Fibre to the Premises on Demand- physically the same as regular FTTP but is where the customer has paid to have Fibre connected to the properly from the nearest Fibre node.
Why do people choose to have this extension to their home?
Unlike FTTC (fibre to the cabinet), FTTP (fibre to the premises) eliminates the copper element of the network and allows you a “full fibre” connection between the telephone exchange and your premises.
Having full fibre means the speeds attainable are vastly higher, and there’s a lot more bandwidth packages available to provide you with more flexibility.
All in all, FTTP is a faster, more flexible, and more resilient service with fewer points of failure. So a household paying for FTTPoD could make all the difference to what was regular poor broadband service or low speeds.
What’s more is that fibre technology is always improving, so there’s all the chance that in five or ten years time, the top speeds could be even higher.
So this is ideal for people who need faster speeds at home- if you’re running a business from home or live in a rural location etc?
If I decided to I needed it, how would I go about doing so? How do I know if I even have it as an option?
Hi Jack,
Businesses will definitely benefit from this, as the increased bandwidth allows for more staff to be working on the network at once, and allows for applications with higher bandwidth demands to be used, increasing productivity.
Rural locations will benefit too, however there’s the likelyhood that rural areas with few residences and businesses won’t even have fibre.
Once you’ve found which FTTPoD provider suits you best, you’ll have to undergo a survey (£250), which will ultimately tell you whether it’s possible to deliver the service or not.
The whole process can be lengthy, so be prepared to wait some time before you are at the stage of connecting your router and using your FTTP service. This is due to the works and admin involved throughout the provision.
If a community can group together, each household could save up to £3,500 when using the Gov’ Gigabit Voucher Scheme.
Hi Andrew,
It’s good to know that this is a lengthy process as I think it’s easy to see this as just hooking up a wire. As we know, it’s much more complicated so managing these expectations is a big tip for anyone thinking of upgrading. Once this is installed though, the benefits are clearly multi-faceted.
So with a group of five people on the Gigabit Scheme, they could save £17,500. I can see why it makes so much sense for small communities to come together on these projects. Classic economies of scale! Of course- with the current Gigabit Scheme has now ended so it will be exciting to see what the next one holds! We will have to keep our eyes peeled.
Thinking about this then, if my neighbour already has FTTPoD, can I join them on this?
Hi Jack,
That would depend which cabinet your neighbour’s property would be served by for FTTC, as if this is different to the FTTC cab your property would be served by, then the answer would be no, sadly.