Tax time requires speedy service, especially during the busy months from January to April. Advisers become booked and must complete customers’ taxes before the deadline.
Omaha H&R Block owner Robert Alderson noticed times when the internet would crash and burn—a headache no preparer wants to deal with during the tax season. Alderson switched from coaxial to fiber last year to ensure exceptional customer satisfaction, becoming one of the first businesses in his area, near Walnut Grove Park, to do so.
“I haven’t now heard any clients complain, and most of them in my office jump on our internet because it’s way faster than their phones,” Alderson mentioned.
Business owners must consider options between a slower coaxial or faster fiber cable option when dealing with large file sizes. Fiber pulses light through a glass core compared to coaxial, which utilizes electricity that flows through a copper core. Plus, lag time happens far too often for those who have chosen coaxial over fiber. If the two ran a race, the coaxial competitors would remain in the back of the pack with download speeds somewhere around 100 Mbps (megabits per second) to 1 Gbps (gigabits per second) and uploads of 5 Mbps to 50 Mbps. Fiber’s sprinters would easily outperform the coaxial team with downloads and uploads at about 300 Mbps to 10 Gbps. The symmetrical speed pushes fiber into an advantage, such as a runner who sprinted uphill and downhill the entire race, as opposed to one who jogged on declines but walked inclines. It may seem small, but waiting an extra 15 minutes for a file to be sent may result in a lost client.
Not only that, but congestion also clogs up the lines. If those sweaty 20 runners drank from the same spigot, water would flow more slowly like a communal coaxial cable network. Fiber’s direct line ensures fewer freezes when uploading mega files because no one shares the “spigot.”
“It definitely matters when you need it,” said Jason Johnson, the Omaha Market Manager of FiberFirst.
Sure, the lower latency, ping stability, and dedicated bandwidth allow fiber a crucial edge for gamers. It could mean life or death for a character. Similarly, businesses compete in a market designed for quick turnarounds. Environmental factors from wind or ice storms don’t impact underground glass as much as a metal conductor, meaning the open sign stays on despite poor weather.
In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic changed people’s perspectives, where the need for speed increased, when forced to work from home.
“We saw an uptick of people switch from coaxial to fiber,” said the regional general manager of Allo Fiber Dave Miller. “Once they experienced it, they never switched back.”
Allo president Brad Moline sought to create more options for his native Nebraska state and began building a fiber network in Scottsbluff and Gering in 2004-2005. Coaxial has some advantages in this arena since its availability reaches rural and settled neighborhoods with its existing infrastructure, while fiber requires costly new lines. The federal initiative Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD), with $405 million allocated to Nebraska, ensures access for all to affordable, high-speed service that should close the divide.
Fiber has existed in Omaha since the late 1990s but flipped to residential in the 2000s. Fiber providers lay a stake, like the land rushes of the late 1800s, to build in certain zones. Providers like Google Fiber rushed into the city, turning on service in Aksarben last year, and settling at Millwork Commons as their home base.
Rachel Larson, the community brand manager at FiberFirst, works for the company because she likes how it develops in underserved parts of the city rather than just new construction areas.
“Multiple players in the market offer consumers a choice on what is best for them,” Larson said. “These newcomers are giving COX a run for their money.”
Since fiber doesn’t build over each other, Allo partners with its competitors to offer companies services some may lack like cybersecurity, next-generation firewalls, and manageable IT services.
Cable costs less than fiber, but beware of hidden costs such as router fees, maintenance, installation, and data caps. Linda Deegan, a technology assistant at Millard West High School, pays $320 monthly for internet, telephone, and cable with COX; however, she doesn’t believe she’ll switch to fiber as her husband, Thomas, suffers from Lewy Body dementia and Parkinson’s disease.
Deegan said, “The only pleasure he has anymore is to sit in his chair and watch television.”
Although cable still seems a viable option for average streamers, some businesses would also rather stick to cable because the latest technology of DOCSIS3.1 allows for multi-gig speeds, keeping them at an optimal pace, and the future DOCSIS 4.0 will mean additional upgrades.
“I think we will see an increase in fiber optic connectivity, and copper technology will go the way of DSL,” Miller said.
Visit allocommunications.com or fiberfirst.com for more information.
This article originally appeared in the April/May 2025 issue of B2B Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
