Why do I "need" FIBRE?

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Signatius

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Some information for small families
(read on if you are spending too much on your data):
My wife and I are the only two who constantly use our internet connection.
Sometimes a visitor (or two or more) may connect and use it for a limited time.
We have (I think) the most economical setup for our purposes.
Our usage is:
Netflix streaming (not HD) almost 8 hours a day.
Email and Youtube viewing mostly in the evenings and weekends.
Some other sporadic web browsing from time to time.
Our equipment and service setup is:
One desktop PC connected to a 27 inch TV, one laptop, two cell phones.
All four devices are permanently connected via WIFI.
Copper ADSL (2Mbit/s) with land line telephone service.
ISP is Telkom Internet with 20Gb "Softcap" and 100Gb "Do Movies".
With persistence and patience you CAN get Telkom to make it work properly.
There is fibre line to our house and we have been offered fibre services.
Why do I "need" fibre? No one has adequately answered this question.
 
Copper signal goes over copper wire which causes degradation of the signal the further away you are from the exchange. Fiber transmits via light, thus signal is a lot stronger and distance is less of a factor. Weather affects copper connections. Fiber it does not.

On copper when you ping an address you might get anything between 50-100ms response fiber is roughly about 1-10ms response thus the latency on fiber is a lot less. Copper you are basically limited to 40mbs (if you are lucky to be in a VDSL area). Older areas you are lucky if you get 4mbs. Fiber can go up to 500mbs depending on ISP and provider (technically a lot faster however SA does not have the infrastructure yet).

Hellkom is no longer maintaining their copper network and are focusing on fiber.

So in a nutshell if you can get fiber, get it.
 
Signatius said:
Some information for small families
(read on if you are spending too much on your data):
My wife and I are the only two who constantly use our internet connection.
Sometimes a visitor (or two or more) may connect and use it for a limited time.
We have (I think) the most economical setup for our purposes.
Our usage is:
Netflix streaming (not HD) almost 8 hours a day.
Email and Youtube viewing mostly in the evenings and weekends.
Some other sporadic web browsing from time to time.
Our equipment and service setup is:
One desktop PC connected to a 27 inch TV, one laptop, two cell phones.
All four devices are permanently connected via WIFI.
Copper ADSL (2Mbit/s) with land line telephone service.
ISP is Telkom Internet with 20Gb "Softcap" and 100Gb "Do Movies".
With persistence and patience you CAN get Telkom to make it work properly.
There is fibre line to our house and we have been offered fibre services.
Why do I "need" fibre? No one has adequately answered this question.
Click to expand...

If you're not uploading to the cloud or elsewhere and not sending large mail attachments, then you won't benefit from the much higher upload speeds of fibre.
 
If I were you and content with current setup and service I would wait until Telkom offer you an amazing deal on fibre.
The only real benefits right now would be lightening and power surge not on fibre and stability.
 
I don't understand how you get away with such a low cap. I've got a 40Mbps VDSL line (no fibre in my area) and live on my own and I easily burn through 300GB a month just streaming Netflix, Youtube, Showmax, etc.
 
I've had ADSL for over 20 years. In my current house, 19 years, only had i problem, line to the house broke when a branch fell in high wind. Fixed in less than 24 hours. Fibre has been in my area, not Telkom/Openserve, for a year now. My neighbor has already had a number of down times totaling about 10 days.
How is fibre more stable?
Don't scratch where you don't itch!
 
Signatius said:
Some information for small families
(read on if you are spending too much on your data):
My wife and I are the only two who constantly use our internet connection.
Sometimes a visitor (or two or more) may connect and use it for a limited time.
We have (I think) the most economical setup for our purposes.
Our usage is:
Netflix streaming (not HD) almost 8 hours a day.
Email and Youtube viewing mostly in the evenings and weekends.
Some other sporadic web browsing from time to time.
Our equipment and service setup is:
One desktop PC connected to a 27 inch TV, one laptop, two cell phones.
All four devices are permanently connected via WIFI.
Copper ADSL (2Mbit/s) with land line telephone service.
ISP is Telkom Internet with 20Gb "Softcap" and 100Gb "Do Movies".
With persistence and patience you CAN get Telkom to make it work properly.
There is fibre line to our house and we have been offered fibre services.
Why do I "need" fibre? No one has adequately answered this question.
Click to expand...
My husband streams 20g a day watching Youtube videos.
 
You don't need it. Its a nice-to-have, if you're fortunate to have a decent (not fly-by-night) fibre provider in your area.
 
KingRat1 said:
I've had ADSL for over 20 years. In my current house, 19 years, only had i problem, line to the house broke when a branch fell in high wind. Fixed in less than 24 hours. Fibre has been in my area, not Telkom/Openserve, for a year now. My neighbor has already had a number of down times totaling about 10 days.
How is fibre more stable?
Don't scratch where you don't itch!
Click to expand...
That means you go ADSL in 1998... how did you manage that?
Telkom didn't even have the equipment installed at that time.
 
Signatius said:
Some information for small families
(read on if you are spending too much on your data):
My wife and I are the only two who constantly use our internet connection.
Sometimes a visitor (or two or more) may connect and use it for a limited time.
We have (I think) the most economical setup for our purposes.
Our usage is:
Netflix streaming (not HD) almost 8 hours a day.
Email and Youtube viewing mostly in the evenings and weekends.
Some other sporadic web browsing from time to time.
Our equipment and service setup is:
One desktop PC connected to a 27 inch TV, one laptop, two cell phones.
All four devices are permanently connected via WIFI.
Copper ADSL (2Mbit/s) with land line telephone service.
ISP is Telkom Internet with 20Gb "Softcap" and 100Gb "Do Movies".
With persistence and patience you CAN get Telkom to make it work properly.
There is fibre line to our house and we have been offered fibre services.
Why do I "need" fibre? No one has adequately answered this question.
Click to expand...

Out of interest, how much are you paying for all this together? And do you actually use the telephone line to make calls?
 
Realistically you do not need it, it is nice to rid yourself of paying Telkom for line rental.
If you do get fiber, there is no real need for 100/100 line, try and match the line speed you have and go with a reputable ISP who provides good latency.

A 1GB/s line means nothing if its linked to horrible routing and the resulting latency that goes with it.
 
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