Whats the difference? 120 Mbit/s Fiber vs 120 Mbit/s Cable

[Kamunkin]

I wish to have internet at my future place and can't really find my answer. 
Ebox offers me 120 Mbit/s with cable (for 69,95$/m (Quebec, canada) and free installation) or Videotron offers 120 Mbit/s with optical fiber (for 80,95$/m and 60$ installation). Is there really a difference in speed because the 2 have a limit of 120 Mbit/s? and what justify the price?
We download a lot and stream a lot of high quality content on Plex. A bit of insight could be much appreciated, thank you  

[NumLock21]

Too lazy to look it up and don't quote me on this, but I think the price difference might have something to do with the wiring that's being used. Cable is copper and the other one is glass, which transmit data through light.

[Mr Technician]

How does the upload speed compare between the two?

[Lurick]

For fiber they usually have to make a run to your home still whereas with cable it's almost certainly there already so there is less work on their part.

If they both offer the same upload and download and you play really competitive e-sports titles then go with fiber for a bit less latency. Otherwise if they give you the same and 3 to 5 extra ms won't make a difference, go with whatever is cheaper.

[Ithanul]

At most the fiber may have lower pings among its hops depending how they manage the traffic.

I have 100Mbits cable and its pings are around 60ms or 80ms depending on the number of hops (note: this in a 1987 townhouse, so the copper probably not the best).  Never had fiber, so I have no clue civi side how its ping rate is.  I know military side when I work with it, its ping rates are nice and low.  Also, keep in mind, depending on how the fiber is done, it is either fiber up to the box for the neighborhood area or in some areas fiber up to the house wall.  Unless you got a motherboard, router, and modem with fiber connections, the connection goes back to copper lines.

 

Best thing is look into the upload speeds, fiber tends to win out there since a TX and RX line is ran as a pair unlike cable where TX and RX are sharing the same cable.

[LordofSavages]

I think the fibre would have higher upload rates but even if it doesn't the routing might make it a little more responsive in terms of latency and all.

[kirashi]

50 minutes ago, Kamunkin said:

I wish to have internet at my future place and can't really find my answer. 
Ebox offers me 120 Mbit/s with cable (for 69,95$/m (Quebec, canada) and free installation) or Videotron offers 120 Mbit/s with optical fiber (for 80,95$/m and 60$ installation). Is there really a difference in speed because the 2 have a limit of 120 Mbit/s? and what justify the price?
We download a lot and stream a lot of high quality content on Plex. A bit of insight could be much appreciated, thank you  

Ask Videotron if it's fibre to the node or fibre to the home. There won't be a difference in speed, assuming that you actually get the speeds advertised, however, if it's fibre to the home then that's probably why it costs more. That being said, unless you live in a really densely populated area where fibre already runs down your street, it'll be fibre to the node then copper to the home.

 

 

EDIT: According to Videotron's site, it's hybrid fibre coax, which means NOT fibre to the home. Again, if you're going to get 120/20mbps unlimited with both providers, and run your own router with the ISP modem bridged (as you should be for best results) then I'd go with the cheaper option in the long run.