The Long-Lasting Benefits of Fiber Internet for Your Home

By Harry Guinness

You typically have to upgrade some of your tech products, like smartphones and smart watches, every few years. Others, like laptops and game consoles, can last a little longer—maybe six to eight years. And then you have your connection. Once you install a fiber optic internet connection, your home broadband should last for decades. Fiber home broadband will be just as fast, reliable, expandable and sustainable in 2044 as it is in 2024.

Let’s look deeper at the biggest benefits of fiber internet connections.

High speeds forever

Let’s get the big one out of the way. Fiber optic internet is fast. Like, really fast. The average broadband connection in the U.S. has a connection speed of 250 Mbps download and less than 50 Mbps upload. With fiber, you can get symmetrical speed connection that offers 1 Gbps download and 1 Gbps upload. This means your connection can be four times faster for downloading, streaming and browsing, and 20 times faster for uploading.

And 1 Gig fiber isn’t even the fastest fiber connection you can get right now. You may be able to find 2 Gig, 5 Gig and even 7 Gig plans from ISPs providing fiber internet in your area.

Chances are you won’t come close to maxing out your fiber connection’s current potential, even if you have a large family or are a serious power user. Gigabit and multi-gig fiber connections offer so much bandwidth, it’s almost impossible to push them past their limit for long. So, as streaming services offer higher-quality video or your household grows and demands more from your internet connection, your fiber connection will still be able to keep pace.

A more consistent and reliable service

As well as those blazing-fast speeds, fiber connections are consistent, stable and don’t get congested during peak internet hours. All of this means you get the same fast, reliable broadband all the time. If you can game without lag at midnight, you can game without lag at 7 p.m.

Endlessly expandable

Fiber uses light to transmit data at incredibly high speeds. The same technology that is used to connect your home to the internet is used to connect data centers across oceans. The undersea cables that connect North America, Europe, Asia and the rest of the world can handle speeds of up to 400 Tbps. That is the same bandwidth as 400,000 Gig fiber connections.

While your home connection isn’t going to get speeds of 400 Tbps anytime soon, it will keep getting faster as fiber broadband develops over the next few years. The fiber optic cables are capable of much faster speeds—it’s the consumer devices, streaming services and other front-facing aspects of the internet that can’t keep up.

Plus, as you upgrade your smartphone and computer, as your ISP upgrades the computers that monitor and manage its network and as Netflix offers higher-quality streams, the same fiber connection you already have will be able to adapt.

The environmentally friendly option

Fiber internet has been shown to reduce carbon emissions. In a 2022 report on the impact of fiber broadband, Gary Bolton, President and CEO of the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA), concluded: “Deploying fiber reduces carbon emissions by 34%. When you combine this with working from home, deploying fiber to all Americans will be the equivalent of taking 11 million cars off the road each year from a carbon footprint perspective.”

What’s more, the carbon footprint of fiber-to-the-home networks—built 100% with fiber optic that connects directly to your home—is significantly lower than a hybrid network built with a combination of fiber and coaxial cable.

And fiber isn’t just greener. Fiber optic cables are designed to survive storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, heatwaves and everything else that Mother Nature can throw at them. Properly installed fiber optic internet cables are expected to last at least 20 to 25 years. Once you have a fiber connection, you don’t have to worry about it degrading or needing to be replaced in just a few years.

Frontier Fiber is built for the way you live today—and tomorrow

If you’re still on the lookout for the right ultrafast internet connection for streaming, gaming, working from home and running your smart home—all with enough bandwidth for everyone—find out about Frontier Fiber. Frontier Fiber is available in select areas—check here to see when it’s available at your address.