Fibre connection question

HI
I hope this is the right place as its is kind of a general question,
Is it possible to connect fibre internet directly to your PC - at the moment it just goes to the house and then Ethernet to t he router and to the PC

Jack

Jack Terrier said:

HI
I hope this is the right place as its is kind of a general question,
Is it possible to connect fibre internet directly to your PC - at the moment it just goes to the house and then Ethernet to t he router and to the PC

Jack

Click to expand...

No. Fiber optic carries a light signal so a conversion needs to occur, and it's unlikely to happen as providers need some type of control.
In addition, PCs/laptops would require some new standard to accept the fiber directly.

Actually I thought it was possible. You just need a Fiber NIC installed in the PC itself.

Yeah, you would need a Fibre card in the pc to do it.

It is kinda possible, but you have to take it up with the one who installed the Fibre in the first place.

As mentioned, there's a small board in your end that is used to convert the optical signal into normal LAN/Copper signal. Connecting the Fibre optics to that board is a very delicate process.

In theory though, the board can be replaced with something that simply just forwards the optical signal. Keep in mind though that optical networking gear is quite expensive. RJ45 cables and NICs are cheap. Also, it is kinda useless to move over to full optical, unless you are looking for 25-100Gbit+ signals (which I doubt your ISP will provide)

SlicEnDicE said:

As mentioned, there's a small board in your end that is used to convert the optical signal into normal LAN/Copper signal. Connecting the Fibre optics to that board is a very delicate process.

Click to expand...

In the US, ADSL was never a 'thing' so fiber signal is usually carried over via coaxial cable from the pole, but the process is the same.
There is no antiquated -phone line-copper involved.

OAT said:

In the US, ADSL was never a 'thing' so fiber signal is usually carried over via coaxial cable from the pole, but the process is the same.

Click to expand...

ADSL is something entirely different, and your coaxial = cable which is also very different.

SlicEnDicE said:

ADSL is something entirely different, and your coaxial = cable which is also very different.

Click to expand...

We went from CATV thru coax to fiber + CATV digital thru coax.
ADSL in some parts of the world, use the old copper phone lines.
My point is: phone lines were never used in any other way but their intended purposes in metropolitan US cities.
(AT&T tried briefly to catch the unawares but that did not last.)

One of our subdivisions got the Fiber Optic service some years ago but it only went to a junction box where the signal then went onto the existing phone lines to the houses. The biggest advantage was a massive increase in data traffic, not necessarily in the speed of that traffic but the customers were happy in not having to wait in making phone calls and using phone-line DSL. The connections to the houses were never changed to Fiber Optic.

Berton said:

One of our subdivisions got the Fiber Optic service some years ago but it only went to a junction box where the signal then went onto the existing phone lines to the houses. The biggest advantage was a massive increase in data traffic, not necessarily in the speed of that traffic but the customers were happy in not having to wait in making phone calls and using phone-line DSL. The connections to the houses were never changed to Fiber Optic.

Click to expand...

It has of course an advantage: the cost. Especially in rural areas and if the subdivision was never wired for cable via coax to begin with.
But we digress from the OP's question as always.

Jack Terrier said:

HI
I hope this is the right place as its is kind of a general question,
Is it possible to connect fibre internet directly to your PC - at the moment it just goes to the house and then Ethernet to t he router and to the PC

Jack

Click to expand...

I don't know who your ISP is... but I sort of used a work-around with Verizon FIOS (fiber).

They install an ONT (optical network terminal), which acts as a modem. It coverts the fiber signals to signals an Ethernet cable can handle.
So in my case... I just ran CAT5e from the ONT, straight to the computer (no router involved).

Ofc it all depends on your ISP and their methods.


When Verizon FIOS first became available... they had contracted for seriously "gimped" routers.
Their routers had tiny NAT tables (aka RAM), which meant that every 2 hours I had to reboot the computer.
This is what led me to "find a better way".
I have only one computer (in use), and don't need wifi. So the lack of a router just saves me money and hassle.

P.S. I gave you ten reaction points, just for filling out your computer specs.

SlicEnDicE said:

and your coaxial = cable which is also very different.

Click to expand...

For example, a Verizon FIOS normal installation uses coax as well... for cable and internet.
They call it MOCA.

But their ONT's also have a secondary Ethernet connection.
Which is what I used.
For a while I had both. Coax and Ethernet running from the ONT.
The coax was responsible for the cable TV. But I eventually got rid of the cable TV and the coax.

The coax and Ethernet ports are "inside" the ONT.
But being as I am a rebel electronics tech... I foiled their evil plan.


Verizon tried to take me out with their laser pistols.
But just like Stormtroopers, they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

Jack Terrier said:

Is it possible to connect fibre internet directly to your PC

Click to expand...

As said, it is possible, but you do not want that, your privacy, security and convenience would suffer. ISP registers your connection based on router's MAC, you would need to clone MAC each time you would replace your hardware or to deal with the support to solve it.

Jack Terrier said:

at the moment it just goes to the house and then Ethernet to t he router and to the PC

Click to expand...

Just connect your router behind ISP's router. You can get a decent one like Belkin starting at $20.

OAT said:

In the US, ADSL was never a 'thing' so fiber signal is usually carried over via coaxial cable from the pole, but the process is the same.
There is no antiquated copper involved.

Click to expand...

yet a co-ax contains a copper core so how is there no antiquated copper involved?

markw51 said:

yet a co-ax contains a copper core so how is there no antiquated copper involved?

Click to expand...

Please! I meant phone lines then & only for short runs though, as the loss grows with length.
Copper in RG6 is also shielded in a much superior fashion vs. phone lines.

How does that help the OP again?

TairikuOkami said:

You can get a decent one like Belkin starting at $20.

Click to expand...

Based on the spelling of 'fibre', OP is probably in the UK, or where UK English is used(don't know how to say it really).
Do our Canadian friends use fiber or fibre?

Your Canadian friends spell it "fibre" as well.

I am in the UK, Seem my welsh flag has gone

Jack Terrier said:

HI
I hope this is the right place as its is kind of a general question,
Is it possible to connect fibre internet directly to your PC - at the moment it just goes to the house and then Ethernet to t he router and to the PC

Jack

Click to expand...

Why would you even want to do this?

Whether it is fibre connection a light to electronic signal converter from or previous telephone wring connection to the router, pc always connects to the router. The router interfaces through a firewall to your pc.

I see people giving possible solutions but I cannot see any working in UK.

You would have to put some kind of light/electronic signal converter plus a router card fitted to pc. Even connecting 3rd party routers in place of the ISP routers can be fraught - in part it depends on how willing ISP provider is to supply VDSL login details, and if the 3rd party router is compatible with ISP requirements.

I got my login details from vodafone and a 3rd party vdsl router and I could never get it to work. Vodafone just shrugged their shoulders saying only a few 3rd party routers worked as an ISP router replacement.

So I am pretty sure that even it might be theoretically possible to have the light converter and router built into pc, in practical terms (assuming such equipment exists), you probably never get it working.

Some of above posts talk about fiber via coax - that is FTTC (fiber to the cabinet) in uk - fibre to a local cabinet and then wiring to house (uk uses phone lines for this). This is the older "first generation fibre" restricted to about 72 mbps in most UK setups but still faster than just phone lines which would barely do 10-20 mbps depending on geographics issues.

True FTTH (fibre to the home) has the fibre routed all the way to the home. The only "wiring" is the short gigabit connection to router (about 2m typically). That is how mine is set up (900 mbps).

For the record, its not something i was planning on doing, i just wanted to know if it was possible - would it make a difference - i am not sure it would to be fair