Home buyers and sellers are seeing firsthand how having a fiber internet connection can make their homes more desirable. On average, fiber adds 3.1 percent to a home’s value. That’s just for having a fiber-optic line wired to the house.

The reason? Because with a fiber connection, you have virtually limitless access to the internet, with lightning speed and freeway-wide bandwidth for streaming entertainment, real-time gaming, video conferencing and more.

Bandwidth is one of the most misunderstood aspects of home internet. So, we’re going to step through what it really means and how it affects your internet experience.

Wireless internet routers enabled us to free ourselves from ethernet and coax cables long ago. But as our need for more internet bandwidth has grown with each new convenience, our home networks have gotten more congested.

When you add up all the mobile phones, tablets and laptops floating around your home, then consider the cord-cutting streaming TV services and smart home IoT devices, it’s not hard to see why. Currently in the U.S., there are an average of 22 networked, or smart, devices in every household.

Long, thin strands of pure glass about the size of a human hair are the foundation of the world’s fastest internet, capable of connection speeds many times faster than coaxial cable. When bundled together, these strands create a cable that allows information to travel through them in a beam of light over long distances.

Having Gigabit fiber internet means your entire household has the bandwidth to stream movies, play games online, video conference and much more, all at once—plus, you get the symmetrical speeds that keep you in real time, all the time. 

Owing to their strength and efficiency, fiber optic lines are the most reliable source of high-speed internet. When compared to traditional cable and DSL, it’s not even a close contest. Let’s look at what worry-free internet really looks like.