August 22nd 2018
G.FAST & FTTP | HOW FAST IS ULTRAFAST?
The UK is seriously behind in the race for wide-spread superfast broadband in the European Union. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport say that superfast broadband has now almost just reached five million homes and business.
But, that’s not stopping Openreach from developing the next-generation of broadband. G.Fast and FTTP, new technologies that aim to provide businesses and homes across the UK with ultrafast speeds (100+Mbps), and so far through their early release, that aim is becoming a reality.
Let’s start with G.Fast, greatly surpassing superfast speeds (24Mbps+) with their claim to fame for providing download speeds of up to 330Mbps! This is the future, this is ultrafast broadband. But, what exactly is it?
WHAT IS G.FAST?
G.Fast is a new technology that can provide businesses with ultrafast internet speeds. It works on top of the already existing copper infrastructure used for voice-calls by combining them with fibre optic cable and connecting them to street cabinets. It can provide download speeds of up to 330Mbps at the highest tier, with a lower tier providing 150Mbps.
It was first released in Switzerland in 2016, but is now available to a large number of homes and businesses due to the recent G.Fast roll-out as part of the Openreach strategy, to connect the UK together with super-fast internet speeds.
Openreach aims to provide ultrafast broadband (+100Mbps) to over 13 million premises by the end of 2020, and G.Fast is a great way to achieve that target as most premises are already connected by existing copper wiring traditionally used for voice calls.
As of June 2018, there were 1 million UK homes with access to G.Fast in 46 locations and 59 additional areas are set for the upgrade which would add another 370,000 homes to the G.Fast network.
WHAT IS FTTP?
FTTP, standing for ‘Fibre to the premise’ delivers internet from the internet exchange directly to the directed premise, such as a business or home. The premise is connected by high-speed fibre cabling and due to its availability in the past, it was seen as a luxury, with its offering of 1Gbps speeds you can see why. FTTP can provide businesses with amazing internet speeds and a much more reliable signal. Even bad weather is unable to have an effect on FTTP!
Currently, Openreach’s FTTP network is already the UK’s largest covering more than 560,000 premises! You can check if your premise is in an FTTP area, but don’t worry if you’re not as Openreach is dedicated to providing FTTP to three million homes and business premises by 2020.