"Fiber to the Home" (FTTH) uses optical fiber to transmit communication signals from the operator's switching equipment to the home or business, thereby replacing the existing copper infrastructure, such as telephone lines and coaxial cables. Fiber to the home is a relatively new and rapidly developing method that can provide consumers and businesses with higher bandwidth to achieve more powerful video, Internet and voice services.
Connecting houses directly to fiber optic cables can greatly increase the bandwidth available to consumers. Current optical fiber technology can provide bidirectional transmission speeds of up to 100 megabits per second. In addition, as cable modem and DSL vendors are working hard to compress higher bandwidth increments from their technology, continuous improvements in fiber optic equipment are increasing the available bandwidth without replacing fiber.
FTTH and FTTx refer to different types of fiber optic cables. They both refer to fiber optic cables directly from Internet Service Providers (ISP) to residential or commercial premises. Since this connection is directly connected to various households, FTTH and FTTP provide greater bandwidth, although it may be expensive to install in some areas. FTTx refers to all types of fiber infrastructure, including fiber to the home (FTTH), fiber to the premises (FTTP), fiber to the curb (FTTC) and fiber to the node (FTTN).
The "x" in FFTx represents a specific name or object. It is used in the local loop (that is the last part of the provider's network), which extends between the end of user's premises and the edge of the operator's network. It provides broadband connections with global homes, businesses and organizations. Due to the speed and capacity advantages brought by optical fiber cabling, many traditional copper-based networks have been replaced by FTTx systems.
The main feature of FTTH is that it connects the optical fiber directly to the house. It uses fiber optics for most or all “last mile”telecommunications. Optical fibers use optical signals to transmit data to achieve higher performance. The basic structure of the FTTH access network is that: the optical cable starts from the central office, passes through the optical fiber distribution hub (FDH), then passes through the network access point (NAP), and finally enters the home box through the terminal used as the node.
The main advantage of FTTH is to improve network performance, especially for higher speeds over long distances, which cannot be achieved with using coaxial cable, twisted pair conductors and DSL.
As the bandwidth of FTTH is significantly higher, some of the benefits that follow include:
1. Improved the performance of HD video streaming on apps such as YouTube and Roku.
2. It can be upgraded multiple times without changing the fiber, so some people refer to FTTH as "future proof". The infrastructure around the fiber can be updated without having to update the fiber itself.
3. Compared with the previous technology, it has a higher speed over a longer distance.
4. Better than other optical fiber configurations, because the optical fiber is directly connected to the residence, and the remaining network segments can be completed through Ethernet or coaxial cable.