Both FTTP and FTTC get marketed as “fibre broadband” — but only one of them is full fibre all the way to your door.
FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet): Fibre runs from the exchange to the green cabinet on your street. From there, old copper telephone wiring carries the signal into your home. Speeds are capped by the length and condition of that copper run — usually up to around 80 Mbps.
FTTP (Fibre to the Premises): Fibre runs the entire way, cabinet to home, with no copper involved. This removes the main speed bottleneck entirely, enabling speeds from 40 Mbps up to 900+ Mbps with much stronger, more symmetrical upload speeds.
Practical differences:
- Speed ceiling: FTTC tops out far lower than FTTP
- Reliability: FTTP doesn’t degrade with distance from the cabinet the way FTTC does
- Upload speed: FTTP offers dramatically better upload — important for video calls, gaming, and cloud backups
- Future-proofing: FTTC is approaching its practical limits; FTTP has room to grow as demand increases
How to tell which one you have (or are being offered): Ask your provider directly, or check the package details — genuine full fibre will explicitly say FTTP or “full fibre,” not just “fibre broadband.”
If FTTP is available at your address, it’s worth the switch for the long-term reliability alone.