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FAQ’s

Q. What is fibre to the premises?

A. Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) is using Fibre Optic cables to send communication signals through our Gateway Switch from the communication retailers to your home or business. Thereby, replacing existing copper infrastructure such as telephone wires and coaxial cable. Fibre to the premises is a relatively new and fast-growing method of providing vastly higher bandwidth to consumers, and thereby enabling more robust video, internet and voice services.

Q. What is optical fibre?

A. Optical fibre uses light instead of electricity to carry a signal. It is unique because it can carry high bandwidth signals over distances without degradation. Copper can also carry high bandwidth, but only for a few hundred yards – after which the signal begins to degrade and bandwidth narrows. Optical fibre has been used in communications networks for more than 30 years, mostly to carry traffic from city to city or country to country.

Q. Why is fibre optic cable now being connected directly to homes?

A. Connecting homes directly to fibre optic cables enables enormous improvements in the bandwidth that can be provided to consumers. While DSL and cable modems generally provide transmission speeds of up to five megabits per second on the download (and are generally slower when uploading), current fibre optic technology can provide two-way transmission speeds of up to 100 megabits per second. Further, while cable and DSL providers are struggling to squeeze small increments of higher bandwidth out of their technologies, ongoing improvements in fibre optic equipment are constantly increasing available bandwidth without having to change fibre cables. That’s why fibre networks are said to be “future proof”.

Q. What is bandwidth?

A. In a network, bandwidth is the availability to carry information. The more bandwidth you have, the more information can be carried in a given amount of time.

Q. Why do we need all that bandwidth? Aren’t cable DSL systems good enough for what most people want to do?

A. If all you want to do is surf web pages, download a few songs, send and receive some photographs, or watch streaming video at current picture quality levels, then the bandwidth provided by today’s cable modems and DSL lines is probably good enough. But the world is moving toward vastly higher bandwidth applications. Companies like Netflix, Amazon and Wal Mart are preparing to offer feature-length movies for download. More people are looking to upload their own home movies into emails or web pages. Consumer electronics companies are coming out with devices that connect televisions to the Internet. High definition video is fast becoming state-of-the-art with one high definition movie taking up as much bandwidth as 35,000 web pages. All of these applications – and many otherwise we haven’t even dreamed of yet – are going to require much greater bandwidth than what is generally available today, even from so-called “broadband” providers.

Q. But it was only a few years ago that I upgraded from dial-up to DSL. Are you telling me I’m going to have to upgrade again?

A. Think about it. A little more than two years ago, the Internet video service You Tube didn’t even exist. Today, You Tube viewers watch 100 million video clips a day. It was the advance from dial-up to DSL and cable modem that made You Tube possible. And now a growing number of Americans are watching their favourite television programs and news and sporting events over the Internet. We have no reason to believe these innovations will stop. This trend will continue into high-definition video, telemedicine, distance learning, telecommuting and many other broadband applications that have thus far been limited only by the amount of high-bandwidth connections into people’s homes. Only fibre to the premises can deliver the bandwidth we are going to need in the future.

Q. Why can’t I get these high bandwidth applications with DSL or cable modem?

A. DSL and cable modem rely on copper wire to deliver signals to your home – and copper can deliver high bandwidth only over very short distances. That’s fine if you happen to live a few hundred yards from your telco provider’s switching station, but most people don’t. Optical fibre does not have this limitation and thus is able to carry high bandwidth signals over great distances to homes and businesses. Only fibre to the premises can deliver the immense bandwidth that the applications of the future require.

Q. I’ve heard that wireless technologies like WiFi and WiMAX can deliver the same kind of services as fibre to the premises without having to go through the trouble of installing new wires into homes. Is this true?

A. No. Wireless broadband is subject to spectrum availability – the cost of which limits the bandwidth, and hence the applications it can provide. The wireless technologies cannot deliver high definition television – and, in fact, they have trouble delivering standard television. And HDTV is only one of the many high broadband applications now being developed for our broadband future.

Q. What about satellite? Most people have that choice, don’t they?

A. Satellite offers video, of course, but it cannot offer robust broadband Internet service because the subscriber can only download the signal. Upload is normally provided through the subscriber’s telephone lines, which limits transmission speeds for user-generated content.

Q. Why is fibre preferred to copper? After all, copper has been around a long time.

A. Optical fibre is unique, in that it can carry a high-bandwidth signal enormous distances. Copper can support high bandwidth, 20Mbps or more – but only for a few hundred meters. The longer the distance the signal travels on copper, the lower the bandwidth.

Fibre users laser light to carry the signal. Under most circumstances, the signal can travel15 miles (more than 25 kilometres) without degrading enough to keep it from being received.

What’s more, the equipment necessary to send the light signals keeps getting better. So equipping an existing fibre network with newer electronics and with lasers that pulse light faster, or lasers using different wavelengths of light, can vastly increase the available bandwidth without changing the fibre itself. That’s why fibre networks are said to be “future proof”.

Q. How does the U.S. compare internationally in terms of fibre to the premises connections?

A. Japan is a world leader, with nearly eight million fibre to the premises connections. South Korea and many European nations also lead the U.S. in the number of homes connected directly to fibre networks. However, the U.S. now leads all these countries in annual growth in the number of connections.

Q. Is fibre to the premises primarily a technology for getting high definition movies on demand?

A. Not at all. While the vastly higher bandwidth and transmission speeds offered by fibre to the premises is certainly enabling video providers to offer a wider range of products and services, users of other applications that will benefit as well. Gamers will get access to more powerful multi-player applications. Avenues will open for distance learning and telemedicine. Opportunities for telecommuting and working from home will increase. And, just as Internet applications and solutions have grown more sophisticated with the expansion of available bandwidth thus far, you can be sure that this leap into next-generation broadband will inspire further innovations that we cannot even imagine at this point.

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