Question What exactly does getting fiber optic internet entail?

[Kishan25]

I get what fiber optic is, meaning I know it's a faster cable that uses infrared or something like that to send data and it will increase my speeds. But do they just replace my main line going to my house with a fiber optic cable? Or do they just give me a router that has optic plugins or something?

-im sorry if this is a noob question

 

[USAFRet]

I get what fiber optic is, meaning I know it's a faster cable that uses infrared or something like that to send data and it will increase my speeds. But do they just replace my main line going to my house with a fiber optic cable? Or do they just give me a router that has optic plugins or something?

-im sorry if this is a noob question

They run a fiber cable to your house.
But that is mostly transparent to you.

You get new equipment inside the house, connect your systems, and off you go.

 

[bill001g]

There are actually are a number of variations of fiber internet connection. The simplest would be if they run a fiber directly between your house and the ISP. Nobody can actually afford that method but it more or less appears that way if you don't get into the details.

Fiber connections use lasers to send light over glass rather than using copper wires and sending electrical signals. You need a box in your house that will convert these light signals back into say ethernet. Like say a coax cable connection you can have a separate modem and router or you can get modem/router combo units. It all depends on the country you live in and how a ISP decides to implement it. It doesn't really matter a lot to you the ISP will generally handle getting the fiber into the house and connected to the box. After that it is pretty normal ethernet.

Now it would be nice if you could just call the ISP up and ask them to hook a fiber to your house but even if you were very rich the other end of the fiber needs to be run under the streets etc to the ISP office. The ISP needs to get permits etc to bore fiber under streets and dig holes. If there is already a ISP in your neighborhood that sells fiber it likely is as simple as running fiber between your house and some box in the street so they only need to dig in your yard.....but some cites require permits for even that.