Fibre vs Cable Internet
Fibre delivers light pulses down glass fibre — cable uses coaxial copper shared with your neighbours. The performance difference is real and measurable. Here's what to expect from each technology.
Connection type comparison
| Type | Max speed | Typical latency | Symmetric? | Congestion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FTTP Fibre | 100 Mbps–10 Gbps | 2–8 ms | Yes | Very low |
| Cable (DOCSIS 3.1) | 100 Mbps–2 Gbps | 8–20 ms | Asymmetric | Moderate (shared node) |
| FTTC/VDSL Fibre | 40–330 Mbps | 5–15 ms | Asymmetric | Low |
| ADSL/DSL | Up to 24 Mbps down | 10–40 ms | Highly asymmetric | Low |
| 5G Home Broadband | 100–500 Mbps typical | 10–30 ms | Near-symmetric | Variable (cell load) |
| Satellite (Starlink) | 50–250 Mbps | 20–50 ms (LEO) | Asymmetric | Variable (beam load) |
FTTP — fibre to the premises
Full fibre (FTTP or FTTH — Fibre to the Premises/Home) runs a glass fibre optical cable from the street all the way to your home. There is no copper anywhere in the last mile. This is the fastest and most reliable broadband technology available to consumers, and it has no congestion at the node level — each subscriber gets a dedicated fibre strand.
FTTP connections are typically symmetric — your upload speed equals your download speed. This is highly valuable for working from home, video calling, cloud backup, and home servers, where upload speed often matters as much as download speed.
Latency on FTTP is exceptionally low — 2–8 ms to the ISP's network edge, significantly below cable or DSL. This makes it the best choice for gaming, live streaming, and any latency-sensitive application.
Cable — DOCSIS
Cable internet uses the same coaxial cable that carries cable TV signals. DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) defines how data travels over this medium. The critical technical detail is that cable infrastructure is shared — multiple households in the same neighbourhood share bandwidth on the same cable node.
In practice, this means cable speeds are fast during off-peak hours but can slow noticeably in the evenings when everyone is simultaneously streaming and gaming. The number of households sharing a node varies — in dense urban areas, a single node may serve 200–500 homes. Rural nodes may serve only 50.
DOCSIS 3.1 (the current standard) supports up to 10 Gbps downstream in theory, with gigabit plans widely available in practice. Upload speeds are significantly lower — a 1 Gbps download plan typically offers 35–50 Mbps upload. DOCSIS 3.1 with OFDM can offer higher upload, but most ISPs haven't enabled it.
FTTC — fibre to the cabinet
FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet, also called VDSL) runs fibre from the exchange to a street cabinet, then uses existing copper telephone lines for the last connection to the premises. Speed depends on how far you are from the street cabinet — close properties get near-FTTP speeds; those 800m+ away may see 40–80 Mbps.
FTTC is widely deployed in countries like the UK and Australia where it was used as a lower-cost rollout strategy. It's being progressively replaced by FTTP but will remain the technology in many areas for years.
DSL — the old copper standard
ADSL and ADSL2+ use telephone lines for broadband. Maximum speeds are around 24 Mbps download and 3.5 Mbps upload, and real-world speeds are heavily distance-dependent. DSL is effectively obsolete for new installations but remains the only option in some rural and remote areas where no fibre or cable infrastructure exists.
The main limitation of DSL for modern households is not just speed — it's the extremely low upload speeds, which make video calls, cloud storage, and working from home difficult for multiple simultaneous users.
5G home broadband
Fixed 5G broadband uses a 5G antenna installed at your home to connect to nearby 5G base stations, replacing a physical cable into the property entirely. Download speeds typically range from 100 to 500 Mbps, with latency of 10–30 ms — significantly better than 4G home broadband but below FTTP fibre. The main advantage is installation speed (hours vs weeks for fibre) and availability in areas where fibre deployment is years away.
Limitations: speeds are shared with mobile 5G users in the area, and can degrade significantly during peak mobile network usage. Not suitable where fibre is available.
Which should you choose?
| Priority | Best choice |
|---|---|
| Lowest latency for gaming | FTTP fibre, always |
| Maximum download speed | FTTP fibre or cable (both offer 1 Gbps+) |
| Best upload speed (WFH, streaming) | FTTP fibre (symmetric upload) |
| Most consistent speeds (no congestion) | FTTP fibre |
| No fibre available, need best available | Cable (DOCSIS 3.1) |
| No cable or fibre, rural area | 5G home broadband or Starlink |