Understand the difference between DSL vs Ethernet vs Fiber
The internet plays a vital role in our life these days either for personal use or business-related use. The industry has traveled quite quickly to increase the internet data transfer speed by developing new technologies Every now and then and still they are enhancing it using the more and more advanced infrastructure. In this post, we will try to shed light on the differences between the DSL, Ethernet & Fiber wires. We are sure that this blog will not only guide you about all the three types of Internet transferring wires but it will ease for you to choose the perfect internet speed connection for your home or office use.
DSL
DSL stands for Digital Subscriber Line. It is one of the early technologies that are used to transmit data over copper telephone lines. It was commonly used in homes & offices to send and receive data along with telephone calls. It seems much like dial-up but there is a difference between them. In dial-up connection, Data & voice cannot be done together at the same time whereas DSL is a step above Dial-up because the internet can be used while being on a telephone call over the same telephone wire.
There are two types of DSL: SDSL & ADSL
SDSL: Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line. SDSL offers equal upload and download speeds.
ADSL: Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. In ADSL download speeds are higher than upload speeds.
Ethernet Cables
An Ethernet cable is the most common type of network cable used on a wired network. Either at home or in offices. This cable connects wired devices as PC routers and networks switched together to the Local Area Network for file sharing and Internet access. It is the most common cable type used almost everywhere. These cables are also known as category cables and the widely used category cable types are Cat5, Cat5e, Cat6, Cat6A, Cat7, and now Cat8. With every upgrade number of cat, cable supports increasingly faster bandwidth speeds and improves upon the signal-to-noise ratio. Among these Ethernet cables, Cat6 cables are popular to be used in homes while Cat6A Cat7 & Cat8 is mostly preferred to be used in offices for higher speed internet and higher bandwidths.
Fiber Optic Cable
This is the latest upgraded technology of data transmission where the signals are transferred in the form of light pulses along a fiber strand. Fiber optics is used for long-distance and high-performance data networking. It is so far one of the fastest internet access methods for home and office use. Fiber- optic cables
Working of the Fiber Optic Cable
Fiber optics transmit data in the form of light particles called photons that pulse over the glass or plastic fibers. The fiber core and the cladding each have a different refractive index that bends incoming light at a certain angle. When light signals are sent through the fiber optic cable, they reflect off the core and cladding in a series of zig-zag bounces, adhering to a process called total internal reflection. It is considered that these light signals travel at the speed of light but it’s wrong. These signals travel almost 30% less than the speed of light due to the dense glass layers. The fiber cable contains strands of glass or plastic fibers inside an insulated casing. A fiber optic cable can contain a different number of these glass fibers from a few up to a couple hundred.
There are two major types of Fiber Optic Cables.
SM = Single-Mode Fiber
MM = Multimode Fiber
Right Selection
Selecting the right cable as per your need, you should keep the following things in mind.
| Structure | Technology | Speed Range | Security | Cost | |
| DSL | 4 Copper Wires | Electrical Impulse | 1 – 100Mbps | Medium | Low |
| Ethernet | 4 Twisted Pair
Using 8 copper wires |
Electrical Impulse | 10-500Mbps | Low | Higher |
| Optical Fiber | Glass or Plastic Fiber | Light Impulse | * 250 – 1000+ Mbps | Highest | Highest |
* A single strand of fiber optic cable has been proven to be able to carry data at up to an extremely fast 100Tbps, which suggests the superior speed of fiber optic cables
Personal Opinion
With the increasing demand for high speed and the day- by- day development of higher security, Fiber-optic is taking over the larger side of internet technology. Though DSL and Ethernet are the most popular and widely used types of networking systems still the time is not far when every kind of network may shift to Fiber-optic technology.
