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Broadband internet access is a must-have for any modern business — that’s a given. However, companies are increasingly choosing to go beyond basic broadband and upgrade to fiber optic internet. This can be a game-changer, especially for a small business on the way to making a name for itself in the world.
What are the benefits of fiber internet for your business? The potential upside goes far beyond improved speeds. Below, we’ll look at the advantages of fiber optic internet and the potentially transformative effects it can bring to your company.
1. Overall, fiber is significantly faster than traditional broadband.
You might have heard that fiber internet is faster, and you’ve heard right. The average fiber connection offers both upload and download speeds that surpass today’s most popular internet technologies, such as cable or a digital subscriber line (DSL).
How fast are we talking? Gigabit download speeds (up to 1,000 Mbps) are commonly available through fiber providers — and, as we’ll explore in the next section, the upload speeds are just as fast. That’s a real advantage over other internet technologies, where gigabit speeds aren’t always available and upload speeds often lag far behind downloads.
2. Fiber offers much faster upload speeds than other types of internet.
Upload speeds, which are crucial for activities like livestreaming or video conferencing, are typically a fraction of the download speed that a traditional broadband provider offers. Fiber, meanwhile, almost always provides symmetrical speeds, with uploads that are just as fast as downloads.
In our new era of remote work and livestreamed events, fast upload speeds will only become more important. Everything from customer acquisition to maintaining vendor and client relationships flows through the internet in the 21st century. Businesses that have invested in fiber internet service are likely to have a significant leg up in key areas.
3. Fiber is by far the most reliable type of internet service.
Fiber technology eliminates many common issues that can cause unreliable service in traditional broadband connections. Most types of broadband use electrical signals traveling over copper wires, which can pick up electromagnetic interference from sources like weather and high-voltage equipment. Fiber cables use light instead, making them essentially interference-proof.
What’s more, fiber doesn’t even require electricity to operate, meaning it can remain in operation even when local power is out (so long as network terminals have a source of power). That can be essential for your business in blackouts or other emergency situations. Finally, fiber doesn’t experience the same crunch periods in local capacity that cable networks are notorious for. When cable networks are straining under peak load, fiber keeps humming along at the same speed.
4. Fiber can supercharge the speed and efficiency of everyday business processes.
From using cloud accounting software to attending meetings via video conference, practically every key function of a modern business involves the internet in some way. Unfortunately, most business owners have also experienced sudden outages, slow speeds, or video conferences that won’t stop buffering.
With fiber, you and your employees will enjoy improved speed and reliability during these daily tasks. That often means higher productivity, lower frustration, happier employees, and overall improved business performance.
5. Fiber provides better WiFi service for your customers.
Customers today expect public WiFi to be available at the businesses they patronize — and the faster and more reliable, the better. That’s especially true if you own a business such as a coffee shop, bar and grill, coworking space, or another place where people come to work and socialize.
Invest in a fiber connection and watch your customers flock to the fastest public WiFi in town. Fiber’s high bandwidth can accommodate large numbers of simultaneous connections, so it’s ideal for commercial settings.
6. Fiber offers extremely low latency connections.
Latency (also known as ping) is another key factor in your internet connection’s performance. Basically, it refers to how quickly your connection can move a packet of data from its origin to its destination. While other factors like distance from the destination server can affect latency, your business’s connection quality is the biggest factor in determining connection latency.
Fiber offers a major leap forward in combating latency. While it doesn’t truly transmit information at the full speed of light — since the signals still have to travel through the medium of glass rather than a vacuum — it’s quite close. That means fiber’s latency is much lower than any competing technology. Latency can be severely detrimental to video calls and digital collaboration, so businesses have a real interest in minimizing it via a fiber connection.
7. Fiber is more secure than other types of internet connections.
Fiber optic internet also eliminates some potential security vulnerabilities of copper-based broadband. Malicious actors can intercept traditional broadband communications fairly easily by altering the physical cable that transmits the signal. Fiber, by contrast, is almost impossible to intercept in this way.
Even with the enhanced security of fiber, you’ll still need to follow standard data security best practices for businesses. However, fiber eliminates a significant threat vector, improving your business’s overall digital security and allowing you to focus on stopping other kinds of security threats.
8. Fiber is easy to scale and relatively future-proof.
Most current fiber networks are capable of much faster performance than they’re presently used for. Because of that, fiber internet service is typically straightforward to scale if your business needs an upgraded service package.
In most cases, it’s as simple as contacting your fiber ISP and letting them know that you need to add more capacity. Sure, you can do this with traditional cable internet, too — but fiber offers much more headroom for your business, making it a reliable technology you can trust to serve you well as your organization grows.
Ready to get all the advantages of fiber internet for your business? Find a local fiber provider online and discover if fiber service is available in your area.
