In the simplest of terms, having a fibre optic network is faster and more reliable than a cable network.   Fibre optic networks offer high connection upload and download speeds of 1Gbps for multiple users on average. On the other hand, cable networks have an average download speed of 10Mbps to 1 Gbps and an upload speed of 3Mbps to 50Mbps, but this can vary per provider.