/ˌɛf.tiː.tiːˈeɪtʃ/
noun — "fiber all the way, no copper excuses."
FTTH, short for Fiber to the Home, is a broadband access architecture in which optical fiber runs directly from a service provider’s core network to an individual residence or business. Unlike hybrid fiber deployments, FTTH eliminates copper entirely in the last mile, delivering data purely over fiber from end to end.
At a technical level, FTTH uses optical transmission from the provider’s central office to customer premises equipment (CPE). Most modern deployments rely on passive optical networking (PON), where a single fiber is split optically to serve multiple customers without powered equipment in between. Common standards include GPON, XGS-PON, and 10G-PON, each increasing available bandwidth.
Because fiber transmits data using light rather than electrical signals, FTTH offers extremely high throughput, low latency, and strong resistance to electromagnetic interference. Performance is largely independent of distance within typical neighborhood ranges, a sharp contrast to copper-based technologies where speed drops as line length increases.
Key characteristics of FTTH include:
- End-to-end fiber: no copper in the access path.
- High bandwidth: symmetrical gigabit speeds are common.
- Low latency: ideal for real-time applications.
- Future-proofing: capacity increases via equipment upgrades, not new cabling.
- High reliability: minimal signal degradation over distance.
In practice, FTTH is favored for dense urban builds, new housing developments, and long-term infrastructure investment. While initial deployment costs are higher than hybrid solutions, operational costs are lower and scalability is far greater. Once fiber is in the ground, upgrading service often means swapping optics rather than replacing physical cables.
Conceptually, FTTH removes the weakest link entirely. There is no “last-mile compromise” because the last mile is the same medium as the backbone.
Intuition anchor: FTTH is what happens when the network stops apologizing.