There is currently a lot of talk about Fibre to The Premises (or ‘FTTP’) – with good reason. FTTP represents the biggest upgrade and advance in broadband delivery since the introduction of ADSL broadband back in the early 2000’s.

Existing technologies such as ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) and FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) all rely on the Openreach copper infrastructure which is – in places – many decades old.

4 reasons why FTTP is an upgrade

1. Speed: FTTC can typically reach speeds of up to 76Mbps, while FTTP can reach speeds of up to 900 Mbps (or in some cases, even faster).

2. Reliability: The speed you get from FTTP won’t be affected by the length of the cable as it is with copper – resulting in a steadier, more reliable connection.

3. Durability: Due to the nature of the material, fibreoptic cable is less susceptible to interference and damage than copper.

4. Bandwidth: Fibre offers a higher bandwidth than copper, helping to ensure future network requirements can be met.

While FTTC was a huge improvement in both reliability and speed compared to ASDL, its Achilles’ heel is still having to use the copper that runs from the curb side cabinet to the premises.

FTTP takes that issue away, and runs fast and reliable fibreoptic cable directly into your property. This means that your speeds aren’t slowed down by copper running from the green cabinet to your premises.

Speeds of up to 900Mbps download and 100Mbps upload are possible with FTTP, which represents a 10 times increase in speed from even the best FTTC connections.

It’s not just the increase in speeds that is important to focus on.  An FTTP connection is far more reliable than ADSL/FTTC, as there are far fewer things to physically go wrong.

The FTTP installation process

The first part of the installation process involves Openreach putting the actual fibre cables in place in each street. This is a process that is still ongoing, but the speed of the rollout is increasing and they are committed to having 25 million homes and businesses enabled by December 2026.

An Internet Service Provider such as Beaming will be able to provide the most up-to-date information if FTTP is available at your premises or if it is coming soon. Our provisioning team can then organise installation for you. Lead times from the order being placed to the service going live are, at the time of writing, approximately 15 to 20 working days.

Due to the way that FTTP is delivered, you will receive a new router that is compatible with the service – fully configured and ready to go.

On the day of your installation, an Openreach engineer will attend your property to install the new connection. This involves putting a ‘fibre junction box’ (approximately 15 x 13 cm) on the outside of the building. A small hole will be drilled from the outside, and the fibre run into the building, connecting to a special Optical Network Terminal (ONT) inside (approximately 13 x 11cm).  Then, a network cable is run from this to your new router.

In some cases (mainly when the Openreach network is supplied via overhead cables) the engineer may ask if you are happy for the to use your existing copper phone line to pull the fibre into your property.  In most cases this is fine to allow as you will no longer need your old copper line, but if you are planning on keeping your land line on the old copper network then make sure they don’t do this.

Once the power is turned on to the ONT and the router, the connection will come up in a couple of minutes, and you will be ready to experience the fastest and most reliable connection available. Here’s some more information about the equipment you’ll receive as part of your FTTP service.

Phone lines

Unlike both ADSL and FTTC, FTTP only carries data and does not have a land line phone line element. When transferring from one of the old technologies to FTTP it is important to remember to keep your old land line active if you still need it.  We recommend transferring it to a VoIP service, such as our BeamRing system.