Full-fibre broadband is coming to rural Scotland and we know lots of you can’t wait for it to arrive. To understand exactly why full-fibre is so exciting, let’s take a look at what’s involved and how it’s different from the broadband many people currently have. 

Your broadband connection is a link between the local telephone exchange to your home – and the cables that make that connection drive the performance & speeds you receive. 

Traditionally, copper cables were used to link the exchange to a cabinet on your street, and then on further to your home – this is known as ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) broadband. 

As technology has moved on, fibre optic cables are now used as they allow for much faster speeds. Over the years, many connections between the exchanges and the cabinets were upgraded to fibre optic cables, but copper is still used to connect the cabinet to the home – this is known as FTTC (fibre-to-the-cabinet) broadband. 

This part-fibre connection has the capability to be much faster, but the copper connection to the home is the reason speeds drastically drop. 

The fastest, most reliable connection comes from FTTP broadband: fibre-to-the-premises. This is where the fibre optic cable is used for the whole connection, and delivers gigabit-capable internet. This is typically up to 20 times faster than part-fibre and up to 40 times faster than old-fashioned copper! 

What do you need gigabit-capable internet for? 

In the past, if you were only doing some light browsing of the internet, slower speeds will often have been enough to keep you connected. However, our homes are becoming smarter, and everything from your heating system to your home security needs to be connected to continuous internet to work at their full potential. 

Add to that your TV and entertainment streaming services, where we’re regularly streaming HD content and using a lot of data, and quickly your lower broadband speeds won’t be enough to handle your everyday use. 

There’s a lot of work that goes into planning and building our full-fibre network in any area but we think it’s worth it to bridge the digital divide – you deserve to have ultrafast and reliable broadband, even if you do live in a rural part of the country. 

Check if we’re coming to your area with the availability checker, register your interest and we’ll be in touch when we’re ready to get you installed.