How Does Fiber-Optic Internet Work? | Reviews.org

Fiber internet comes in three types, and fiber to the home (FTTH) is the best.

There are three types of fiber internet—and not all are made equal.

Fiber to the home or premises (FTTH or FTTP) means your fiber internet connection goes straight into your home. If your home isn’t already set up to receive a fiber connection, you may need your ISP to drill holes or even dig nearby. This is the holy grail of fiber connections.

Fiber to the curb (FTTC) means your fiber connection goes to the nearest pole or utility box—not an actual concrete curb. After that, coaxial cables will send signals from the “curb” to your home. This means your connection is made up of part fiber-optic cables, part copper wires.

Fiber to the node or neighborhood (FTTN) provides a fiber connection to hundreds of customers within a one-mile radius of the node. The remaining connection from the node to your home is often a DSL line that uses existing telephone or cable lines.

For FTTN fiber internet, this is where things get tricky. The farther you live from the node, the longer the DSL line needs to be to reach your house—and the longer the line, the more attenuation and distortion you get, causing slower wireless internet access.

“With FTTN, the DSL link from the node to the home amounts to a bottleneck in the overall link,” says Frank. We don’t know about you, but bottlenecks and internet don’t sound like a match made in heaven.