The term Fibre in broadband refers to the use of Fibre Optic cabling. Usually taking the form of a high quality glass or plastic fibres which are used to send digital data signals. They are fortunately more and more common today and are used as replacements for copper cabling. Firbre optic cabling has the advantage of being easily upgradable whilst allowing data to travel at extremely fast speeds.

The majority of fibre broadband services sold in the UK are actually a Fibre-To-The-Cabinet service, or FTTC for short. With FTTC, a fibre optic connection is used from the telephone exchange to your local green street Cabinet. Albeit the longest cabling section, that’s as far as the Fibre connection goes. A copper cabling connection is then used from the street cabinet to the home or business (sometimes referred to as the “last mile” connection) With FTTC, it’s possible to obtain download speeds of up to 80Mbps and upload speeds of up to 20Mbps. The actual speeds depend on the distance between your home or business and the green cabinet. Expect an average download speeds in the region of 60Mbps.

Around 91% of UK homes are able to get a fibre-to-the-cabinet service.

It’s common to find broadband services being marketed as “superfast broadband” or “ultrafast broadband”. This is based on the maximum download speed available on the service, being defined as follows : – ‘Superfast Broadband’ is used to distinguish a broadband services with a download speed of more than 30Mbps. This includes all fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) services. Additionally Broadband that’s delivered through a 4G technology would also normally be classified as offering Superfast speeds. – Ultrafast broadband refers to services offering a download speed of more than 300Mbps. Full fibre services are the gold standard within this category. Additioabnlly 5G broadband would also count as ultrafast broadband. Prior to 2015, the threshold for ultrafast broadband was only 100Mbps. Some ISPs continue with the older definition, marketing their services as ultrafast broadband even though they offer download speeds of less than 300Mbps.

For Micro and Smaller businesses, who rely immensly on their broadband service, they would normally find a FTTC servicve is available. In theory it ought to be possible to obtain a download speed of upto c80Mbits/s and a corresponding upload speed of c19Mbits/s on this type of connection. This performance can be easily checked by using a boradbandspeed checking App from your phone. The theoritically speeds are obviously an ideal, but c80% of that figure ought to be acheivable. However if you find you are getting slower speeds then it is possible your service provider is sharing some of your available bandwidth with other neighbours in your postcode.

Like Wi-Fi Mobile broadband allows you to access the Web. But unlike Wi-Fi it allows access to the internet without using a phone line or dedicated Fibre connection, instead using a 4G or 5G mobile phone sim. Usually provided in a wireless router style device containing a mobile SIM card.