Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC)

FTTC Business Broadband Service

Many businesses that have a traditional broadband Internet connection (ADSL) are finding that data speeds are becoming a pressing issue. Upload speed is a particular challenge, as work patterns change to revolve around high-end, real-time applications such as Voice over IP and Software as a Service.

Fibre-optic solutions, e.g. fibre leased lines, offer ultra-high speeds and long-term flexibility, but can require expensive new infrastructure. For this reason, many are turning to

Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC), a new, hybrid Internet access technology, that offers a bridge between these purely fibre-optic solutions and legacy business broadband, providing a cost effective route to higher speeds and reliability.

How it works: FTTC 

The key to FTTC is to gain the speed advantages of fibre-optic without having to lay new cable in the final stretch leading to the subscriber’s premise (often referred to as the ‘last mile’). FTTC uses fibre-optics from the local exchange to a street cabinet located a short distance from the subscriber, with the final leg being completed by an existing, analogue phone line’s copper wiring.

Because the final loop is a short distance (typically less than 300m), an advanced form of ADSL called Very high speed Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL/VDSL2) can be used across the copper, maintaining the sorts of speeds delivered by the fibre to the cabinet. VDSL uses higher frequencies over short distances (up to 17MHz) to deliver greater transmission speeds.

FTTC is an asymmetric access technology, able to download faster than upload, and is also a contended service, where capacity may be shared at the street cabinet with a number of other local subscribers. The large capacity of the fibre connection means that this is not usually an issue, but organizations seeking guaranteed symmetrical bandwidth should consider Ethernet in First Mile or a Leased Line Internet Access solution.

activereach’s FTTC Business Broadband service offers:

  • Highly cost-effective and reliable ‘always on’ Internet connectivity.
  • Based on cutting edge fibre-optic and VDSL technology.
  • Higher speeds and more reliability than traditional ADSL.
  • Speeds of up to 80Mbps (download) and 20Mbps (upload).
  • Fixed annual costs.
  • Minimal installation disruption as it uses existing cabling.
  • Includes static IP address.
  • Ideal as a secondary, back-up solution for Ethernet fibre solutions.