As a medium used in telecommunications, the fiber optics usually transmit data faster as compared to the conventional wire. This is because the fiber optics utilizes light instead of electricity in sending information. There are several technologies that have emerged in the telecommunication sector and one of them is the Fiber to the Home (FTTH).
FTTP or the Fiber to the Home has been known to replace the standard copper of the Telco. It is highly desirable since it can carry high speed broad-band services. This integrates voice, video and data, and runs to the junction box found in homes or buildings.
Fiber to the Home is also called Fiber-to-the-Premises or even Fiber-to-the-Building. FTTP, Fiber-to-the-premises usually brings the fiber optics directly to the community. A similar technology called Fiber-to-the-Node also brings the fibers to the community. They are connected to the premises with copper cable.
The backbone of fiber optics utilized by the internet is capable of delivering bandwidth. The inherent ability enables the internet to become a prime source for improving/advancing the network technologies which can be brought to business premises or homes. Copper lines with limited capacity are used by most subscribers to log onto this network. For this reason, it has created a bottleneck for coming up with technologies that need greater bandwidth.
The traditional copper wires normally carry analog signals that are generated by the telephone device including the fax machines. The analog technology is naturally a less defined signaling technology compared to the digital type. Even though multiplexing has made it possible for transmission of digital signals across multiple channels, the fiber optic is superior when it comes to relaying the signals and allowing for faster transfer rates.
In the past, the consumer telecommunication networks contained high-speed backbone with cables of lower speed that ran to users offices and homes. These high-speed backbones carried the combined capacity for all users. However, the infrastructure that ran to users limited the bandwidth and the speed severely. With the emergence of FTTP, there has been much larger bandwidth and even faster delivery speed.
Currently, there are a number of service providers that are rolling out this technology. With this, consumers are able to stream and download large files such as movies and also take part in video-chatting, using the webcams attached to many new laptops. The service providers offer high speed connections with speed of up to 10 Mbps. Also, some offer speed up to 50 mbps for demanding services such as video chatting and streaming.
The demand for the fiber optics infrastructure will definitely grow. It is likely that larger companies of telecommunications will gain from the fiber optics business and other smaller companies could also join the game.
When the Ftth Box are not laid to homes, there is an option of FTTC (Fiber to the Cabinet). This usually costs less compared to FTTH. The negative factor that is concerned with installation of FTTH is the costs. Across the UK, installation cost is estimated at 10-15 billion pounds.
