What’s Your Favourite Flavour of Broadband Data, Fibre, Wireless, or Cable?
The answer to that question depends very much on your individual circumstances and what you need. If you’re a homeowner with a family of teenage kids who are digital natives your requirement is going to be very different from a retired couple who just need to be able to keep in touch with family via email, Facebook and occasionally Zoom. Then you might be in charge of a small business with a few computers who just needs to be able to connect everyone to the internet so they can use Teams, Slack or Skype.
Where you live also colours your decision. Most people who live in towns and cities can get fibre to the property (FTTP) which means that there is a fibre connection as far as possible to your home without disturbing you or coming onto your property (there is fibre to the desk (FTTD) which is available for incredibly data hungry homes and offices who need as much speed as possible. For more about FTTD talk to Briant Communications about installation).
Not everywhere is connected to fibre yet, so if there isn’t a fibre cable outside your house, or you simply prefer not to, there is wireless. Wireless data is distributed by a transmitter located on high ground, a tower roof or mast. All you need is a receiver which is in line-of-sight of the transmitter which is easily installed and can deliver wireless data throughout the home and garden, usually with no additional equipment.
Another advantage of wireless broadband is that if there is no existing fibre available, not only can you be connected in next to no time ( Briant Broadband promise to have you up and running with superfast wires broadband within 48 hours, depending on your individual circumstances) there is no digging or installation. That means no engineers blocking the street pulling cables or taking up the road surface and all the disruption that causes.
If you’re still using copper wire it’s most likely that it goes from your computer or router to a local telephone exchange at the very furthest. Once it gets there it’s certain that the rest of your data’s journey is going to go via fibre.
Pros and Cons of Copper Wire, Fibre, And Wireless
Cable is old, dependable and easy for most laypeople to install and repair. If you break a cable it’s easy to disconnect it, splice like-to-like ends together again and you’re back in business. Need an extension? No problem! Any hardware shop on the high street is going to be able to supply you with what need, and it’s an easy job to take on without any specialist equipment or training. However, compared to fibre its per metre price is high, it’s heavy, and its data transfer capacity is much lower.
Fibre has been around for a few decades now, but it’s still considered new, and innovations are ongoing making it more flexible, harder wearing, and able to cover far greater distances. It isn’t subject to interference from power lines, magnets or radio signals, and it’s easy to install it where copper cable previously existed. Data can be sent great distances without the need for any boosters, repeaters or amplification. The drawbacks are that in the unlikely event that a fibre is cut, damaged or broken it can’t be fixed with a pair of pliers and solder. Instead special splicing tools are needed which require specialised training to use correctly.
Wireless is a hassle free solution, but it too has its limitations. It’s incredibly quick and easy to install so long as there is a transmitter which is within range and not obscured by a stand of trees, tall buildings, hills, or other obstructions. It’s fast, but while it’s not as fast as fibre it has similar speeds to copper cable, and like cable, it can be affected by other radio frequencies. You can connect your laptop and smart devices to it and take them out into the garden, meaning you can listen to music while you sunbathe, or set up a projector to watch movies al fresco at night.
So which is best for you?
In reality it’s unlikely that you would even get to consciously choose to have copper wire, and if you were receiving your data via wire you’d find it completely inadequate for any but the lowest demand uses. You might have copper from your computer or phone going as far as your office router cabinet or even as far as the nearest telephone exchange if you’re in an area where the data infrastructure hasn’t updated your cabling yet, but it’s more realistic to assume that your uploads and downloads are travelling via fibre for the greater part of their journey.
If you need ultra fast broadband speeds, that is, up to 12 times faster than average broadband speeds which are reliable, then fibre is for you. Those speeds mean that an entire family can watch movies, download music on the side, have a VoIP phone call and run a range of Smart Home devices all at the same time without any distinguishable lag, freezing, glitching or stuttering.
Of course most families won’t need anything like that kind of data, especially not all day every day. So you can choose a slower package which still provides an outstanding product, just less expensive and with limited speeds. However, if you’re on the right package you will enjoy the internet just as much as you won’t get anywhere near the demands that hypothetical family. It can be hard to judge how much data you use since ISPs rarely tell you in terms you can understand how much data you’re using. How much data does it take to scroll through Twitter for an hour? How about Tik Tok? Facebook?
That’s why so many people are opting for unlimited data. The pricing model of data is constantly changing. Nobody’s using dial-up any more so there’s no need to bill by the minute, and having data limits is a huge inconvenience for most customers. So why not get rid of limits, charge a flat rate and limit the speed a customer gets instead. That way you might not be able to use all of your data hungry devices at the same time without interruption, but you will be able to get online and do all the important stuff throughout the month without getting cut off.
Originally published at https://briantcomms.substack.com on August 20, 2021.
