Broadband guide

Fibre optic broadband

Wednesday 2 May, 2012

By Duncan Heaney

Fibre optic broadband is the next generation of broadband - but what exactly is it, how does it work and, more importantly, should you upgrade?

Fibre optic cables offer faster, more reliable broadband speeds, and with more and more providers entering the superfast market, the cost of upgrading to fibre is falling.

What is fibre optic broadband?

Before fibre optic broadband, your only broadband option was an ADSL copper wire line, which works by using telephone lines to deliver information across the internet. ADSL broadband lines - connected via your telephone socket - offer up to 24Mb broadband, but speeds can vary widely depending on your distance from the local exchange, the quality of your line and a number of other factors.

With ADSL connections you rarely get the download speeds that you see advertised. Most providers advertise speeds of between 10 and 16Mb, but in November 2011, the telecoms regulator Ofcom found that the average actual speed received was 7.6Mb.

Fibre optic broadband promises to eliminate many of these problems and offer hassle-free superfast broadband connections.

With fibre optic broadband, light signals are delivered through fibre optic cables, made of glass rather than copper wire. Information travels along these cables almost instantaneously, and there’s very little deterioration in your download speed - even over long distances. As a result, the speeds you get will be much closer to the headline speed you signed up for. This means customers can benefit from much faster connections, perfect for downloading music and high definition films, watching internet TV or playing online games.

Fibre optic broadband packages

What makes fibre optic broadband so great?

Information travels much faster over fibre optic cables than it does over the older copper telephone wires that many traditional broadband providers use. This makes fibre broadband not only faster, but also more reliable.

Broadband speeds via fibre can go up to 100Mb, and will go even further in the coming years. To give you an idea of just fast that is, Virgin Media calculates that with 100Mb broadband you could download a music album in six seconds, a DVD-quality movie in around 90 seconds and a high-definition film (which have very large file sizes) in approximately six minutes.

Do you need superfast broadband?

Fibre optic broadband will cost you more than an ADSL connection so it is worth some consideration before you sign a contract.

If you are a casual internet user, who sends the odd email, updates your Facebook status occasionally and watches programmes on iPlayer a couple of times a week, then signing up to a 100Mb connection is like using a Ferrari to drive to the corner shop. Flash, but unnecessary, and you’ll pay handsomely for it.

Fibre connections are more suited to multi-user households where lots of people are likely to be online at the same time with high usage levels; movie buffs who regularly stream high definition films; dedicated gamers that play online and regularly download new titles or people working from home using a remote connection to log in.

Can I get fibre optic broadband?

Whether or not you can get fibre optic broadband will depend on where you live. In some areas you may be able to get take your pick from multiple superfast broadband providers, while in others only a select few might be available. In some cases, you may not have any access to superfast broadband at all. We recommend using our broadband postcode checker to see what fibre optic options are available in your area.

Fibre optic broadband providers

Virgin Media has an established fibre optic cable network, and offers superfast broadband as standard. It offers three packages at speeds of up to 30Mb, 60Mb, and 100Mb broadband. But its network doesn’t cover the entirety of the UK, so anyone outside of its network must find an alternative.

BT broadband (www.BT.com) also runs its own fibre optic network. It sells superfast broadband through its BT Infinity packages. You can choose from speeds of up to 38Mb and up to 76Mb. A few areas of the UK can also get speeds of up to 100Mb.

BT's 40Mb connection is delivered using fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology, where fibre optic cables only run as far as the street side telephone cabinet, with copper wire running the rest of the way. The presence of the copper wire section means there will still be some speed degradation, (thoughspeeds are still pretty fast. However, BT's 100Mb connection uses fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technology which uses fibre cable for the entire distance from exchange to home, eliminating distance related speed decline.

Alternatively, Plusnet (www.Plus.net) offers 38Mb broadband packages, with either a 40GB or 120GB monthly usage limits.

Sky (www.Sky.com) also offers truly unlimited fibre optic broadband (no usage limits) to its customers - both a38Mb and 76Mb packages. Both are available along with a satellite TV subscription, so if you want access to Sky shows, movies and sport in addition to superfast broadband, it’s an attractive proposition However, fibre is only available to a relatively small percentage of its customers.

Zen (www.Zen.co.uk) sells superfast broadband with download speeds of up 38Mb broadband and, as of May 2012, 76Mb broadband, and upload speeds of 19Mb. Business broadband specialists Eclipse (www.Eclipse.net.uk) offers a home broadband package of up to 39Mb. And TalkTalk (www.Talktalk.co.uk), also has fibre broadband packages, with speeds up to 40Mb.

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