Yes, data moves more quickly through fiber cables than through copper ones.
Yes, data moves more quickly through fiber cables than through copper ones.
I once lived in California with fiber optic internet, achieving a ping of 58. My office was about 30 miles away and had copper wiring, resulting in around 68 ping—despite the internet speed being only 100 Mbps, it didn’t impact my latency. I later relocated to Arizona, where my ping improved to 58, which is roughly 300 miles closer to the LOL servers. I also used copper cables during that time.
Coaxial cable Internet relies on time division multiplexing. Essentially, multiple users share one main line, and your modem pauses randomly to avoid interference before sending data. If another device yells at the same time, a collision occurs, causing both devices to delay before retrying. Fiber connections provide a private path directly to the office, allowing equipment to transmit freely without interference from neighbors. The central hub switches data quickly at the office, reducing chances of collisions compared to local modem interactions. This explanation is a simplified overview of the main concepts.
Latency depends far less on ISPs than on the final 1000ft. I've experienced partial T-1s with half the delay compared to simultaneous coax at 50x speed because of better SLA. The main factors are whether the ISP is over-subscribed and how busy their fiber connections are. Most internet use is video streaming, so it's more about managing traffic than collisions. Otherwise, we'd still be using token ring.
FTTH/P is typically deployed using GPON or updated versions instead of dedicated fiber, mainly because of cost considerations. There’s a detailed explanation available at http://www.gpon.com/how-gpon-works. Compared to cable, it remains significantly more efficient since it avoids issues like crosstalk and interference.
Fiber performs worse than cooper for ping, lagging about a third of a second. The findings here don’t matter much; the ping gap might be bigger because of network layout and traffic congestion. Being 300 miles away doesn’t really change things. Video games now rarely rely on one server location. They use public cloud services with servers spread globally, so latency is measured from your device to any PoP in those clouds—not just the actual game server.
In reality it works only under certain conditions; otherwise, you must use repeaters on copper for extended ranges, which introduce delays compared to fiber that travels farther without amplification. Copper interference also leads to unpredictable latency because of the need for error correction.
Copper and fiber work well together for backbones since they’re both fiber-based. The decision between them mainly influences the last mile, which has less effect on propagation speed—the main factor being ping. Network layout matters more, such as total distance a packet travels and how busy each switch or router is. Fiber also requires repeaters for long spans, but these are simple amplifiers using lasers or electrical power rather than complex logic circuits.
Data travels rapidly through most materials at nearly light speed. The main constraint is how effectively hardware can handle encoding and decoding. Delay usually stems from network congestion—many devices accessing the same part create bottlenecks. For distance, assume signals move about 70% of light speed; a 300-mile route needs roughly 500 miles of wiring. At that length, it adds only a few milliseconds. Longer gaps, like between continents, increase latency to around 40ms. The key limits are processing tasks such as signal boosting or retransmission.