Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill14564
Do you have any numbers for the buffering on cable systems you keep referring to? Mathematically possible, yes, but has it actually become noticeable to the user?
Also, at some point fiber systems are also shared. Yes, that point may be farther from your house and the shared bandwidth might be a larger number but it is still shared.
It would be interesting to see the provisioned rates versus the experienced rates for both cable and fiber in a typical suburban area.
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As you are aware, for the past four years here in the Villages I have been helping my friends, neighbors and any referrals I get cut the cord and switch to Quantum Fiber if they can get it. I don't have a business, just helping people who need it. That said, I don't have hard numbers but I've been keeping track of Villagers telling me they have buffering problems and then verifying if when switching to fiber, if they go away. In all the cases that I've been involved in, the buffering stopped when doing nothing but switching to fiber. This is for Quantum and Centric fiber. With fiber you have a dedicated connection with dedicated bi-directional bandwidth from your home to the swiching office where you are connected to the internet with common equipment as you mentioned. With cable, you have a shared connection with "X" amount of your neighbors until it gets to their switching office. The problem is, as more people stream, more data is being used over the existing cable infrastructure sometimes using all the bandwith at peak times. This is why your speed will also vary. The cable companies are supposed to monitor traffic and manage it, potentially adding capacity as needed but that costs money and is not being done much these days. I'm not saying everyone on cable will have buffering problems, just that I've been hearing this more and more as I interact with people here in the Villages. And it's totally dependent on where you live.