Broadband internet has historically been transmitted over copper cables.
These are perfectly functional, but copper cable transmission suffers from distance-based signal degradation.
The effect of signal degradation isnt particularly severe over short distances.
Over medium to long distances, however, there is a drastic reduction in usable bandwidth.
A new transport medium was needed to enable higher bandwidth and internet speeds.
Fiber optics offer an excellent alternative.
In 1977 the first urban fiber optic cable was laid in Turin as part of a test program.
The first transatlantic fiber cable was laid in 1988.
Contents
The Problem of Scale
The main problem with rolling out fiber optic cables is scale.
There are relatively few internet backbone cable runs.
The problem comes as you expand the web link further.
This requires many more cables to be run in many different areas.
There arent that many cities, so even this process isnt impossible.
This often involves disruption as roads may need to be blocked to lay the cables.
Again the overall cable runs are shorter, but there are many.
Each must be planned out and executed individually, incurring high cost and time overheads.
Once the main neighborhood cabinets are connected, they must be related to the local cabinets.
As you might expect, this significantly increases the number of cables that must be run.
This isnt particularly noticeable to the end users in the early stages.
Still, as the fiber connections get closer to the end user, the available speeds can increase noticeably.
Though signal degradation can limit that near the edge of the range.
Fibre To The Premises FTTP runs a fiber cable directly to a building.
The building may be large enough to cause electrical signal degradation in large office and housing blocks.
This can be countered by the building owner running fiber cables internally.
Fiber connections within a building typically wont be managed by an ISP.
Large housing complexes like this may differentiate themselves further by claiming Fibre To The House or FTTH.
This means they have fiber cable runs to each housing unit.
Conclusion
Fiber To The Premises or FTTPis the end goal of the fiber optic infrastructure rollout.
FTTP is a substantial infrastructure commitment and is essentially never rolled out equally.
Conversely, the return on that investment is also likely to be minimal.
However, consumer goodwill may lead to a strong market share, even slightly inflated prices.
