With peak holiday shopping season less than two weeks away, the majority of shoppers are flocking to one destination: the Internet.
This year, 76% of U.S. consumers plan to make at least half of their holiday purchases online. Online spending in America is projected to hit a record $240.8 billion for the 2024 holiday season. Of that, $40.6 billion is expected to be spent during Cyber Week, the five-day period from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday.
If you’re one of the millions who plan to shop online during Cyber Week, it’s important to remember that your shopping experience hinges on one thing: your home Internet.
This article explores how fiber Internet can improve your at-home shopping experience and ensure your Wi-Fi is ready for holiday hosting, entertainment, and more.
1. Fiber’s speed and reliability mean seamless shopping.
Your Internet speed can make or break your ability to take advantage of time-sensitive or limited-quantity deals during Cyber Week.
Each time you search for an item, click a product to learn more, or filter your search results by price, size, or color, your device has to load information from the Internet. Slow page load times are common on retail websites, especially on image-heavy product pages, and especially when traffic to that site is high during a sale event.
Fiber Internet is the fastest type of Internet available. Because of the way fiber Internet transmits data, it can load webpages – even webpages with dozens of product images – in one second or less.
These fast download speeds – up to 1 Gigabit per second (Gig) in most areas – allow shoppers to quickly browse for gifts, compare prices across websites, see product reviews, check out, and more.
Fiber is also the most reliable type of Internet available. Unlike cable Internet or 5G home internet, fiber is not affected by cold weather, rain, or snow. Less signal interference means you can shop without glitches or interruptions.
If your current Internet is struggling to keep up when browsing your favorite online stores, consider switching to fiber to make your holiday shopping less stressful – and to give you an edge when you’re up against the clock for flash sales.
2. Fiber-to-the-home Internet can handle the holiday shopping traffic.
Just like the stores and roads become crowded with traffic around the holidays, Internet “highways” can get congested with holiday traffic, too.
Cable Internet networks operate using shared bandwidth. This means the network can only handle a certain amount of usage traffic, and you share the “road” with your neighbors who are on the same network.
When many people in your area are trying to use the Internet at the same time, the available bandwidth reaches capacity, and you experience slowdowns. This puts you at risk for slow Internet during high traffic times – and Black Friday and Cyber Monday are some of the Internet’s highest traffic days of the year.
5G home Internet works similarly. Rather than sharing bandwidth over a physical copper wire network, 5G home Internet has shared bandwidth using airwave cell phone signals. During high traffic times, your speeds may suffer as the network attempts to accommodate the increased demand.
In contrast, a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) Internet network uses dedicated bandwidth. Every home has its own fiber line connecting it to the larger network, giving each home its own bandwidth “highway.” Your neighbors don’t cut into your bandwidth, so no matter how many of them are also online shopping on Cyber Monday, your speeds remain as fast as ever.
3. Fiber Internet provides uninterrupted holiday entertainment.
The holidays are about more than shopping. It’s also a time of heavy streaming in many households.
Whether you watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the NFL Thanksgiving games, classic holiday movies, the Times Square ball drop on New Year’s Eve, or listen to festive music playlists, fiber Internet ensures high-quality, uninterrupted streaming of your holiday favorites.
It even has the bandwidth for everyone in your household to stream their holiday favorites at once. While 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) of fiber is capable of streaming video in 4K definition on one device, 1 Gig fiber (1,000 Mbps) can stream 4K content on every device in your home at once!
4. Fiber Internet has the bandwidth to keep all your holiday guests connected.
When hosting for the holidays, your home Wi-Fi is often flooded with extra devices. Each friend or family member likely comes with a smartphone and perhaps even a tablet or gaming systems for the kids.
Fiber Internet has the bandwidth to handle these additional users with ease. Its high speeds mean it can transmit more data per second, so it can manage more online activity at once than cable or 5G home Internet. When you and your guests are snapping and sharing photos or video chatting with loved ones who couldn’t attend in person, fiber Internet has you covered.
Don’t want those extra devices burdening your normal Wi-Fi network? Some fiber Internet providers, like ImOn Communications, allow you to create a guest network at any time using an app that controls your Wi-Fi.
ImOn’s app, the Whole Home Wi-Fi app, even allows you to set a duration for the guest network. You’re able to create your guest network in advance, so it will automatically activate before your
If you’re ready to future-proof your home with fiber Internet, visit ImOn.net. We are happy to help increase your bandwidth and ensure your Internet can keep up with all of your devices — now and for years to come!