Internet travels to homes and businesses in a variety of ways: by radio waves, phone lines, cable networks, electric wiring or fiber optics. DSL uses copper lines, which were originally designed to carry voice signals and cable internet is delivered through coaxial cables. DSL caps out at much slower speeds than fiber and both cable and DSL typically have significantly slower upload speeds.
Fiber Internet uses cutting-edge technology to deliver data to and from your devices at the speed of light. Light travels through fiber optic lines at speeds that far surpass that of cable and DSL.
Fiber optic cables are constructed via small flexible strands of glass. Because the signal is light instead of electricity, fiber internet is unaffected by electrical surges, moisture or cold. Fiber also sends data further than other technologies like wireless or copper, which are limited by distance or physical line of site to an antenna.
A fast Internet connection is essential to enjoy 21st century entertainment. It provides the ability for super high definition and 4K video streaming, virtual reality, real-time online gaming, watching your favorite online videos, connecting via social media and video calls. As technology continues to advance, only fiber Internet has the capacity to evolve with it.
The average number of Internet connected devices in the home continues to rise each year and Internet usage does too. In a few short years, most homes will have dozens of connected devices and Gig Internet will be the norm. While other Internet technologies have already reached their limits, the potential of fiber has hardly been tapped. The unique technology of fiber provides the ability for it to grow with the data and speed needs of the future, so whether connecting dozens of devices, or hundreds, fiber is ready!
Latency refers to how much time it takes for a signal to travel to its destination and back. Low latency is very important for activities like online gaming, video conferencing, stock trading or any activity where a delay matters. Fiber Internet typically has much lower latency than wireless, cable, DSL or 5G.
The incredible speed and reliability of fiber make it the best choice for businesses. We know that time is money and according to research, a slow internet connections costs employees one week per year of productivity. The bandwidth capabilities also make it the ideal way to quickly access data and applications stored in the cloud. Fiber also offers security advantages. Unlike other technologies, the only way to penetrate a fiber-optic cable is to physically cut the fiber, which will cause the signal to disappear. It’s also future proof, so as your technology needs grow, fiber will be ready to handle the Internet needs of your business for decades to come.
Let’s start with the concept of speed, or bandwidth, as it’s sometimes called. Measured in Megabits per second (Mbps) or Gigabits per second (Gbps), your Internet speed is the amount of data that can be transferred every second over your Internet connection. Your speed determines the type of activities that you can do online and how quickly you can do them.
A connection speed of 1 Mbps, for example, allows you to browse web pages, but it’s not fast enough for you to stream videos on Netflix. If you tried to stream video at 1 Mbps, your video would be poor quality and would likely stutter or pause altogether. On the other hand, a speed of 1 Gbps – one thousand times faster than 1 Mbps – is blazing fast, allowing you to do almost anything, including letting multiple family members stream 4K video simultaneously.
Download versus upload speeds: CCT offers symmetrical Internet packages (the same speed for upload and download). The download speed is the speed at which data travels from a remote location on the Internet to your Internet-connected device. For example, if you are watching a video on YouTube, the download speed is the rate at which the information in the video stream travels from the YouTube server to your computer or phone. The upload speed, on the other hand, is the speed at which data travels from your connected device to a remote location on the Internet. For example, if you post a video or a photo onto a social media site like Facebook, the upload speed is the rate at which the information travels from your device to the Facebook server.
Your home WI-FI network is now as essential to everyday life as electricity and running water. We connect more devices than ever to WI-FI, including smart phones, tablets, laptops and a growing list of smart devices. We use them 24/7 for everything from video streaming and social media sharing to home automation and monitoring.
Sometimes it seems like we’re not getting the speeds we should be, such as when it seems to take forever to upload photos to a photo sharing site or when Netflix freezes just when we are getting to the best part of the movie. While it is possible that there is something wrong with your WI-FI setup or your Internet connection, there are other factors you should consider.
The first thing to understand about Internet speeds is that certain minimum speeds are needed to enjoy different types of online activities. Video streaming is the best example of this. The better the video quality, the faster your Internet speed needs to be to enjoy it. Streaming companies typically publish minimum speeds for the different levels of video quality. Keep in mind that these are minimum values, which means that even a slightly faster Internet package than the one recommended by your streaming service would likely give you better video performance. Be sure you choose an internet speed that’s fast enough to meet your needs for streaming AND when using multiple connected devices at the same time.
The device you’re using to connect to the Internet could be limiting your speed. Older devices are going to have outdated technology, resulting in slower connection speeds. Apple and Android- based smart phones and tablets have maximum WI-FI speeds that they are capable of supporting. If you connect using a smart phone that’s more than three years old, you may not get an accurate picture of the download and upload speeds you are getting in your home.
Another factor that can cause poor performance is interference from other electronic devices. Certain non-WI-FI devices – like baby monitors, Bluetooth devices, microwave ovens and cordless phones – may share the same frequency as your WI-FI equipment. As a result, when these devices are in use, you may notice your WI-FI performance is getting worse.
In the past, the internet was primarily used to download content, emails & browse websites. Now more than ever, internet requirements have changed!
These days we are doing a lot more interactive online activities requiring not only faster download speeds, but faster upload speeds. From working and learning from home, gaming and streaming movies to video chatting and using smart home devices. Many of these interactive activities require information to travel up the internet connection away from your home, making faster upload speeds more critical.
No two homes are the same, so it’s important for you to consider how you use the internet on a day- to-day basis. This will help you pick the speed that will provide the best experience. To make it easier to determine what speed is best for your home, we have a simple internet speed calculator below.
For the ultimate internet experience, you need to ensure you have BOTH the right Download and Upload speeds. To find out what internet speed package will fulfill your household needs, try our internet speed calculator below to reveal your Download & Upload MBPS requirements.
Is WI-FI the same as the Internet? No, it’s not. The Internet is connected networks all over the world. WI-FI is your personal wireless network within your home. With home networks getting more sophisticated all the time, with more and more connected devices, it’s helpful to have a clear understanding of the difference between the two.
The Internet is a massive global communications network. In fact, as its name suggests, it’s more than just one network – it’s a series of thousands of inter- connected networks.
While no one person or organization owns the Internet itself, each Internet Service Provider (ISP) typically owns its own network. It buys and installs the specialized networking equipment that makes it possible for customers like you to connect to the Internet.
When you connect to CCT’s network from your home or workplace, you have the ability to connect with other networks, companies, services and individuals who are also connected to the Internet. For example, you can stream movies on Netflix by connecting via the Internet to computer servers that Netflix owns or read your email by connecting to one of Gmail’s servers.
With your ONT (Optical Network Terminal) providing the Internet connection into your home, there are two ways you can connect your device to the ONT.
The first method, which is not very common anymore, involves physically plugging your computer into the port on the back of your ONT using what’s called an Ethernet cable.
The second method, which is the most common today, involves connecting your computer, tablet or smart phone to CCT’s network without using a physical wire. This “wireless” connection is made possible by WI-FI technology. WI-FI equipment may be physically plugged into the ONT with a cable or it may combine with the ONT into a single piece of equipment.
WI-FI equipment uses radio technology to broadcast a unique name (also known as a service set identifier, or SSID), which you choose when your Internet service is installed. When you’re on your laptop or other device, you can see a list of WI-FI networks nearby such as yours and your neighbors’. You can select your WI-FI name from the list and enter your WI-FI password. And just like that, you’re connected to WI-FI. You can now access any online service or go to any website using your web browser.
Your testing speeds over WI-FI are impacted by many things, consider the following:
All of these things may cause slower speed tests results over WI-FI.
Make sure:
All of these things may cause slower speed tests results over WI-FI.
The wireless radios in WI-FI equipment push service out from the device. Think about it like a speaker, the further you get away, the softer the sound is. Your WI-FI works the same way. The further away you get, the weaker the signal. If there are things like metal, concrete, thick walls and mirrors between you and your WI-FI equipment these can weaken the signal even more.
The latest WI-FI equipment is faster and more versatile than ever, offering many powerful new features. One important feature makes it possible for the equipment to send data over two different radio frequencies or “bands”; the 2.4 GHz band and the 5 GHz band. Equipment that uses both bands is called “dual-band” equipment. To get the most out of your dual-band equipment, it helps to understand the differences between these two frequencies and how the equipment uses them both to give you the best possible home WI-FI experience.
Let’s start with the 2.4 GHz frequency. When the first WI-FI equipment was released, this was the only frequency they used to send and receive data. One of the advantages of the 2.4 GHz frequency is that it can transmit a strong signal over a fairly large area in your home. It is also good at penetrating solid objects in our home, like walls and floors. Overall, this allows you to maintain a strong WI-FI connection as you move further away from your WI-FI equipment.
One downside of the 2.4 GHz frequency is that it has become more and more crowded. This is partly because it provides fewer channels than the 5 GHz band. As a result, in addition to interference from other WI-FI equipment located nearby, your 2.4 GHz WI-FI network can experience interference from many common household devices. These include microwave ovens, cordless phones, wireless speakers, Bluetooth devices and baby monitors. When your network is experiencing interference from these nearby devices, your speed and overall performance suffer.
Another downside it that the maximum speeds offered by 2.4 GHz networks are typically less than 100 Mbps in practice. If there are multiple users trying to perform certain high-bandwidth activities at the same time – streaming HD video for example – then the 2.4 GHz band will likely not be fast enough.
To provide faster speeds, and limit the impact of interference from other devices, manufacturers added support for the 5 GHz frequency in the latest generation of WI-FI equipment. With two frequencies (bands) available, dual-band equipment can handle much more traffic. What’s more, the 5 GHz band supports speeds that are four times faster than the 2.4 GHz frequency, so devices and applications that use the most bandwidth generally perform better on the 5 GHz frequency. The 5 GHz band also has many more channels than the 2.4 GHz band which reduces interference from other devices.
Like the 2.4 GHz frequency, the 5 GHz frequency has some drawbacks. In general, it can’t broadcast its WI-FI signal as far as the 2.4 GHZ frequency and it is not as good at penetrating the walls and floors within your home.
Dual-band equipment supports both the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz frequencies. In most cases, the device you are using to connect to WI-FI, such as your laptop or smart phone, chooses the band. For example, your brand-new phone might stay on the 2.4 GHz band as long as it can connect to it, even though there may be less congestion and more bandwidth available on the 5 GHz band. It will switch to the 5 GHz band if it can no longer connect to the 2.4 GHz band.
Almost every week, we hear that yet another company has been “hacked”. Somebody has broken into their data networks and stolen valuable private information like the personal identification, credit card and banking information of their customers.
It’s not just large organizations that get attacked. If you have WI-FI in your home, you also have a data network and you could be vulnerable, too.
If you bank and shop online, a lot of your own confidential data travels over your network. You may also keep private information on the computers, phones or tablets that you use to connect to your WI-FI. If your WI-FI isn’t secure, all that information could be targeted.
Finally, other people may try to use your WI-FI simply to avoid paying for their own. You may think this isn’t an issue if your Internet plan has unlimited data, but having too many devices connected to your WI-FI network can slow it down dramatically.
Go for a longer WI-FI password – A rule of thumb for the length of WI-FI passwords is to make it at least eight characters long, and the longer it is, the harder it will be to hack.
The more random the better – Even a long password can be quite useless if it is a regular word from a dictionary. Specialized hacking software will quickly crack such a password. Use random letters, numbers and symbols mixing in uppercase letters with lowercase letters.
Misspell a little, it is okay – If you are using real words or phrases in your strong WI-FI password, try to make them unique and difficult to hack. For example, for your “I love summer” password use such form as “1LUv3ummEr!”
WI-FI passwords to avoid – Even if you used letters and numbers, you may still have created a common weak WI-FI password. Avoid using instances like “abc1234”, “123456789”, “password”, “qwerty”, “iloveyou” etc. Every WI-FI hacking software will try these first.
8-16 characters in length
combination of upper and lowercase letters
at least one number
at least one special character
103 W 5th Street
P.O. Box 189
Cochrane, WI 54622
