The word "fibre" appears in almost every broadband offer, but it refers to very different technologies. The difference lies in the last stretch, between the exchange or street cabinet and your home: that is where speed, stability and latency are decided. Knowing the access technologies lets you read an offer for what it is and choose according to your real use.
The stretch that matters: the last mile
Provider backbones are fibre almost everywhere. What changes is the medium used to reach the home:
| Technology | Last stretch | Typical speeds | Distance-dependent |
|---|---|---|---|
| ADSL | Copper pair from the exchange | Tens of Mbit/s at most | Heavily |
| FTTC | Copper from the street cabinet (VDSL2) | Up to 100-200 Mbit/s download | Heavily |
| FTTH | Fibre all the way inside the home | From 1 Gbit/s upwards | Hardly at all |
| FWA | Radio from a mast to an outdoor receiver | Tens to hundreds of Mbit/s | On radio coverage |
| Satellite | Radio to a satellite | Varies by orbit type | On view of the sky |
FTTC: fibre to the cabinet
With FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) the fibre reaches a cabinet in the street; from there to the home the signal travels over the old copper telephone pair, using VDSL2 technology.
Copper attenuates the signal with length: a few hundred metres from the cabinet you get high speeds, at a kilometre or more they drop considerably. The condition of the cables and the in-home wiring matters too: oxidised joints, daisy-chained sockets and old cables degrade performance.
To improve an FTTC line:
- connect the modem to the master socket, where the cable enters from outside;
- remove unused extensions and branches;
- check attenuation and noise margin values in the modem panel: values that worsen over time point to a physical fault worth reporting.
FTTH: fibre to the home
With FTTH (Fibre To The Home) the fibre reaches an optical wall outlet in the home, connected to a device called an ONT that converts the optical signal to Ethernet. There is no copper along the way, so distance from the exchange has very little effect.
Most FTTH networks use PON (Passive Optical Network) architectures: one fibre from the exchange is passively split between several premises. The most common variants are:
- GPON: 2.5 Gbit/s download and 1.25 Gbit/s upload shared among the premises on the same tree;
- XGS-PON: 10 Gbit/s symmetrical, shared, used for multi-gigabit plans.
Sharing is not a problem in most cases, because users do not all use the full bandwidth at the same moment.
Two practical details. The ONT may be separate from the router or built into it: if it is separate, you can more easily use your own router. And to make use of a line faster than 1 Gbit/s you need routers, cables and devices with 2.5 or 10 Gbit/s ports: with a 1 Gbit/s port you will never see more.
FWA: fixed wireless access
FWA (Fixed Wireless Access) delivers the connection by radio from a base station to an antenna mounted on the building, usually on the roof or a balcony. There are dedicated FWA networks and solutions based on 4G and 5G mobile networks.
Strengths and limits:
- it is available where fibre does not reach and is quick to install;
- performance depends on line of sight to the mast, distance and the number of users on the same cell;
- latency is generally higher than fibre, but adequate for work and video calls;
- customers often get an address behind CGNAT, which limits anyone wanting to expose services.
A well-aligned outdoor antenna performs far better than a router with a built-in modem sitting on the windowsill.
Satellite
Satellite reaches practically everywhere, but it varies a great deal by orbit:
- geostationary orbit: the satellite sits at about 36,000 km, and the signal's journey alone produces latency of hundreds of milliseconds. It is fine for browsing and watching video, much less so for gaming and smooth video calls;
- low orbit: constellations of many satellites a few hundred kilometres up offer much lower latency, comparable to other terrestrial connections, against equipment and subscription costs worth assessing.
What to ask before choosing
- Which technology is actually available at your address, not just in your town.
- What the upload speed is, often more important than download for work and backups.
- Whether you get a public IP address or sit behind CGNAT, and whether a static IP is available.
- Whether you can use your own router, and with which parameters.
- Whether a sensible backup line exists: for a business, a fixed wireless or mobile connection as backup to fibre is cheap insurance.
In short
- The difference between offers lies in the last stretch to the home.
- FTTC uses copper from the cabinet: distance and in-home wiring matter a lot.
- FTTH brings fibre into the home and is the fastest, most stable technology.
- FWA and satellite cover areas fibre does not reach, with different latency and limits.
- Ask about the real technology, upload, type of IP address and the option to use your own router.
