On the most basic level, fibre broadband simply refers to a specific type of technology in which the broadband signal travels over fibre optic cables, as opposed to copper wires, coaxial cables, cellular networks, or anything else. In that context, full fibre is indeed a form of fibre broadband.
But in practice, the terms are more commonly used to describe different speeds of internet service.
Fibre broadband is often used as a generic name for the type of broadband that most of us still have – one more accurately known as fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband. Here, the fibre cables only go as far as your nearest street cabinet. These are sluggish and ineffective, and the farther away from the street cabinet your home is, the more copper is required for the connection, which makes it slower. That explains why a home at one end of the street may have internet speeds that are considerably different from a home at the other.
Therefore, “part fibre” would be a more appropriate name for this form of fibre broadband. And that gives you a better notion of what we mean when we say “full fibre.”
Full fibre is sometimes referred to as fiber-to-the-premises or fiber-to-the-home since it skips the final section over the copper wires. Your broadband speeds can be normally 10 to 15 times quicker than you’ll receive from the copper lines since fibre optic cables are so much more efficient.
There’s one most potential point of confusion that’s worth clearing up.
During the last election, the government announced its intention to rapidly upgrade the country’s broadband infrastructure to full fibre. When the industry made it clear that this might not be possible, they pivoted to talking about “gigabit-capable” broadband instead.
This is another technology-neutral term that refers to broadband services that can deliver download speeds of 1Gb. It includes full fibre, along with things like Virgin Media’s part-cable/part-fibre network, and 5G. Does the difference matter?
Possibly. It depends what you’re gong to be doing. Unlike full fibre which has matching up and down speeds, Virgin Medias part fibre / part cable solution can provide fast downloads speeds but upload speeds can be as low as 10% of that. No good if you’re gaming for example. 5G technology, as anyone struggling with 5G on their phone can tell you, isn’t yet where it one day might be, so the jury is out for now in terms of home broadband. At the moment, to us at least, it seems that full fibre to the premises is winning the race for the internet of the future – and its here now!
Are you thinking of upgrading to full fibre? Head over to: https://freshfibre.co.uk/ to discover all the best broadband deals available in your area.