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Does fiber optic internet service degrade when lots of subscribers are added?


Newbie3

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2 hours ago, Newbie3 said:

From what little I understand, adding lots of new subscribers does not degrade DSL (as each subscriber has separate, physical wires to the telco), but will degrade cable internet (which has a shared circuit).

What about fiber optic?

Yes, all internet-to-the-home services will eventually degrade with increased subscribers. Fiber isn't magic, it's just another data transport medium. It all connects to hardware that has limits to it's capacity to move packets (data). And yes, DSL is subject to degradation too: wire terminations at the telco are subject to near-end-crosstalk on packets arriving at the telco which attenuates the signal and is why DSL is asynchronous. 

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I'm pretty much a techno :() when it comes to such things, but my actual experience is this- I've been using cell-based internet at my place for 4 years and it worked quite well until about a year or so ago when Telcel came out with their modems for purchase and signed up a lot of new subscribers. Now it's unreliable, in and out all day and I've checked with my neighbors who use the service and they say it's the same for them. And it almost always works well and fast late at night and the wee hours of the morning when most people are asleep, so it would seem to me that the number of active users definitely has an effect.

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22 minutes ago, MarkWebles said:

Yes, all internet-to-the-home services will eventually degrade with increased subscribers. Fiber isn't magic, it's just another data transport medium. It all connects to hardware that has limits to it's capacity to move packets (data). And yes, DSL is subject to degradation too.

IMO, it will take a loooong time for "eventually" to roll around for ILOX fiber installations here. Tom has previously commented on this. So technically yes it has some limits but specifically as to what will be implemented, number wise, at Lakeside it will not be noticed all things being equal.

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8 minutes ago, mudgirl said:

I'm pretty much a techno :() when it comes to such things, but my actual experience is this- I've been using cell-based internet at my place for 4 years and it worked quite well until about a year or so ago when Telcel came out with their modems for purchase and signed up a lot of new subscribers. Now it's unreliable, in and out all day and I've checked with my neighbors who use the service and they say it's the same for them. And it almost always works well and fast late at night and the wee hours of the morning when most people are asleep, so it would seem to me that the number of active users definitely has an effect.

In your case with cellphone signals, yes it surely could have and probably did. But it is not accurate to generalize that, because you had that problem with cell service, it follows that the same thing will happen with a completely different technology like wired fiber.

YMWV.... your mileage won't vary!

 

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7 minutes ago, RickS said:

 

IMO, it will take a loooong time for "eventually" to roll around for ILOX fiber installations here. Tom has previously commented on this. So technically yes it has some limits but specifically as to what will be implemented, number wise, at Lakeside it will not be noticed.

Tom says, does he? OK, good enough for me.

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1 hour ago, gringohombre said:

Someone is obviously wrong here. 2 divergent "opinions". This is my main beef with this board...people confusing opinions with fact.

TOB is probably the place for you.

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I have no idea why Mark puts fiber in the same category as other mediums. Fiber is superior.  Immunity to electrical interference and weather degradation, and higher speeds are the main differences, along with lower maintenance costs. Your Ilox box,  called an ONT,   operates on two different wavelengths and each transmits at about 1.2 Gbps simultaneous in both directions.  Because fiber is newer technology, the networks have fewer  bottlenecks up to the ISP network boundary.  To be fair I imagine Telmex has few hardware bottlenecks these days as well. Their bottlenecks are the DSL segment speeds, dependent on your copper distance. The initial throttling  that does occur on fiber depends on the ISP service you contracted.  Beyond that, into other networks, where Telmex and Ilox have to pay traffic costs,   the oversubscription and degradation of bandwidth begins.  It happens mostly at the later stages in the connection up to your destination.  

Fast.com is the Netflix server at the Ilox boundary.  If you speed test there, you should with very rare exception get your contracted speed. I always get mine at 250 mbps, and its gone as high as 750.   Make sure you're hardwired on a gigabit port and not on a VPN, not over wifi. 

 

image.png.9f579fd766afa111793feaf47ca5b73e.png

When you go to other networks:    Depending on the service you can be routed by their peer with:   Google, Netflix and Facebook through or direct peers with them-  Marcatel if a Mexican network.   Cogent, Level 3 or PCCW for international networks.   Once you are on those networks, anything can happen. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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14 hours ago, tkessler said:

I have no idea why Mark puts fiber in the same category as other mediums. Fiber is superior.  Immunity to electrical interference and weather degradation, and higher speeds are the main differences, along with lower maintenance costs. Your Ilox box,  called an ONT,   operates on two different wavelengths and each transmits at about 1.2 Gbps simultaneous in both directions.  Because fiber is newer technology, the networks have fewer  bottlenecks up to the ISP network boundary.  To be fair I imagine Telmex has few hardware bottlenecks these days as well. Their bottlenecks are the DSL segment speeds, dependent on your copper distance. The initial throttling  that does occur on fiber depends on the ISP service you contracted.  Beyond that, into other networks, where Telmex and Ilox have to pay traffic costs,   the oversubscription and degradation of bandwidth begins.  It happens mostly at the later stages in the connection up to your destination.  

Fast.com is the Netflix server at the Ilox boundary.  If you speed test there, you should with very rare exception get your contracted speed. I always get mine at 250 mbps, and its gone as high as 750.   Make sure you're hardwired on a gigabit port and not on a VPN, not over wifi. 

 

Did I do that, Tom, put fiber in the same category as other mediums? No, I didn't. As someone who has worked in the network engineering departments of some fairly notable internet providers; Global Crossing, Exodus Communications, and SAVVIS, I think I have a pretty good handle on the technology. I have specified equipment for, installed (including terminations using a fusion splicer) and supported fiber based networks. Past experience includes, but is not limited to SONET, ATM, BGP, MPLS, OSFP, ISIS, STP, and multicast.

Tom said: Because fiber is newer technology, the networks have fewer  bottlenecks up to the ISP network boundary.

Complete crap, and you should know it. Network performance is dependent on much more than just fiber

 

Tom also said: Beyond that, into other networks, where Telmex and Ilox have to pay traffic costs,   the oversubscription and degradation of bandwidth begins.  It happens mostly at the later stages in the connection up to your destination.  

Also complete crap. Traffic leaving the subscribers edge network tends NOT to be limited as it traverses the peering/transit networks.  This traffic tends to traverse their peers border network only; where speed and efficiency are supreme and hence will have very limited massaging of the traffic. Typically only routing occurs here. Only if the traffic is terminating on a peer's local edge will there be any rate-limiting/filtering.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by MarkWebles
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OK, now that we know what everyone's credentials are for answering the original question... and mine are next to nothing when compared to Marks or Tom's... I think that the OP, Newbie3, was just wondering if he/she had to worry about 'congestion' on a (ILOX or Telmex) fiber installation due to over-subscription of said service. Like what happens on a typical cable installation Lakeside or elsewhere. 

My OPINION (notice that word, Gringohombre) is that one should not worry about congestion impacting performance due to oversubscription at Lakeside fiber installations, especially the ILOX offering. 

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My personal experience, thus not an opinion nor factually correct except in my one case, was that my fibre speed decreased by over half over about 3 months after Telmex switched us over in PV. Whether that was due to intentional throttling by Telmex, maybe everyone gets the top speed at first or because others were added, I'm not smart enough to know but in my case, that was the result. Hope I didn't waste too much of GH's time.

 

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Mark,

I still don't get it.  Your comments are so generic as to be useless.   By not differentiating the clear advantages of fiber, you did put it into the same category of other mediums.    Yes, I suppose if all subscribers wanted to transmit at maximum velocity simultaneously, it might stress even modern day routers.  But you are ignoring the  improvement in semiconductors that have vastly improved the throughput of fiber and routers to the point where there are few practical bottlenecks. 

Image result for fiber optic cable speeds history

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-31903-2_8

On bottlenecks, there are two types of Internet traffic among the carriers.  Transit and peering.  Transit happens when an ISP pays another to carry its traffic.   Peering is when two networks agree to exchange traffic at no charge or the provider covers the cost.    Ilox is a small carrier that pays other networks to transit its traffic.  As described here:

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/isp-peering-high-speed-internet-slow/

They also peer with Google, Facebook, and Netflix.    Now is it clear why those services always work well? .  For residential service, you bet they have to throttle bandwidth at some point or their business case would go out the window in transit charges.   But, they try to make sure fiber subscribers get reasonable quality of service commensurate with their speed.  If you want better than that, there's something called SLA, service level agreement, where they start guaranteeing throughput.

In general, if you are seeing streaming problems on non-peered networks, it could be Ilox limiting peak throughput through a Cogent that they have to pay (unlikely but possible), a transit carrier, or even your provider.   If you've got a cheap service, you might be getting what you pay for.

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, tkessler said:

Mark,

I still don't get it. 

My points were generalities that stand regardless of technology. Hardware is, and for the foreseeable future will be, the bottleneck in EVERY modern network. Single mode fiber has a capacity that modern transceivers can't saturate, even optical transmission systems such as HDWDM still can't push SM fiber to capacity..  Transit and peering? Are you telling me something I don't already know? You're in sales aren't you?

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Well, as they say, Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but this is getting crazy! Even the so called "experts" here are arguing among themselves and providing exactly divergent FACTS. I am probably the least technical guy here but I thought the OP's question was quite logical and something that I would like to know myself. I give up! Maybe ii is one of those UNANSWERABLE QUESTIONS. 

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This is actually not a black and white world hombre. There are people here trying to give an educated answer to the original question.... with a little grandstanding in the interim.... If it is above your pay grade to understand what is going on/being said then yes it might look like the question is unanswerable. It's actually not, but.....

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The intent in my answers is to provide information that helps people make informed decisions on their choices.       Folks should know the advantages of fiber over other mediums and have a basic understanding of the issues related to streaming.  I fail to see how answers that don't facilitate that are helpful. 

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1 hour ago, gringohombre said:

Well, as they say, Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but this is getting crazy! Even the so called "experts" here are arguing among themselves and providing exactly divergent FACTS. I am probably the least technical guy here but I thought the OP's question was quite logical and something that I would like to know myself. I give up! Maybe ii is one of those UNANSWERABLE QUESTIONS. 

If I were you, I would demand a refund from Chapala.com.  How can they charge us such high fees and not book the best experts on the planet?  Hmm....

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I would say that if you are not an expert and do not have a factual answer to a specific question, please do us a big favor not not spew your non-factual opinions here. There are plenty of so called SOCIAL MEDIA sites that are destroying peoples brains every day, especially the younger ones...go there. Yes there are some posts here asking for comments and opinions, but this was not one of them.

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Not knowing or caring about the tech involved with ILOX and fiber, after 3 months the speed tests are consistently 280mb down and plenty up. Telecable would fluctuate between .5 and 10 on any given day and Telmex wasn't much better.

They might be throttling download speeds since I don't seem to be able to get more than 11mb/second on a torrent download. I've seen close to 2mb/sec on uploads. That's plenty and 10x better than Telecable when everything was working. Which wasn't often.

Having another house with Telmex makes it evident that in general all website pages load more quickly with ILOX. One gets used to higher speeds very quickly.

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