Fiber or Coax? What is right for your business needs

In today’s business environment, internet connectivity is more important then ever. I am sure by now most businesses have received calls from their ISP looking to have them switch to a fiber connection over their current coax internet. The first thing that jumps out to businesses is the huge increase in costs associated with fiber over coax internet connections. In general, coax internet is a good bargain for businesses that use mainly in house servers and light internet browsing. If your company is basing most of it’s business in the cloud or has a lot of users working remotely using VPN, fiber internet may be the best option for your business.

Coax internet is delivered over the same connections as cable TV. These providers are your Time Warner, Comcast, Cox, ect that provide home and businesses services across the country. These providers offer great download speeds for a relativity cheap monthly costs compared to T1 or DSL. The one drawback to these providers is the asymmetrical speeds they offer. Most packages are something like 200Mbps down and 20Mbps up. As you can see there is a huge difference between the two. Let’s talk a little about what that means.

Download speeds are what you use to receive email, browse websites, watch videos, and stream music. For most basic business needs, this is the important number you look at. If the majority of your needs are in the above groups, then coax is a great fit for you. Upload speeds are used for things like file sharing (dropbox, OneDrive, FTP, ect) sending emails, phone calls (if using VoIP) and outside VPN traffic. For companies that use online file sharing, video conferencing, and remote users connecting back to HQ, most time coax isn’t going to be enough of a connection speed for your needs. This is where fiber can provide a better option for your business.

Fiber internet connections are fast, low latency, and secure connections that are direct to the ISP. Where coax connections go over a shared pipe with other customers, fiber connections are dedicated connections to the ISP. This provides very low latency, and more reliable internet for your company. Companies that need more upload bandwidth for the reasons above will also benefit from symmetrical internet speeds, giving them a much better experience for their users and business needs. When business critical technology needs to send information out from your network, fiber may be the right fit for your business.

Let Blue Cotton help you analyze your current business environment and network and help you determine the best network for your needs.