FTTC and FTTP could just be a bunch of letters to many people, but for those looking for better broadband, it’s important to know the difference.
Both are forms of full fibre business broadband that work differently and as a result, offer you varying speeds.
Here’s everything you need to know about FTTC and FTTP.
What is FTTC?
FTTC or Fibre to the Cabinet, delivers your broadband connection over fibre optic cables. Unlike traditional copper cables, fibre optic can deliver speedy internet connection.
The ‘cabinet’ refers to the green cabinets you may have seen on street corners or pavements. Fibre optic lines are routed into these cabinets, but then the remaining distance between the cabinet and your offices is covered by slower, copper cables.
Great news if you’re closer to copper lines, but the further your premises is from the cabinet, the slower your broadband will run as it will have to travel along the copper wires.
Most FTTC speeds start at around 35Mbps and go as high as 80Mbps – or in some cases where it is enhanced by Gfast technology it can reach around 330Mbps. However, this is not available everywhere.
FTTC is cheaper
For one thing, FTTC is a cheaper form of broadband.
For businesses of any size, it’s an affordable high-speed solution. It has affordable setup costs, low monthly rental fee, little to no maintenance costs and no additional cost based on usage.
Widespread availability
FTTC is available in about 96% of the country – that’s more than another kind of broadband. The reason for this is because the fibre optic cabling only needs to be laid to link street level cabinets to the nearest telephone exchange. This means that providers and local authorities do not need to invest as much money in the installation process, therefore increasing the number of available areas.
Typically speaking, the installation time for a FTTC connection is between 14-30 days, so if a line is already in place, you’ll be looking at the lower end of that scale.
What is FTTP?
FTTP is short for Fibre to the Premises. Rather than reach your business via the cabinet near your office building like FTTC, FTTP travels directly from your internet provider and through to your site all the way on fibre optic cables, making it the fastest type of fibre on the market. In fact, it can reach speeds of up to an impressive 1Gbps!
Speeds of up to 1Gbp
If a fast connection is what you’re after, then that is what you’ll get with FTTP. It’s direct fibre connection means it’s 10x faster than your average broadband – nothing else compares. Experience download speeds of up to 1000Mbps (1Gbp) and upload speeds of 150Mbps.
There’s nothing worse for your business than wasted hours and low productivity, and it’s even more annoying if you’re paying employees to wait for pages to load, emails with large attachments to send or software updates to install because of a slow or low WiFi connection. FTTP can take the strain off this with no loss of performance.
Ultra-reliable
If you are working at home with multiple devices or you’re a business owner, you will most definitely benefit more from FTTP. Not only is it faster, but there are also less chances of your internet cutting out halfway through an important call.
FTTP is designed for the demands of modern businesses that need to stay connected no matter how many devices connect to it and can handle large files and bandwidth-hungry applications.
A lot of businesses rely on business cloud solutions like Office 365, OneDrive and even hosted VoIP solutions. All this will benefit from fast upload speeds, as well as download speeds on an FTTP connection
Demand for FTTP is rising and BT Openreach are on track to provide access to 26 million premises in the UK by 2025.
Speak to one of our experts now on 03330 151 158 or book a call if you have any questions about an FTTC or FTTP broadband connection for your business.