Fibre broadband makes our connection to the Internet faster than ever and is constantly growing in coverage, popularity, and speed, further enhancing its benefits for businesses.
What is fibre broadband?
Fibre broadband is the latest advancement in broadband technology, available to both home and business users. It reliably provides super-fast speeds for everyone’s internet needs, such as video conferencing, watching videos, playing low-latency games and seamless website browsing. The technology achieves this using glass cables that allow faster data transfers. There are two main types of fibre broadband connections to choose from:
Fibre to the cabinet (FTTC)
FTTC is the most common fibre connection and offers one of the fastest broadband speeds over a phone line. It works by running fibre cables from the telephone exchange line to the street cabinets which then connect to a standard phone line to provide broadband at download speeds up to 80Mbps and upload speeds up to 20Mbps.
It uses fibre cable, with the last mile being copper meaning you obtain faster speeds as the line can run VDSL rather than ADSL technology. VDSL stands for very-high-bit-rate digital subscriber line and is faster than ADSL, which stands for asymmetric digital subscriber line.
Benefits of FTTC
- Provides faster internet speeds than ADSL
- Cheaper than FTTP, bonded broadband or leased line
Fibre to the premises (FTTP)
FTTP is a new technology, which offers the fastest broadband speeds on the UK network. It’s often installed in new builds and housing estates, however, it is not actually available to the majority of homes or businesses, yet.
It’s a pure fibre connection all the way from the telephone exchange into your home or business premises and it can deliver download speeds of 1Gbps and upload speeds of 220Mbps. It features a converter called an ATA box that allows for a phone to be used on the FTTP connection.
It is important to note that FTTP is not readily available to everyone and not all internet service providers offer FTTP services as it as it’s a new system with a growing infrastructure.
Benefits of FTTP
- Built with the future in mind
- Provides a high-speed broadband service to users in their homes and businesses
So, what’s right for you?
Whilst they both promise much higher speeds than the average ADSL connection, FTTP’s complete fibre connection allows for much higher speeds than FTTC.
FTTC using both copper and fibre cable makes it less expensive to install but even so, it can be limited depending on your line length. On the other hand FTTP was built so that it could be expanded and improved on, essentially making it a future proofed option.
Ultimately if speed is what you are looking for and the price is not a factor FTTP could be the perfect choice for you. If price is more of an issue and speed can be adequately managed within the limitations of FTTC, then it could be the cost-effective choice for you.
Find out more about how we can help you with Fibre Broadband here or just give us a call 0203 301 4000. Our expert team is able to advise on the best broadband solutions tailored to your business, ensuring you get the best performance.
