Mobile Broadband

Mobile Broadband

Fibre Optic Broadband

What is fibre optic broadband?

Fibre optic broadband is an increasingly widespread alternative to the usual type of broadband, which is known as ADSL. Unlike ADSL, fibre optic broadband does not use copper wires to transmit information between your computer and the internet.

How does it work?

Fibre optic broadband works by bypassing the BT telephone exchange, making the speeds it can provide potentially much faster than standard broadband. This is because it uses the country's optical fibre cable network - owned and operated by Virgin Media since they bought NTL and Telewest in 2006 - in order to transmit information that would normally be sent using the UK's aging telephone network.

What are the advantages?

Unlike traditional copper-wired phone lines, there is almost no limit to what can be sent via optical fibre cables, meaning that the primary benefits of fibre optic broadband are in the volume and speed of data that can be transferred. High speed fibre optic broadband is great if you want to download - or send - lots of data, including music, movies and photos.

Is there a downside to it?

The only major problem is that not everyone is able to take full advantage of fibre optic broadband - you need to be covered by the cable network to begin with. Only those who live or work in an urban area are likely to be near a cable node. In most cases the 'last mile' is made up of copper wires anyway, removing some of the impact of fibre optic broadband. Also, the speed you can get is affected by the number of people accessing the cable connection, meaning your broadband connection might not always be operating at full capacity.

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