Working From Home? A Gigabit Connection Is One of the Best Things You Can Get

By Harry Guinness

Working from home brings with it a whole heap of new challenges. You have to find a way to work productively, avoid distractions and keep your household running. It’s a lot—and one way to make it all easier is with a gigabit fiber-optic broadband connection.

Whatever else you have going on, with fast fiber internet at home, you won’t need to worry about your service cutting out during an important Zoom meeting, not being able to download large files or having to kick someone in your household off the Wi-Fi because their Netflix habit is interfering with your work.

What is gigabit internet anyway?

Gigabit internet is a connection that has a theoretical maximum speed of around a gigabit per second. That’s 1000 Mbps, or fast enough to download an HD movie in less than a minute.

The top speed is theoretical because your internet service provider (ISP) needs to use some of that bandwidth to manage your connection. If you look at the details of any gig service offer, you’ll see that the actual speed is up to 940 Mbps, or something similar. That’s still incredibly fast internet.

Why bandwidth matters when you work from home

Different internet activities need different amounts of bandwidth. The FCC has some guidelines for the minimum acceptable download speeds for some common tasks. For working from home, it recommends 25 Mbps; for streaming HD video, 8 Mbps; for playing online multiplayer games, 4 Mbps; and so on.

To work from home without worry, you need an internet connection that can handle the maximum bandwidth needs of everyone in your family—plus any guests—at once. If you want, you can go through that FCC list and tally up what every device in your home could possibly need in one go. Remember that people may use more than one connected device at a time and that the listed speeds are minimums. But to save you the hassle, know this: It’s a lot.

Where your professional life is concerned, it’s best not to be overly optimistic about your bandwidth needs. Sure, most of the time you could get by with a lower bandwidth option, but you need to consider worst-case scenarios. What if your daughter starts downloading a 50 GB PlayStation game just as the most important Skype call of your career gets underway? With gigabit internet, it’s no issue whatsoever—but with a slower connection, that call could cut out.

All the bandwidth a gigabit connection gives you is a safety margin. If there’s any reason your internet isn’t as fast as it should be or if lots of people are trying to use it at once, your professional life won’t take a hit.

Tap into all the benefits of fiber

To get the fastest internet speeds, including gigabit, you need a fiber-optic connection. The bandwidth benefit of gigabit internet is just one reason it’s great for telecommuting. 

Fiber connections also have a load of advantages for people working from home:

• Fiber connections have fast download speeds—and fast upload speeds. You won’t just be able to download files quickly and watch videos; you can also upload large files to your work servers or broadcast high-quality video streams, all from your home office.
• Fiber-optic internet connections are super stable and consistent. You can rely on always getting the best internet speeds without any lag. Your work calls, for example, won’t drop in and out.
• Fiber connections are significantly more weather resistant than other options. If there’s a storm or huge snowfall, you’ll probably be able to keep working. (No snow days for you!)
• Fiber is the future of home internet, so getting a fiber connection now future-proofs your home office. As more bandwidth-intense work tools are adopted, you won’t need to change your setup.

The price of peace of mind

Can you work from home without a gigabit fiber-optic internet connection? Of course, and you’re possibly doing it right now. But would working from home be easier, less stressful and more reliable with one? Absolutely.

And really, peace of mind is what a gigabit fiber connection guarantees. It’s the best home internet you can get. It’s capable enough for the needs of an entire family, stable enough to weather the weather and ready for the future. Most important, it’s something you won’t have to worry about.

Add Frontier Fiber to Your Work From Home Routine

Now that you know the difference fiber can make for your endless video calls, tons of uploads to the company server and keeping your laptop tip-top while your family’s online too, you’ll want to explore Frontier Fiber. This is the service you want to live and work with. Check here to see if Frontier Fiber is available at your address.