What is FTTP?

FTTP stands for Fibre to the Premises. It means the fibre optic cable runs from the exchange all the way into your building, with no section of old copper telephone line in the path.

That matters because copper is the weak link in older broadband products. Products such as FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) carry fibre as far as the street cabinet and then use the existing copper phone line for the last stretch. Speed and stability drop with distance from that cabinet. FTTP removes the problem entirely.

The obvious difference is speed, both down and up. Upload speed is the one businesses feel first, because video calls, cloud backups, file sharing and VoIP all depend on sending data out as well as pulling it in.

The less obvious difference is reliability. A fibre circuit is not affected by moisture in old copper joints, electrical interference or distance from the cabinet in the way ADSL and FTTC lines are. For an office that runs its phone system over the internet, that stability matters as much as raw speed.

Consumer FTTP and business FTTP can be the same physical line with very different terms around it. Before ordering, it is worth checking four things: what support and fix commitments come with the service, whether you can get static IP addresses, what the realistic contention is at peak times, and what happens if the line fails and your phones go with it.

For businesses where downtime is expensive, FTTP is often paired with a backup connection such as a second circuit on a different network, a 4G or 5G router, or a leased line where budgets allow. The right answer depends on how much an hour offline actually costs you.

FTTP coverage has expanded enormously, but it is not universal, and some industrial estates and rural sites are still waiting. The fastest way to find out is to run your postcode through an availability check, which will also show the alternatives at your address if full fibre has not arrived yet.