Not only residential DSL broadband is cheaper, it is often more reliable and consistent compared to mobile internet. When you consider Optic Fiber, the speed of internet service reaches a whole new level.

In Pakistan Fiber internet service is available in some areas and slowly gaining grounds. Stormfiber, Fiberlink, Nayatel are some of the major names that provide fiber internet in Islamabad and Karachi. Using fiber for amazingly fast internet speed, fiber internet companies are changing the way people connect with the world.

While bridging these gaps, people do get confused about Fiber internet service and various questions come up in their difference with regular internet service. If you are looking to know more about Fiber internet or planning to switch to it, keep the following details in mind:

• Fiber is slowly gaining grounds in various urban areas. First confirm if a particular fiber company has started providing service in your area before placing order
• It can take anytime between a week to a month for Fiber installation at your home (if services in your area are active), so keep at least a month’s time-frame in mind when deciding to switch to fiber service
• The upfront cost of Fiber is always high, over Rs. 7,000 for installation alone.
• The long-term monthly cost of internet is lower than cable internet or Wimax
• A special device, GPON, or similar is provided that is essential for fiber internet service. If your internet service provider is not providing GPON or relevant device, the internet connection is not really fiber.
• Fiber internet has zero copper wire in the whole connection, from the source right to the residence. If there is even a little copper wire in your fiber connection, it is not fiber.
• Fiber internet, in comparison to cable, is more reliable as it doesn’t go out in case of rainfall or electricity breakdown. The GPON device has battery backup to give more time of uninterrupted internet.

In a couple of years, fiber infrastructure will be better and would cover larger areas with more reliable performances. Once that happens, doors to more innovations will open as faster internet with dedicated lines will be available to residences as well as small-scale companies.

Do you use fiber internet or is the service available in your area? Let us know in the comments below.

UPDATE, 2nd Nov, 2015:

We are glad to let our readers know that Stormfiber has intiated its services by offering packages ranging from 2Mbps to 30Mbps in Karachi and those intrested to know more about it can visit this link to get more info and can also place their orders online on the available packages and tarriffs etc. Our representative will call you to guide you with the process.

Khurram Zahid

The post Fiber Internet Gaining Grounds in Pakistan appeared first on Smartchoice.pk.

What is 802.11ac ?

There are many protocols for the wireless networking standard. 802.11n is a widely used protocol at the moment, while 802.11ac is the next version of it that offers better throughput that is theoretically 3 times faster. 802.11ac will offer better data transfer rate, good video streaming and wide area coverage. It allows round about 433 Mbps per partial stream. It supports up to 8 streams that theoretically offers data transfer rate more than 3 Gbps.

Faster WiFi, Really ?

This may be the first question that ponder your mind. Will using the 802.11ac protocol make my WiFi faster? In short, yes. 802.11ac promises to deliver better coverage and faster transfer speeds. But this may not be as simple as it sounds. 802.11ac is an upcoming technology and is not supported by a bit old hardware. To use 802.11ac protocol, in addition to router you will also need an adapter that supports 802.11ac protocol. Pricing is also an important factor because, at the moment you will hardly find a good 802.11ac router below 200$. Theoretically 802.11ac can transfer up to 1300 Mbps as compared to 802.11n whose transfer rate is attributed as 450 Mbps. However, the speeds measured after testing 802.11ac are roughly 720 Mbps.

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Supported Devices

In last 2-3 years, hardware manufacturers has started 802.11ac compliance in their upcoming devices. Now 802.11ac is being supported by upcoming smartphones, tablets and laptops.

Routers

There are several high performance routers that are capable of using 802.11ac wireless networking protocol. Netgear Nighthawk R7000 is a highly rated router that allows you to experience maximum throughput. In addition to that, Linksys, ASUS, Apple and D-Link also offers routers that are 802.11ac enabled.

Compatible Laptops

All major commercial laptop manufacturers are producing 802.11ac compliance laptops. Few of them are HP, Apple and ASUS.  The latest Mac Pro, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro also features 802.11ac wireless networking capabilities.

Compatible Smartphones

Upcoming smartphones also features 802.11ac wireless networking capabilities. iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are the first 802.11ac enabled iOS devices. In addition, HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4, LG Nexus 5 and Nokia Lumia 1520 are also capable of wireless networking via 802.11ac protocol.

No doubt 802.11ac wireless networking protocol is being supported by hardware manufacturers, but still it will take some time to completely replace the current 802.11n protocol. In addition to this the router prices may significantly decrease with the passage of time to make them easily affordable.

Khurram Zahid

The post Need faster internet, look for 802.11ac, what? appeared first on Smartchoice.pk.

Domain Name System allows you to visit websites via memorable addresses instead of remembering the IP addresses of different websites that you intend to visit. DNS is an important factor to offer you a fast browsing experience. No matter your default DNS address assigned by you Internet Service Provider works well, but you can improve the browsing speed by analyzing the best DNS servers for you via utilities like DNS Benchmark and Namebench. Before analyzing the best DNS servers for your internet, we need to find out the reasons that how other DNS servers may speed up the internet browsing. The reasons to change DNS servers include

• DNS server may be experiencing heavy traffic
• Have a limited cache
• Have invalid cache entries
• Greater response time

There are several utilities that can help you to find the right DNS server for your internet via conducting different tests. These tests also take the geographical location in consideration and provide you the best DNS servers and also notifies you about the performance improvement.

Recommended Read : How to change your DNS with ease

DNS Benchmark

DNS Benchmark is a free software by Gibson Research Corporation. It is just 163KB in size and is available for Windows. It can be used on Linux and Mac OS via Wine utility. Once you download and start the software, you get a welcome screen with content that explains what is DNS and why it is used. It also explains how DNS can be used to speed up the internet. You can select the Nameservers tab from the top and click Run Benchmark to start the test. Once the test is finished you will be able to see the results that can be sorted in the fastest first order. The conclusion tab displays the errors and recommendations based on the test results. It is recommended not to use any internet service while the test is in progress because doing so may produce results that vary greatly. Click here to get DNS Benchmark

Namebench

Namebench is also a free software that to test the best DNS servers. Namebench runs fair and thorough benchmark and is available for Windows, Linux and Max OS. Namebench offers a graphical user interface as well as command line version. Once you download and extract the the software, you get a simple screen to configure the required options and start the test. You can set the location, configure data query source and set number of queries. Once the test is completed it displays the best DNS settings and the improvement percentage that the recommended DNS server will offer while browsing internet. However Namebench test is relatively slow if compared with the DNS Benchmark. Click here to download Namebench

This was all about speeding up your internet by getting a better DNS server. We hope that by using above free software products you will be able to find a better DNS server that will enhance and speed up your browsing experience.

If you planning to change your internet connection, click here to compare internet prices and packages in Pakistan. To check your internet speed, click here to take this free test

Khurram Zahid

The post Speed Up Your Internet – Get A New DNS appeared first on Smartchoice.pk.