What is business fiber?

Business fiber is a high-capacity tier of reliable, affordable, fast glass optical fiber technology for internet service. How fast is business fiber? With speeds ranging from 10 to 400 Gbps, this service is much better suited for enterprise use than home or consumer market broadband services. Because it uses pulsed light in a strand of glass instead of radio frequency or electrical signals in metallic wire, it’s faster, can carry a wider capacity bandwidth and is less prone to signal loss, interception or interference.

What are the benefits of business fiber?

With the emergence of AI and the sustained trends in cloud computing driving an exponential growth in network traffic, internet connectivity is essential. Here are several advantages that make business fiber the enterprise-grade internet connection of choice:

• Significantly faster speed: With light as the transmission medium, business fiber transmission is only limited by the speed of light. This allows for transmission rates that greatly exceed copper-wire Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) or cable internet service.
• Greater bandwidth: While the spectrum of light frequency used in business fiber is narrower than the radio frequency spectrum used in cable modem channels, the frequency of the optical bands is much higher. Bandwidth is also enhanced by the symmetrical rate of transfer of business fiber, the same speed of uploading or downloading data.
• Increased reliability: Optical business fiber networks experience far less downtime. Unlike copper wire systems, they have no exposure to radio frequency interference, line noise, weather conditions or the risks of equipment failure across a copper wire-based network.
• Enhanced security: A signal running across a fiber optic network is more difficult to intercept than signals carried along a copper wire. While tapping is still possible, the signal’s light waves stay in the glass strand medium and cannot be read with induction or clamping.
• Cost savings: Maintenance costs of fiber optic technology are lower than those of copper-based systems. Copper cable has limitations in distance and signal capacity that require amplifiers over long distances. Optical fiber cable can carry a signal efficiently and with fidelity for many miles.

How fast is business fiber?

ISPs and network service providers offer various types of business fiber and multiple tiers of service. Speeds of up to 400 Gbps are available in the highest tier for the most intensive institutional and large enterprise requirements. In the mid-range, dedicated internet access (DIA) provides speeds up to 100 Gbps. More affordable internet on demand is available for small businesses in the 1-10 Gbps range. Transmission speed can be attributed to the wavelength of light used. Business fiber uses light in the infrared region of the spectrum with wavelengths corresponding to 100 terahertz, several orders of magnitude greater than radio frequency-based systems.

Business fiber vs. broadband

Consumer broadband technologies like DSL and cable internet rely on radio frequency signals while business optical fiber uses pulsed light waves. Radiofrequency spectra in broadband technologies operate at an inherently much slower frequency than the light radiation in optical fiber. Broadband is a shared public service with security, bandwidth and speed disadvantages. Business fiber allows for dedicated internet access, which provides a more secure service than broadband, along with a fast, reliable and exclusive connection between the business and the network service provider.

Business fiber vs. dedicated internet

Dedicated internet as a concept is an exclusive connection between a service provider and an end user using any transmission technology. Its distinction is that it is a connection that is provided to only one user. Although it is not common in mid-to-high-tier internet service, business fiber can be a shared connection and offered as a public utility like cable or DSL. Instead of being defined by the number of users sharing a connection, business fiber relates to the fiber optic technology behind it and performance suitable for business use.

When to choose business fiber

Everyday video conferencing and large file transfers are activities that almost every industry undertakes. Business fiber is the best choice to handle those demands because of its ability to transmit data in synchronous mode. Internet service providers (ISPs) are among the highest-end users that sell internet connectivity services to a large client base. The video gaming industry has increasingly moved to a cloud-delivered model that requires real-time transmission of intense image rendering and extremely low latency for user inputs. Internet hosting service providers need considerable bandwidth and high-speed access to websites hosted on their servers.

Lumen offers several types of business fiber for any size business. Lumen^® Internet On-Demand, Lumen^® Dedicated Internet Access and Lumen^® High Speed IP provide high-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity and a network experience that is easy and quick to configure and simple to purchase and install. Lumen is a global leader in internet solutions that are recognized for their scalability, availability and reliability. Contact us today to find fast, reliable business internet access.

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