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Fibre vs Microwave

Announcement posted by VostroNet 27 Nov 2017

The Future of Fast Internet

By VostroNet,

Just like a blockbuster movie showdown, the two heavyweights onscreen line-up for their epic confrontation. Like Apollo Creed vs Rocky Balboa or Luke Skywalker vs Darth Vader, the audience is given the two options, in many cases torn between sides.

But only one can start a new era. What about the showdown between microwave and fibre? Both of these network heavyweight alternatives are worthy opponents in their field, and both have respective pros and cons. But only one can be victorious, becoming the future of fast internet services to buildings and end consumers. For that reason, we believe optic fibre is victorious.

But what are these advantages that make optic fibre lines crucial in delivering high-speed and high-quality internet?

Optic Fibre has Better Stability

Fibre technology has the ability to be faster than microwave, particularly when the site is further away from provider’s connection source. Unlike microwave, fibre has the ability to provide fast internet, straight to the end user, without experiencing the strains of distance, weather or line of sight.

Fibre is a more reliable than microwave connection, particularly in the event of a storm and other climate conditions. Microwave may drop-out during a weather event, bringing about interference with the user’s connection. Moisture such as fog, rain, and snow, also weakens the signal’s path. Heavier raindrops and higher velocity of raindrops can further enhance disruption. This sounds good doesn’t it? I mean, who wouldn’t want their internet to drop out suddenly in the middle of the latest Game of Thrones season?

Larger Data Quantities and Speed

Fibre has the ability to deliver a larger capacity of data. This is able to occur as an optic fibre cable can contain over 200 fibres, increasing data capacity significantly over the microwave alternative. A fibre cable ranges between 1,000 Mbps and 10 Gbps (10,000 Mbps).

Microwave on the other hand works off a few hundred Mbps at best, whereby users may receive a limited quantity of data, generally ranging between 1 to 50 Mbps (dependant on the number of users within a building).

In a highly competitive industry, larger quantities are seen as more favourable to consumers.

Potential to Upgrade Capacity

As well as having a larger capacity for data, fibre has the ability to upgrade that capacity in the future. For instance, you receive 10 Gbps of throughput to a building now, which may rise to 40 Gbps or 100 Gbps at a later time. To compare, microwave would require a complete swap out of equipment.

Microwave’s pros over fibre

Microwave’s advantages over its competitor however lie in low initial cost of delivery. Unlike fibre, microwave does not have high costs in running fibre cables down the pavement or a busy road. Deployment is quick and microwave can access environments where there are hills, mountains and buildings, assuming good line of sight and availability of licensed spectrum from the relevant government body. Users can be online within a week or so, even before planning for road closures has begun for it’s fibre foe.

Conclusion

Despite present advantages of microwave over its alternative, optic fibre is the future of fast internet services. Australian’s are sick of slow internet, we all want undisrupted services, larger quantities of data, and the potential to upgrade capacity.

The service provider, VostroNet, delivers super-fast fibre internet for new and existing residential precincts. Their national network offers an end-to-end service as well as high-speed wireless internet within locations delivered by at 10,000 Mbps pipe to your building! In urgent situations we can still look to its lower performance friend as a short-term solution to getting users online. The best of both worlds!