Breaking Down Buzzwords Part One: Fiber to the What?! (FTTx)

Sometimes buzzwords get thrown around so much that we’re hesitant to admit when we’re out in the cold on a trend. In this ongoing series, we’ll breakdown some terms that people have been talking about recently (and in some cases, have been talking about for awhile) and give you everything you need to know about the who, what, when, where, and why.

Let’s start with the “what” for a little context: FTTx

The FTTx theory has actually been around for a while. Hybrid Fiber Coax networks are really FTT-nodes. Historically, cable companies have used fiber optic transport to deliver services to service areas or “nodes”, and then used their existing coax infrastructure to get those services in your door.

Currently, global PON deployments are growing, though PON services haven’t taken off as much in the US as they have elsewhere. The use of passive optical networks, however, is making FTT-Premise more and more common. Modern PON implementations are delivering incredible speeds of 10Gb synchronous speeds, shared between subscribers in proximity.

In the near future, 5G is poised to deliver 4k video streaming to the pocket via wireless connection. What’s often forgotten is that all this extra connectivity requires much more bandwidth to the antennas, and additional antennas, too. FTT-Antenna is at the core of this future!

Household bandwidth demands are rapidly increasing and changing. In the past, families would plan around a broadcast schedule, but this model has weakened as consumers are demanding more on-demand services.

Where a single stream could be split to service many households in the past, individual streams require much more bandwidth to each destination – well beyond traditional media consumption.

Service providers are leading the charge to edge fiber ever closer to the home. The greater connection densities among homes then affects spreads to all businesses and services. Consumers having greater personal bandwidth drives businesses to increase their connection to the world at large, and speed up internal connections within their organization. So even if you’re not an MSO, network tuning is important.

The good news is that your business has a fast lane to its customers! The bad news is that more responsibility for end user experience lies inside your own network.  In order to keep up, you’ll need your own FTT-Business, reduced internal latency, and increased internal connectivity.

FTTx is a global trend. Even in markets that are leaning hard into 5G wireless, it requires many more towers, more connections between those towers, and more connections per tower. Having fiber all the way to one’s home significantly increases potential immediate bandwidth and promise of future growth.

So, the next time FTTx comes up at the water cooler, microwave, or coffee machine, you can now comfortably join in on the discussion about Fiber To The [ANYTHING]! With FTTx bringing more and more bandwidth to your customers, getting your own network into top form is crucial. Talk with one of our experts today!