What is FTTC?

FTTC stands for Fibre to the Cabinet. The fibre optic line runs from the telephone exchange into the street cabinet. This is where the fibre stops. It does exactly what it says on the tin; it’s “fibre to the cabinet”.

From the cabinet, a pre-existing copper line connects to your premises. This makes it the quickest and cheapest to install as it uses copper lines… However, this does come at a cost.

An FTTC connection is contended (shared with many other users), which can bring down your speeds and make it particularly slow during peak times.

The top speeds available for FTTC broadband are approximately 80 Mbps download speed and 20 Mbps upload speed. However, the further your premises is from the cabinet… the weaker this connection will be.

Advantages

• • High availability (96% availability throughout the entire UK)
  • Low cost
  • Low/ no maintenance­
  • Fast set-up

FTTC and FTTP – what’s the difference?

The fibre optic line runs from the telephone exchange to the street cabinet. This is where FTTC and FTTP differ, as FTTC connects to the premises through a copper line, and FTTP connects to the premises through a fibre optic line.

Although FTTP is faster than FTTC, there is approximately 60% availability in the UK, compared to a huge 96% with FTTC. Surprisingly, there isn’t a huge price difference between the two, but there will be a cost if new infrastructure is needed to be installed to give you an FTTP connection.

FTTC might be for you if:

• • You are on a tight budget
  • You won’t be using multiple high-quality services at a time
  • You are a micro business
  • There isn’t a persistent reliance on the internet 

FTTP might be for you if:

• • You regularly make video calls
  • There are four or more active internet users
  • You download and upload large files