any of yall have any experience with fiber optics not the company but the actual results and if its worth the down payment and the monthly bill.
You mean fiber optic internet/phone service to your house or office? Or digging ditches and installing them?
Or making a tool to cleave the end after crimping....?
the service to your house
OK, here's my take coming from the telecom perspective. I like a comm link that goes straight back to a bombproof central office. Old copper phone lines used to do this. So did DSL. Lately they have been putting remote units on the street corner instead of bringing it back to the CO. These have batteries to go bad but they seem to have been OK. The last snow apocalypse 6 years ago they were putting portable generators at some of these. Plus the copper phone lines on the poles are going bad and telcos everywhere are just ignoring them. So service over copper can be pretty bad. Fiber is definitely more reliable than copper. For one thing it is new and has not been swinging in the air for the last 40 years. Plus its mode of operation is more reliable and more diagnosable. If something goes wrong they will probably fix it and not just bandaid it either. And they may be notified of a problem before you even figure it out. The downside is you have to have powered equipment at your own premise. Old phones ran their (tiny) power over copper. No power is available on fiber, only signal. So if your lights are out your comms are down. I do not like this idea. But with a UPS you should be OK. As for the actual performance, it should be great. There should not be any of the flakiness of the older networks. But that depends if the telco's back network is any good. Usually it is great. The bottom line is what is the cost? Vs. what are you paying now and what are you getting for that?
I have AT&T for a provider. Fiber optic is installed to distribution terminals in my neighborhood. But they still use copper wire to run the service lines. I had no choice if I wanted it or not. My landline phone is now a Voip service. Which means that my phone is now operating through a modem they provided. But like mentioned before, electrical service goes down so does my phone and internet. I am now on the third modem after two have failed.The one plus thing is that-- there were no charges for the conversion and my services haven't gone up in cost. My internet service is super fast.
That is why I am trying to hang on to copper for voice as long as possible. The only active equipment is back at the CO where it belongs. Where they can fix it if it goes bad by the guy getting up from his desk and walking over to fix it. Not roll a truck and who knows how long that takes. If they would make the customer premise equipment something that is actually reliable I might change my tune. But so far it's been bad.
We have AT&T Uverse as well and haven't had many problems with service interruptions. If it does go out it's usually a few minutes and it's back up. I don't have a landline just internet and cable. Occasionally we have to reset the router but the routers themselves have been reliable. Don't have a landline.
The age of reduced expectations. Down a few minutes is down. It is not too much to ask for your phone to never go down. That ain't reliable. If you have to reset it that means it is a piece of junk. Stuff like this should work continuously for years on end. Age of mediocrity.
Hasn't bothered me.:beatsme
Birken, that is *so true*. Old teleco stuff was made to last forever, the new electronic stuff is made to last only for a 'product cycle'.
Yair . . . Jim D. I reckon that quote of yours applies in a lot of fields. (wry grin) Cheers.
cost is about the same not really a big enough difference to create a pros and cons list of it
One advantage of fiber optic connections is that if there is a lightning strike in the area, nothing in your location gets blown up due to the inducted voltage surge. Fiber does not conduct the electricity. Rick
Generally speaking, a fiber connection should be a lot better than anything else available so if cost is the same I would say go for it.
I must be above middle age. When I was a kid we had 9 people on our party line. The drycell batteries in the basement under the crank phone went dead quite often. When we got the new finger dial wall phone when i was about 10 and the party line dropped to 4 homes, things were like heaven according to mom. Dad was a teamster delivering gas and fuel to truckstops via semi tanker and had to call in for "orders" every evening for the next days deliveries. Then we got a heavy ice/snow storm and the phone was out for weeks in the whole area. If orders were not available when dad got done for the day we would drive to the next town in the evening to use a phone. In hindsight that dam phone is what probably made us start logging. The phones like all else has and will continue to evolve and to stay afloat we better go with it.
Amen, brother.