that it will be Fiber Optics with Gigabyte speeds...whatever that means.

I previously lived in another community that was built and managed by the same folks building this community that I'm moving to. My previous community offered T1 access and it was quite fast. However, if I recall correctly, the community manager told me that this internet connection at thge new community would be faster than that at the old one, because it was Fiber Optic at Gigabyte speeds

You are probably right though, it's probably just T1 via Fiber Optics.

Here is to hoping my Linksys Router works with it !

 

[MikeAlletto]

The neighborhood my house is in has fiber to the homes in some areas for internet, cable, and phone over the fiber. Basically it doesn't mean jack. It all depends upon what kind of pipe the apartment has coming out. They may just be running fiber to the apartments but only have a T1 to share among all residents.

My neighborhood initially advertised 10mb and 100mb internet, but the tech guys who setup my alarm system told me their pipe coming out of the neighborhood is so small its not worth it.

As far as your router working, the wiring inside the apartments won't be any different than ethernet. They aren't going to be having fiber drops coming out of your walls.

The word "fiber" is turning more and more into a buzzword these days. Its just basically a fat pipe. You are still only going to be as fast as the slowest part of the entire connection.

 

[Kyle McKnight]

With the size of development you're moving into, if it's all wired together for gigabit networking, ya'll could have one helluva private LAN

 

[Michael D. Bunting]

Actually, I think that it is going to be private, strictly for the community.

I guess I'll see here in a couple weeks. Thanks for all the feedback/info everyone.

 

[Chuck C]

You guys should read up on Internet 2. It's being implemented at Universities. It uses fiber optic lines and can reach speeds of up to 10Gbps compared to 45Mbps in a standard T1 line. It could be used for sending hi-bandwidth video and audio into classrooms, controlling scientific instruments from remote locations, and drilling down vast amounts of data.

 

[Mark Fitzsimmons]

I go to Case Western Reserve Univesity and we have fiber gigabit ethernet all over campus. Fiber runs directly to my dorm room and into the fiber card I have installed in my PC. Lectures are recorded on campus and you can play them back to review for exams. It's quite cool the technology we have running around here. Good stuff.

 

[MikeAlletto]

Mark, thats pretty wierd. Why would they use a way more expensive fiber connection into the PC when they can technically just run fiber to each dorm, then cat5e from the routers into all the rooms. Cat5e is certified for gigabit ethernet and less expensive than running fiber all over the place. My house is wired with cat5e, I just don't have any gigabit ethernet cards or routers to take advantage of it.

Fiber really wasn't designed for those short runs. Really the only reason you'd want to run fiber directly into computers would be because it doesn't pick up the electronmagnetic interference that copper might (like in a factory). But in a dorm room scenario that interference is non-existant.

Very odd.

 

[Mike Sogge]

Future future proofing?

 

[Mark Fitzsimmons]

Bragging rights?

 

[AllanN]

Fiber to each apartment would be $$$$. Plus fiber ethernet cards are not cheap. They might be using fiber as there network backbone and then regular 100mb or even 1gb ethernet to the desktop. Either way get a GOOD software firewall or even consider a hardware firewall. You never know how security adept your neighbors are seeing as you will probably be on the same subnet.

 

[Eric Martello]

It does not matter whether the network uses fiber connections, or copper. What you need to know is how much bandwidth will be available to you, both to and from the net.

When they say fiber optic, they most likely mean that they are having an OC-x line installed. OC stands for "optical connection", and is goes from 155 Mbps up to 2.5 Gbps and more. You will most likely be connected via a standard copper ethernet cable, and your useable bandwidth my be capped.

Also, network bandwidth is measured in BITS PER SECOND, not bytes. You have kilobits, megabits and gigabits. 100 Mbps is NOT 100 megabytes per second. Each byte has 8 bits, which means you would divide 100 by 8 to determine megabytes per second, which is notated as MB/s. In this case, 100 Mbps is a little over 12 MB/s.

For reference, here is a breakdown of speeds:

Copper

DSL: Usually 128Kbps up / 768 Kbps down (speed vary by provider)
Cable Modem: Usually 128kbps up /1.5Mbps down (speed vary by provider)
T1: 1.5Mbps
T3: 45 Mbps

Fiber Optic

OC-3: 155 Mbps
OC-12: 622 Mbps
OC-48: 2.488 Gbps