What Is FTTP? Fibre To The Premises Explained
The two most technical and prominent terms of jargon that you will hear during your hunt for fibre optic broadband will be FTTP and FTTC.
FTTC stands for ‘fibre to the cabinet’ and is most the standard form of connectivity, that many readers may already be familiar with. This strand of broadband provides connection from street cabinets, those green metal boxes that you will see dotted around the streets (these are BT cabinets), to your household via a copper cable. FTTP stands for ‘fibre to the premises’, which in contrast to the cabinets, provides a fibre optical cable directly to your household from your selected provider.
The main benefit of FTTP is internet speed and reliability, using a fibre optical cable that sends information as fast as light can travel means you can access download speeds of up to 1,000mb and 115mb for uploading. Around the middle of 2019, BT began rolling out FTTP into areas that currently have FTTC whereas previously you could only get one or the other. Over the coming months and years, FTTP will eventually become the defacto standard. As no copper wires are used for the internet connection, FTTP is not suspect to being effected by the weather, making it the more reliable and able to provide faster broadband. The main question that everybody puts forward is which broadband is better? For speed, the simple answer is FTTP. As per the above, the difference in internet connection is rather significant, but it does come at a bigger price and you may not even have a choice since FTTP is only available in certain areas. This naturally leads us onto the second question posed by customers – cost.
As the connection speeds are higher, the monthly costs are too. However, paying that little bit more is certainly worth the while for many where it is available. If you are a family household with multiple occupants, FTTP will help support numerous devices and consoles being used at once. Likewise, those working or even running a business from home, will opt for FTTP, to ensure that everything runs smoothly under their roof. In BT’s own words, it is the ‘greatest and most reliable network’, England has ever seen.
In a nutshell, the big differentiating factor between FTTC and FTTP is the connection speed, reliability and better latency with much less packet loss. This is perfect for online gaming and means you connection to PlayStation’s PSN, Xbox Live and Steam will be much more reliable. FTTP availability is limited, as the broadband is sent directly from local BT Openreach exchanges. Want to see if you can access FTTP broadband? Use our availability checker here and also how much it will cost. If you are unable to access fibre to the premises, there is no need to panic. BT continue to roll our more exchanges, meaning more and areas across the UK every month receive availability. The government initially rolled out plans in 2019, to ‘cover’ the United Kingdom in full fibre (aka FTTP) by 2025.
In terms of installation, the process can be quick and easy. If your premises already has the capability to connect, fibre to the premises can be arranged and activated inside 24 hours. For others, lead times may take two weeks. Here at GamingBroadband, we strive to provide UK based gamers with the best internet connection and service, to help fulfil the ultimate gaming experience online. From this basis, we would first-hand recommend our FTTP packages, for those looking for the quickest and reliable internet speed.
Feel free to use our availability checker or simply drop us an email or call to find out more about our services and prices.
