How does fibre broadband work?
Fibre broadband is replacing all standard broadband. It uses fibre optic cables instead of copper cables. Fibre connections are able to achieve up to 1,000 times the bandwidth of copper connections.
However, there are two main different types of fibre broadband on offer and only one can achieve the lightning speeds. The best way to get your head around it is to understand the infrastructure behind both and the speeds they can offer.
What is partial-fibre (or FTTC) broadband?
Most connections that are referred to as ‘fibre broadband’ should more accurately be thought of as ‘partial fibre’. This offers slower speeds than full fibre.
Like your standard broadband, it still connects from the street cabinets, hence the name ‘fibre-to-the-cabinet’ (FTTC). But, it’s faster, because instead of running through the older, copper cables from the broadband exchange, the fibre network uses its own new fibre-optic cables.
However, the network from street cabinet to your property, is still a copper phone line, which means the absolute maximum speed that can be reached is 80Mbps. If you see any package advertising speeds between 30Mbps and 80Mbps, it’s likely that this will be through a partial fibre connection.
What is full-fibre broadband?
Full fibre gives you the fastest broadband speed possible. This technology relies entirely on fibre optic cables that run from the broadband exchange to your property, which is also why they can be known as ‘fibre to the premises’ (FTTP). There’s no need for anything in between. Using this technique it is possible to get speeds exceeding 1,000Mbps (1Gbps). Issues like buffering and outages will become a thing of the past with full fibre.
This equipment is future-proofing businesses and homes because, once installed, there won’t be the need to invest in new broadband cables for decades. At the time of this article, full fibre is available to just over 60% of UK homes.
Does your home have access to full fibre yet?
Before you get too excited about the high speeds available by getting full fibre, you’ll need to make sure that you have access to this technology. Currently only about 60% of the UK has had the infrastructure in place for this installed.
The government’s target to deliver nationwide gigabit-broadband aims to see a minimum of 85% of premises to be able to access full fibre by 2025. There is a £5 billion programme, Project Gigabit, now in place to enable hard-to-reach communities to access lightning-fast gigabit-capable broadband. It’s tackling pockets of poor connectivity in urban areas and rural and remote communities.
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