Fibre to the Remote Node trialled in London
A new type of fibre broadband is being trialled by BT in London in an effort to raise the UK capital’s status to a super tech city.
It is felt that in order to support a super tech city, consistently fast broadband speeds are critical. The speed of data transmission is limited by age and type of cabling used – the equipment infrastructure. In a city, many lines used to carry this data are old and overloaded. BT is trialling a new solution.
In technical terms, the new system, Fibre-To-The-Remote-Node (FTTRn) would bring speeds somewhere between that of Fibre to the Cabinet (FFTC) and Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP). Unlike FTTP the fibre optic cable would be brought from the local telephone exchange to individual nodes that could be mounted on telegraph poles or other local points near premises. These remote nodes then act as a small cabinet. This shortens the distance data needs to travel along the existing (much slower) copper wire and thus boosts overall speeds significantly.
The expansion of Tech City has been stunted by the issues such as the high number of direct lines in the London area. In built up areas such as Shoreditch there is a number of large buildings such as office blocks that have their connection running directly from the telephone exchanges rather than cabinets. This means the connectivity is reliant on old copper wiring which is unable to handle faster internet connectivity. By shortening this copper wiring BT are hoping to achieve speeds of up to 80Mbps.
Plans are also in development to test the technology in North Yorkshire to address issues that restrict rural locations from achieving faster broadband and should these trials be successful this could be rolled out nationwide. For more information on internet connectivity for your business contact us here.
