What is FTTC?
FTTC is a superfast fibre broadband, with the term standing for Fibre to the Cabinet. It is known as a reliable, high quality connection with superfast speeds up to 80 Mbps for downloads and 20 Mbps for uploads. It is mainly used by small and medium businesses, including start-ups looking to expand.
- Runs through the BT phone line network
- Utilises the latest fibre technology
- Faster speeds than traditional copper based ADSL lines
- Cost effective and efficient installation
- Available throughout 95% of the UK
FTTC broadband has great availability in the UK and also benefits from fast installation and setup times, meaning your business can get fast internet access quickly. As it uses the existing copper line infrastructure, it’s efficient, convenient and cost effective.
It is the ideal choice for small and medium sized workplaces who have staff using the internet for browsing, accessing applications and making calls. With it’s high speeds, it is likely to meet all the needs of a smaller business, which don’t require an SLA (Service Level Agreement). An SLA ensures a fix within a set timeframe – essential if you have business critical applications. If this is the case, please view our Ethernet and Leased Lines offering.
As a shared bandwidth (also known as contended) – as opposed to dedicated – performance can vary throughout the day especially at peak usage times when many users and devices, across your local area not just your office, are online. In this event the bandwidth is split which causes the slower upload and download rates.
How does FTTC broadband work?
An FTTC broadband connection is setup using the existing copper infrastructure and your BT line.
An FTTC broadband connection uses fibre optics to link the cabinet to the exchange and the core network. At the point of the cabinet, the broadband is split between users into multiple premises. This is the shared (contended) broadband model.
The ‘last mile’ (although not always literally a mile) is the final stage between the cabinet and the premise, delivered using copper wire. As with ADSL broadband, speeds are affected by the distance between the copper wire and the fibre optics cabinet; the further away your premises are from the cabinet, the slower the download and upload speeds you will experience day to day.
Before installation, you can discover your distance from the cabinet and likely performance, to understand if this is the right solution for your business.
