Just upgraded to Fiber Optic feed ( 500Mbps) from Spectrum (250 Mbps) OMG

Did they also upgrade your router? I have a sneaking suspicion that this could also be a factor. I'm currently using AT&T Fiber at 300 Mbps and it's pretty good but I'm waiting for a new company (Sonic) to finish building their infrastructure in my neighborhood so I can start getting gigabit service and, hopefully, a better router than the one AT&T provides. 

@cooper52 Sonic is awesome. Had them for many years (DSL through to gigabit fiber). Great customer support. But I moved, and it's not available in my new area. Switched to Google Fiber, and after a rocky install process, am happy with it.

I always buy my own router/firewall, and separate wifi access points. The cheap all-in-one provided by any company (even Sonic, sadly) generally has limited bandwidth and crappy wifi.  

I pay Spectrum $54 for 500 down and 22-24 up as part of a package.   With fiber, you should get the same up and down.  

What… And here I was thinking fibre optics was old-school. Haven’t had wire coming to the house for 10 years. Now 1.5 Gbps, 940 Mbps. Guess that’s good…A

Cheers 

@sfgak 

Which Router did you buy?

I want to do the same to have AT&T route fiber optic to/in my (US) house as I have copper from original house build from 1994. I think I can get Blue Stream FO but their reviews and Customer Service reviews are very bad. 

Will the Router you bought work with AT&T? Awhile back I read that AT&T fights you if you try to use your own router. Don't know if they would with FO though.

Thx

@sfgak 

Which Router did you buy?

I have been a fan of "prosumer" equipment like the UniFi line by Ubiquti for a long while. Their latest offering, Cloud Gateway Max, looks interesting. I then buy separate WiFi access points (like the U6 Pro or U6 Long Range). To get them set up in different areas of your home, you can either run ethernet cable, or if that is not practical, then use the MoCA ethernet over coax adaptors, which can be found on Amazon. These allow you to turn the existing RG6/RG59 cable TV wiring in your home into a gigabit eithernet network. They work like a charm.

I am using one gateway (one generation behind the one I mentioned) plus 3 access points (upstairs, downstairs, and garage), connected via MoCA adapters / coax. Speeds are awesome, and with three access points, there are no dead spots in the house. You can also run multiple wifi SSIDs. I have one for computers, one for devices (smart scale, Tesla, etc.), and one for guests. Keeps random IoT devices from infecting your computer network.

And once you have >500 Mbps, then you can skip cable TV, and subscribe to streaming services in addition to your Qobuz/Tidal/whatever.

@sfgak 

Thanks.

I'll be having ATT install FO to the house and then an Ethernet port near my equipment rack for my streamer. Likely getting an EtherRegen switch so I can send a signal to my streamer and satellite box. 

The router will go upstairs to my desktop so I'll have ATT do FO port upstairs as well if necessary as I just need Chromecast to receive WiFi signal from upstairs which it now does. 

Everyone - just to be clear - I am a retired Chemist, not an EE. The company supplied their own router - it is a Calix GigaPoint GP1101X. I am hard wired via Ethernet from their router to both streamer/dacs (LUMIN T2 and LUMIN D2). I have two big stereo systems. I run all 3 4k Sony TVs wirelessly via my EERO system which is also hard wired via Ethernet to the new Router. 

I hope this helps.

Thanks to sfgak for his much more detailed response

• I upgraded my Comcast cable to an 850Mbps down connection and was averaging just over 400Mbps through a CM1200 modem and R7000 router running DD-WRT.  After re-purposing an old i7-4770 as a pfSense unit (PC acting as the router) my average download increased to over 500Mbps.  And it never gets over 1% CPU usage.  The R7000 was relegated to Wi-Fi only.

What would be the mechanism for increased quality?  For video, increased bandwidth could increase bitrates.  But I don’t see that applying to audio, nor to be needed.

@tom8999 The bldg I live in was wired with FO several years ago. The modem/router they supplied performed quite poorly, so I immediately upgraded to the Calix combo when my provider offered it. It greatly improved the audio/video signal delivered to my system. For reasons irrelevant to this discussion, I could not use the Calix in my condo. Having experienced firsthand just how significantly the modem and router affected my system, I auditioned 4-5 different setups. There were massive differences in performance among them, but the Calix ran a very close second to the one I chose. Had the Calix met our other needs, I would have kept it, as our ISP offered it without a rental fee.

H CE 1 - Thank you for your reply. As I previously said - I am not an EE, but the improvement in my sound quality is obvious to my ears and multiple friends that have heard my system since I upgraded to the Calix modem/router. My system is more than capable of revealing this improvement (hard wired via Ethernet to LUMIN  T2 - Krell K 300i - Maggy 1.6qr modified by Peter Gunn and The Swarm subwoofer system)
 

As jji666 said - I do not understand the mechanism for the better sound quality - I always thought ‘bits are bits’. Just getting them faster should not improve the sound. This is not the case however - my Jazz vocals are better (Carly Simon on Torch, Dianna Krall on any album), I get better instrument separation, cleaner horns, better and tighter bass, the sound stage is larger.

I am ‘over the Moon’ happy with these improvements. The changes are real.

Happy Listening

Ha

Well I have optimum minimum wifi 14.95 a month because I'm lower income ...and it works fantastic.. no problems streaming movies.Youtube music ,concerts.