Forum Discussion

Hungbadung's avatar
Hungbadung
New Contributor
6 years ago

Does gigablast use fiber optic cables?

Recently got a technician came over to install my new gigablast internet. From what he said, the gigablast is running through coaxial cables. Am I being scammed ?

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana 

  • Bruce's avatar
    Bruce
    Honored Contributor III

    With a 1 Gbps plan, the best speed you'll get is 900 Mbps.  It's just the nature of networking with transmission control, error checking and retransmissions.  This overhead will naturally consume about 10% of your throughput and it's engineered into your plan.  Could your measurements be better?  Yes, and hopefully the techs can tweak your neighborhood nodes.

    Coaxial vs. fiber doesn't matter unless you really need the 1 Gbps upload speed of fiber.  Cox can string my house with bailing wire as long as it's dependable, reliable and at the rate I expect.

    I'm curious, however, if your speeds get better.  Would you update?

    • Hungbadung's avatar
      Hungbadung
      New Contributor

      So after the first tech guy, apparently another guy came to check on the box in front of my house. I wasn’t home the second time so I didn’t get to see what he did. I just did another speed test at 12 midnight, getting around 830~Mbps. It’s very likely to go down at peak hours but I’m hopeful haha.