If you have structured network cables running to every room at home, you are in luck. This is the best way to hook everything up to the fast fibre service you are signing up for.
The main thing here is to ensure that your home network is not so slow as to be the bottleneck when it comes to surfing the Net. Why sign up for an 100Mbps service when everything is hooked up to an old 54Mbps Wireless B Wi-Fi network, for example?
Here are three common ways to hook everything up at home:
Ethernet cables
If you don’t mind plastic trunking, I’d recommend you run Cat5E/Cat6 Ethernet cables to the rooms where you need it (that’s what I used to do at my parents’ place in the late 1990s before Wi-Fi was common). This is because the Gigabit Ethernet cables can support up to 1,000Gbps – fast enough for the fibre plans being rolled out now.
It’s best to get a router with multiple Gigabit Ethernet ports – common on high-end models now – rather than the slower Fast Ethernet ports (100Mbps). This means if you do choose 100Mbps or 150Mbps fibre services, you won’t have your router end up as a bottleneck.
Wi-Fi
Alternatively, you can use the newer Wi-Fi routers, which promise speeds of 300Mbps and 450Mbps, depending on the hardware. These are seldom reached, of course, but the best routers (D-Link DIR-855 and Linksys’ new E4200, for example) can offer Wi-Fi speeds that are close to what you get on Ethernet – and good enough for hook you up to a 100Mbps fibre service.
The catch, and this is a big one, is that Wi-Fi is prone to interference. On the common 2.4GHz band, you have your neighbours sharing that limited amount of airwaves in the sky. Each has to wait his turn, like at a traffic junction, to use the airwaves, thus things could slow down when everyone is online.
What about the newer, less congested 5GHz band? The problem is penetration, or lack thereof. Because it uses a higher frequency, 5GHz Wi-Fi gets very, very weak if you have to go past more than two thick walls (my small 1,250-square feet apartment is a case for two separate Wi-Fi networks because of such blind spots).
As long as your home is small enough and doesn’t have many walls separating one end to another, high-speed Wireless N routers could be your ticket to hook up to speedy fibre. But if you have problems with signal strength and interference, it’s best to rely on Ethernet cables.
Powerline networking
Finally, there’s the option of using the electric cables in your home to double up as a conduit for your Internet data. This means plugging in a powerline networking adapter into the wall near your termination point and another at another part of your home. The data is kept within your home and cannot stray beyond the circuit breaker, so your data does not venture into your neighbour’s premises.
Always plug the adapter to the wall socket, and not into a multi-plug, so as to avoid interference. The problem with powerline networking is that your mileage can vary quite a bit. If the power cables in your home are old, you could get inconsistent links, for example.
There are a number of powerline networking manufacturers, with some claiming speeds of 200Mbps to 300Mbps, even though the Ethernet port on their adapters support only 100Mbps (thus forming a self-defeating bottleneck), so be careful of what you buy.
If you are signing up for a 25Mbps or 50Mbps fibre service, then powerline networking could be an option with the 100Mbps speeds it can confidently offer. If you are getting a fibre service providing 100Mbps or higher, it’s best to go with Ethernet cables.
All ready to be wired up? Choose your service provider next.
Recently I learned a ‘hard lesson’ by upgrading my fibre broadband from 100 to 300 Mbps with a dual speed router on 5G and 2,4G. My family has 1 notebook with ‘N’ wireless card and 3 on ‘G’. The speedtest shown 290/300Mbps+ if I connect by wired to the router. Otherwise, on wireless, the one with ‘N’ wireless card clocked up to about 100/130+Mbps and the rest at about 20/30Mbps+ In actual fact, we don’t need such high-speed fibre and the saving can use to buy better network card. This is because
1. The download speed is subjected to the content provider
2. The speed also subjected to the wireless card and the maximum speed is 100Mbps plus even the broadband speed is 300Mbps
3. I do not notice any major different in speed for surfing or downloading
Anyone can give some advice? Btw, is there wireless card that can increase the speed up to 1000Mbps?
Hi Blue, that’s true. I’d agree with your observations. The speeds offered by the service provider still have to be matched by what’s on the other side – the content provider. To be fair, what the extra bandwidth also means if that you can have several streams/users at one time without anyone noticing a slowdown.
However, at current situations, where most sites or services don’t offer more than 10Mbps each, you’ll be hard pressed to max out 100Mbps or 200Mbps, never mind 300Mbps on a regular basis, unless you are a very heavy user.
As for wireless card with 1000Mbps, I really don’t have any in mind. Some Wireless AC routers and cards promise a theoretical top speed of 1Gbps or more, but I believe that’s only possible in ideal situations, e.g. no walls blocking the signals, little interference, etc.
Hey Alfie, your ex-colleague here. I’m using Starhub fiber and I must say I’m rather disappointed. Sometimes it feels like its slower than my prev cable connection! When I have more than 2 or 3 devices on, it just jams up or stops working. The connection drops frequently (never had this prob with cable) too (“no Internet connection”) and I have to reset the modem in order for it to work again. So if your cable connection is working fine for you, don’t bother with fiber. It’s a myth! —Andrew
Truglo sells both a tritium handgun sight and a fiber optic one. The fiber optic sight is significantly cheaper but is there really that much of a difference? What is the difference in the two?
I had problem on my starhub firber if I use N Rounter for download I only get the speed of less than 1 Mbps but if I use a G Rounter I am able to get the speed of 15 to 20 Mbps.
if you have speed problem on firber with a N Rounter try to change to a G Rounter and you will see the different.
singtel fibre connection apparently has problem connecting to wordpress admin panels on certain webhosting companies. Ran a test together with a US based webhosting company. Tested with M1 3G Huawei modem, OK. Tested using VPN to a campus network and use that to connect to a wordpress admin, tested OK. Only SIngtel fibre has that problem. 14 days and counting still no response from the network engineering dept.
That’s interesting. Thanks for sharing. Care to share which webhosting companies you have used? Perhaps there might be others who have had the same problem or those who have found a workaround.
Why M1 fiber optics only can download torrent limited time before 12pm only.
@ec41a25920b7fc4490012083897ac3a6:disqus
Hi, Alfred. Does it work well if I use M1 fibre broadband using just the modem provided by OpenNet and connect directly by LAN to my PC in the bedroom. Since I am the only want one using it for the time being, I intend to upgrade and connect via Asus RT-N56U Wireless Router later on. What do you think? Thx u.
Brian
Hi Brian, you mean the ONT (optical network terminator) issued by M1? It works – just make sure you know which of the ports is assigned to M1 for fibre broadband and plug it from there. Alternatively, if you choose the Huawei gateway (a router actually) from M1, that router will be plugged to your ONT and you can use any port on the Huawei router. Since you intend to use your own router, I’d recommend you go without the Huawei router. You really only need the Huawei if you want to have voice to go with the package.
@albert
Tested Superinternet 100Mbps on Bittorrent. Super fast, compared with other friends testing on SingTel, StarHub and M1 at the same time (also 100Mbps)on the same five torrents started at the same time.
My average download speeds on the same five torrents is about 4MB/s, whereas some of the rest of the folks hover between 1 to 2 MB/s.
Think it’s to do with how the ISP shapes Bittorrent traffic.
for fibre broadband users experiencing occasional disconnections, try moving the Huawei residential gateway to a different location. after moving it away from other electric devices, the problem was solved in my case. of course, a most obvious solution is to use another router, but we cannot use the phone service without the Huawei residential gateway. other users may have other solutions.
one does wonder why they did not come up with an all in one device instead of issuing two devices (a Huawei ONT and residential gateway) or at very least an ONT that has a phone jack.
The unfortunate problem in Singapore is that we have high speed local connection, with no content to consume. The same old lament and grief will be repeated in local forums about how slow international connection does not match up to the local subscribed speed.
@Alfred: any news from Starhub about revising their cable Internet speed? I had the impression that they would making that move soon after introducing MaxInfinity. Current Starhub cable modem price plans are turning obsolete.
Would like to comment the following:
1. Now, when you speak to SingTel, they will tell you local max download/upload speed as well as International max download/upload speed. So, when they sell you a 100Mbps, the local top speed is really 100Mbps but the international is may be 25Mbps. I think this time IDA really do their work to press these ISP to reveal the truth.
2. Currently I have a 15Mbps Broadband from SingTel, upgrading tomorrow to fiber Internet. But when you download from overseas, the “performance is slow” even the content provider has super bandwidth to the world. This is because the ISP here really do throttle the traffic. If they scanned the traffic to be bit torrent, they will cap the speed. Even if you download a huge file, they did that too. The only way that they do not stop the traffic is to have overseas VPN. When you do turn on the VPN, they will let it thru. So, if you do the same download again be it bit torrent or downloading the files, you will see per file download is 2Mb/s restricted by these VPN providers. So, by doing this test, you already know no matter you go with fiber or stay on cable or ADSL, Singtel’s filter will still block all these. They cannot block VPN as they cannot see what’s inside the VPN packets.
3. Big ISP got lots of customers and heavy users. So, the more users and bigger bandwidth they sign up, the more upstream IP Transit they will have to buy. But they cannot buy forever, so, they need to throttle the traffic. Small ISP has lesser users, and usually they are corporate ISP. That means, their usage pattern is heavy in day time, but at night time, they usually have lesser traffic. That is why the speed is fantanstic for these smaller ISP. But bear in mind, when more users build up, you will face the same congestion again… So, there is no best or worst ISP. All ISP needs to make money, and they will have to setup policy to cap these usage.
just some 2cents comment…
Thanks for sharing. I know this comment is already more than 2 years ago, but might be worth having the update that the ISPs seem to have removed the international barrier.
However, I still do not see the benefits of adopting this technology, given that the constraint is more towards the server side. Unless video/tele conference over Home TV/laptops gets more mainstream, it will be difficult to convince me to move.
http://info.singtel.com/personal/internet/home-broadband/fibre-broadband
“Ultra-Fast Speeds
With no international bandwidth cap, you can now surf web content at blazing speeds of up to 300Mbps.
Enjoy maximum bandwidth to surf, download and stream multimedia content with no set limit on international transfers or file sharing.”
I’m on superinternet here and loving it(although only a short while). One thing not mentioned is that superinternet does not use transparent proxies, which means you can download from filesharing sites like rapidshare with no issue. Also, they buy transit directly from NTT, a gd tier 1 provider.
Hey David, good to hear from a SuperInternet user. I think geeks will like what they offer, especially the fewer restrictions they claim to have. Glad to hear you got a nice experience there. 🙂
@Chi-Loong: Please do share your experience with them and also your peering speed with Alf. I’ve always been curious with SuperInternet but their “untested” reputation and their $200 sign up requires careful consideration.
Woah! Great stuff Alf.
I’ll be getting SuperInternet’s service this Saturday for testing purposes, so looking forward to the speed rush.