Quote:
Originally Posted by jrref
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.
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I don't know enough about the physical layout of fiber systems or where the switching centers are. I find it difficult to believe that Quantum installed several thousand strands of fiber from the Villages to wherever their switches are so there is likely some physical consolidation going on somewhere closer.
"the buffering stopped when doing nothing but switching to fiber". But is it true that nothing was done but switching to fiber? Just switching from Xfinity to Quantum means switching data centers and internet onramps. Certainly, the modem needed to be changed to accommodate a fiber input rather than a cable input. Unless the installation had separate modem and router boxes then changing the router also changed the modem. Then, you also advocate locating the router in different locations and using the wifi pods for better coverage.
It could very well be that an overloaded fiber infrastructure was causing buffering. It could also be a particularly active street, a faulty cable, a faulty cable connection, or a malfunctioning concentrator box. Without more investigation and numbers there is no way to prove just what it was. Switching to fiber solved the buffering but, there is a lot more than "nothing" involved when switching from cable to fiber.