Send a request for proposal/quotation for fiber Internet or fiber connectivity solutions from network providers
Fiber Internet | Fiber Connectivity
Ethernet over Fiber Internet
Carrier Ethernet services
FTTX based Internet access
- Up to 10 gigabit Ethernet Internet access
- Dedicated/symmetric fiber optic Internet
- Must be in a fiber connected or lit building
- Request for proposal or quotation
- Ethernet private lines/virtual private lines
- Global virtual private LAN services
- 10GbE to 400GbE depending on provider
- Request for proposal/quotation
- Broadband access for home office/small business
- Fiber to home (FTTH) or fiber to the cabinet (FTTC)
- Up to 1Gb/s (or 940Mb/s for some providers)
- Check availability and pricing
Due to its large communication frequency bandwidth, fiber optics offers the most communication capacity of all communication media. Whether you are looking for Internet access or connectivity between locations, fiber Internet or fiber connectivity are the ultimate forms of modern communications. Currently, some providers can offer up to 100Gbps and are getting ready to commercialize even faster solutions of 200Gbps and 400Gbps over a single pair of optical fiber.
This page is your one stop source for fiber Internet providers, fiber connectivity solutions and fiber optic connected buildings in the USA. The selected fiber Internet providers above is only a subset of dozens of our providers in the USA and around the world. Enter your information at the top of the page, follow the link to complete the form and we will help your business get connected. Our fiber connectivity services help you identify providers that can connect your business locations, whether its point to point, point to multipoint or multipoint to multipoint within a city, country or even across the world. Using patented online tools we can easily locate fiber connected buildings around the United States.
What is fiber Internet?
Fiber Internet or fiber optic Internet is simply the connection to the Internet using fiber optic cable. Because in optical communications, a very large frequency spectrum is used, fiber optics offers very high capacity for Internet access and other communications applications. The capacity available in fiber optics is almost endless and is limited only by the terminal equipment and software that drives it. Some fiber Internet providers, such as Vermont Telephone, can offer up to 10Gb/s broadband to limited residential premises. For businesses, as much as 1Tbps of dedicated Internet and/or IP transit is possible from some providers. As the industry continues to develop higher speed communication systems, Internet access speed will continue to increase.
What is fiber connectivity?
In general, fiber connectivity is the process of connecting devices or facilities to each other and to the Internet. In our context, fiber connectivity is the interconnection of client facilities with optical fiber. For example, an enterprise may wish to connect its headquarters to one or more offices using fiber connectivity.
Advantages of fiber Internet and fiber connectivity
Since the discovery of the process to make low loss optical fiber 1970 and its subsequent commercialization in the 1980s, optical fiber has taken over as the main medium of communications in many aspects of information communications, especially in long distance transmission systems. All submarine cables, terrestrial long haul networks and most metropolitan networks use fiber optic cable. The connection between data centers, or data center interconnects, is almost all achieved through optical fiber links. Fiber is also consistently replacing other communication networks, such as access, local area networks, data center networks and even short reach server backplanes. The following are some of the advantages of fiber optics in fiber Internet, fiber connectivity and other applications:
High bandwidth capacity
As discussed earlier, fiber optics offer the most capacity of any transmission medium, including copper systems, microwave, and satellite systems. Fiber Internet or fiber connectivity providers can deliver up to 100Gbps per wavelength in a single pair of optical fiber. Higher speed options of 200Gbps and 400Gbps are also available as custom solutions to large enterprises, such as Microsoft for data center interconnects. Such speeds will eventually be available to a wider market as demand justifies more widespread deployment.
Low latency in fiber Internet access and fiber connectivity
Latency is the time taken by IP packets to travel from one point to another. Latency is affected by the speed of the signal in optical fiber and the delay of the signal as it goes through the transmission and routing equipment. Latency reduces download/upload speed and the quality of the signal. Certain applications such as VoIP, gaming and high frequency trading are prone to latency, making it important for the latency of a connection for such applications to be specified. Latency is reduced in networks where signals have to be converted from optical to electrical and back to optical. All optical connectivity solutions such as wavelength services come with low latency specifications. In fiber Internet, you can at least guarantee low latency between your business network and the internet service provider (ISP). But as your packets traverse the Internet, latency depends on how your ISP connects to the Internet, including the distance and number of hops between you and your destination. For Tier 1 providers with expansive optical networks and who peer with other Tier 1 providers, the number of hops and distance to your destination is typically reduced and hence you should expect better latency compared to smaller ISPs.
Security
While security over networks such as the Internet, MPLS and carrier Ethernet can be achieved through the implementation of virtual private networks (VPNs) or software defined wide area networks (SD-WANs), effective point to point network security is achieved by using wavelength services or dark fiber. In wavelength service, you can share the same fiber strand with other clients but use a dedicated wavelength in a dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) system. This ensures that your data is isolated in frequency from other customers’ data. Alternatively, you can use dark fiber in which you can share the same cable with other customers but use your own dedicated fiber strands physically isolated from other customers’ data.
Symmetric bandwidth
In most fiber Internet access, the bandwidth is symmetric which means that you get the same download speed and upload speed. Most copper based access solutions such as hybrid fiber coaxial (or cable) and asymmetric digital subscriber lines (ADSL), you get higher download than upload speed. The provider might offer you an Internet speed of 1Gbps but may not tell you that the upload speed is only 25 Mbps, for example. This can be perfectly ok for most consumer applications where we spend most time on the Internet downloading from the Internet. If your application requires you to upload as much as you download, then a symmetric connection is a must.
High quality of service (QoS)
Fiber optic connections typically come with high quality including high availability (low downtime), low packet loss and low jitter. For critical business applications, network connections should be on at all times. Network providers can guarantee availability, in a service level agreement (SLA), as a percentage. Typical availability can range anywhere between 99% to as high as 99.999%, implying down times of as high as 5 days to as low as 5 minutes downtime in a year. Fiber based networks tend to have higher availability. Both packet loss and jitter – variations in latency- are improved in fiber networks over cable and other copper based communication technologies.
Dedicated Internet
Most, if not all, fiber Internet solutions are dedicated. This means that your connection to the Internet service provider is exclusively for your organization’s use. This is contrary to mass market broadband Internet access solutions that are shared with others in the community. The provider reckons that consumers are not always online and that a connection can be shared. If everybody on the shared connection is online at the same time, the connection speed is significantly reduced. In the case of a dedicated connection the speed that is advertised is what you expert to measure with a speed test at all times. Dedicated vs shared connection significantly impacts the cost of your Internet connection.
Fiber Internet and fiber connectivity options
Whether your goal is to connect to the public Internet or to connect multiple locations together, there are different options and services. While there is one huge public Internet, there are different types of Internet service providers and different fiber access networks and different access technologies that can make a big difference on cost, quality and general user experience.
Accessing fiber Internet or fiber connectivity
While millions of miles of fiber optic cable have been deployed over the past several decades, there is still an acute shortage of fiber access networks connecting premises to private networks and to the public Internet.
Is your building a fiber lit building?
The quickest and most cost effective way of connecting a business to fiber internet is through a fiber lit building. A fiber lit building is one that is already connected to communication equipment that is ready to be turned on. If your business is located in such a building it means that other tenants have already been connected to a fiber service and the provider has already dealt with all the issues that come with installing and “lighting” the optical fiber. You can be rest assured that after ordering the service it will be connected quickly at reasonable upfront costs. If in doubt, submit a request to our free lit building locator service, to find out. While more than half of all commercial buildings in the USA are directly connected to optical fiber networks by one or more fiber connectivity providers, a much smaller percentage of residences are connected directly to optical fiber. More consumers can only access fiber indirectly through cable and digital subscriber line (DSL).
Dark fiber access
Some buildings may be connected to “dark fiber” that is not yet connected to transmission equipment. It will require more time and more upfront costs to get a provider to connect the equipment required to get the services going. In some cases, you may have to lease your own dark fiber to connect to a fiber access point, typically in a vendor neutral colocation data center. This gives you the flexibility to choose from different providers and to switch providers whenever necessary.
Nearest fiber access point
If there is no fiber connected to the building, then some homework is required to find out where the nearest fiber access points are and what it takes to connect the building to the point of presence. Our online tools help locate provider fiber routes and access points. You will have to do an analysis to find out if connecting the building with fiber is even economically feasible. If the nearest point of presence is more than 10 miles away, for example, then the upfront costs may turn out to be too exorbitant unless you are the building owner planning to use that connection for multiple applications such as connecting multiple tenants. If you are a tenant, the best option is to move into a lit building than to go through the hassles of having fiber installed in the building.
Carrier Ethernet services
Once a physical connection is established between your building and the Internet service provider or between your buildings, it is more than likely that carrier Ethernet service will be the connectivity format used. Carrier Ethernet Services are extensions of the well-known and popular low-cost Ethernet based LAN networks to wide area network (WAN) applications. Ethernet now competes with and/or compliment other transport networks in transporting voice, data and video services over long distances.
Like native Ethernet, the biggest advantages of Carrier Ethernet Services are low cost and scalability. If your business or service offering is just starting, you may only need low speed access such as 10Mb/s or 100Mb/s. As requirements change, it is easy to make upgrades in small increments. Data rates can be increased up to 1GbE, 10GbE or even 100GbE depending on availability. Carrier Ethernet Services are available as point to point or multipoint connections over dedicated physical or virtual connections. They include the following options:
Ethernet over fiber (EoF)
Ethernet over fiber service is a fiber Internet access that uses Ethernet technology to provide a high speed Internet connection over optical fiber. Typical speeds range from as little as 1Mbps to as high as 10Gbps. EoF provides significant advantages over legacy wireline Internet access services such as T1 lines, digital subscriber lines and cable. In addition to offering significant cost/Mbps savings, businesses can use EoF for all internet based services such as VoIP, file sharing, email and web hosting, data backup and video. Ethernet over fiber comes with quality of service guarantees of such attributes as availability. EoF is flexible in that you can sign up for as little as 1Mbps and easily scale up to higher data rates as your business grows.
Ethernet private line (EPL)
An Ethernet private line is a secure point to point (P2P) data connection over dedicated user network interfaces (UNIs). It is one of the E-line categories of the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF). An EPL is a closed circuit and does not require any encryption between the two connected points. An EPL is a very high capacity (up to 100Gbps or more) alternative to legacy time division multiplexing (TDM) options and packet technologies such as frame relay. It is ideal for mission critical, high performance and low latency applications. Applications include data center interconnects, high performance video streaming and high frequency trading.
Ethernet virtual private line (EVPL)
EVPL is another Metro Ethernet defined service under the E-line category. The main difference between EPL and EVPL is that EVPL uses virtual connections to make a point to point or point to multipoint links. Using EVPL, an enterprise can connect its headquarters to multiple offices, data centers or cloud Infrastructure.
Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS)
VPLS connects geographically dispersed physical LANS into a seamless single LAN. In an Ethernet VPLS, Ethernet devices communicate with each other as if they were on a single LAN. As an example, the University of Law (UK) resorted to using a VPLS from SSE to support researchers, students and lecturers at its sites in Birmingham, Bristol, Chester, Guildford, London Bloomsbury, London Moorgate, Manchester and York. The VPLS enabled University staff and students to communicate as if they were all at the same campus.
Passive optical networks
If you are a consumer or small business entity operating from your home office, a passive optical network (PON), if available, might be your best option for a fiber connection to the Internet. A passive optical network is a point to multipoint fiber and splitter configuration in which data is delivered from a single headend to multiple end user points. It is referred to as a passive optical network because there is no electrical power used between the optical line terminal (OLT) at the head-end and the consumer access point, making it possible to reach as many users as possible at a reasonable cost. There are several implementations of PON and they include fiber to the home (FTTH) or fiber to the premises (FTTP), fiber to the cabinet or curb (FTTC) and fiber to the node (FTTN). These implementations are often referred collectively as FTTX.
In an FTTH implementation of PON based networks, the end user is connected directly by fiber. In an FTTC implementation, fiber optic cables are deployed from the headend to a cabinet from which twisted pair copper completes the connection to the end user. Alternatively, fiber optic cable is run to a node, in FTTN implementation, where twisted fiber completes the connection. Providers can then deliver up to gigabit Internet using advanced digital subscriber line technology such as VDSL. Fiber Internet deployments that include copper provide a cost effective deployment of fiber access for operators such as AT&T with massive amounts of copper in premises. As a result AT&T, the largest provider of FTTX based services implements the FTTC option and deploys FTTH/FTTP in greenfields where copper is not already deployed. Verizon, on the other hand is the largest provider of FTTH/FTTP based services referred to as Verizon Fios.
By 2020, about 50 million American homes, or about 40% of US households, were connected to FTTX networks. That leaves 60% of homes not connected to fiber leaving copper based legacy DSL, hybrid fiber coaxial or cable and wireless (including satellite) based systems as the options for connecting to the Internet.
Procuring business fiber Internet and fiber connectivity
FiberGuide is a one stop source for both your business fiber Internet and other fiber connectivity solutions. We leverage our expertise in wide area networking and partnerships with all major carriers around the world to help simplify your search for a connectivity solution. Following is a step by step process that we follow:
First you provide as much detail about your project by entering your information at the top of the page. You will be taken to a form where you enter information about your project and your requirements.
We carefully review your requirements and match them with hundreds of the latest and readily available plans from our database.
If necessary, we will follow up with you by email or phone (if you prefer) to get more details about your requirements.
If your building is not already connected to lit or dark fiber, we will explore the nearest fiber access points to your building using a patented online fiber locator tool.
For fiber Internet, we will send you budgetary pricing plans from several providers. Once you select the plan that best matches your requirements, we will follow-up with a firm offer followed by contract documents.
For fiber connectivity, we carefully review your requirements and propose one or more solutions depending on availability and circumstances. For example, if you have two sites in a metropolitan area and one in a rural area, we may propose an SD-WAN solution with Ethernet for the metro locations and the public Internet over a T1 line or satellite broadband for the rural location. In most cases, we arrange for an engineer to visit the locations and determine all the requirements. Finally, we make you a pricing offer.