# The Ubuntu Forum Community > Other Discussion and Support > Assistive Technology & Accessibility >  DSL vs. Fiber Optic internet

## cnico88

So I have Qwest DSL with 7MB/sec and I am pretty happy with it. However Qwest is rolling out Fiber Optic internet with 7MB/sec as well and the price is the same. My question is which one is faster and should I upgrade?

Here are some things that I heard about each (don't know if it's true)

DSL is better during traffic hours because there is an individual line from the telephone company to your modem and Fiber optic there is a hub for a whole neighborhood which causes slow downs.

Fiber optic is better because the response time is faster even though the speeds are the same in terms of down/up.

Is this true and which should I pick because price and speeds are exactly the same>? Thanks!

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## hariprs

No, your opinion about fiber is wrong, Fiber is the fast internet access as of now. I thing your ISP is migrating from DSL to fiber. Though your ISP is providing the fiber with same speed as DSL today they may be having plan to increase the speed in near future. See the below comparision

Fiber - Speed Upto 100Mbps
ADSL2 - Speed varies from ~8-12Mbps(Depends on distance, line sync rate etc)
ADSL2+ - Speed can reach upto ~24-25 Mbps(Again depends on distance, line sync rate etc)
VDSL - Can reach upto ~50Mbps(Again depends on distance, line sync rate etc)

My suggestion is to go for fiber.

But extra fiber cable will be run to your house other than existing phone wire.

One more info, I am working in Alcatel-Lucent's Broadband R&D division and Qwest is our customer. I am happy to know Qwest started to role out our fiber tech.

Know more about Alactel-Lucent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcatel

Know more about Qwest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest

DSL Tech
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Subscriber_Line

Fiber Tech
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises

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## tamoneya

your ISP will try to push you towards fiber because it is better for them and for you.  7MBs is near the max of DSL while it is very low when it comes to fiber.

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## CREEPING DEATH

Fiber is generally better but DSL is oftentimes more reliable.

CD

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## cnico88

> Fiber is generally better but DSL is oftentimes more reliable.
> 
> CD


can you expand that a little more? What do you mean more reliable? Will Fiber optic drop its connection once in a while?

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## Sef

> Fiber is generally better but DSL is oftentimes more reliable.


Not necessarily true.  In my case, I hardly ever lose a connection: Like less than once a month.  

I am on fiber and have 100 mb/s download.

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