Fiber to the home English is FTTH (Fiber to the home), which is a transmission method of optical fiber communication. As the name implies, it directly connects the optical fiber to the user terminal. FTTH is an access method in FTTx, so what is FTTx?

FTTX is a general term for various application types of broadband optical access networks. There are many variants of "X", which can be fiber to the building (FTTB), fiber to the cross box (FTTCab), fiber to the curb (FTTC), fiber Fiber to the Desktop (FTTD), Fiber to the Home (FTTH), Fiber to the Premises (FTTP), Fiber to the Office (FTTO), Fiber to the User (FTTu), etc.

FTTx technology ranges from central office equipment in regional telecommunications room to user terminal equipment, including optical line terminal OLT (Optical Line Terminal), optical network unit ONU (Optical Network Unit), optical network terminal ONT (Optical Network Terminal).

FTTH is all connected to the terminal by the optical fiber network, and the terminal connected to this is called an optical network terminal (ONT). The FTTB or FTTC is connected to the building (Building) or the curb (Curb) through the optical fiber network, and then connected to the terminal through the copper twisted pair network or wirelessly. Twisted pair network or wireless connection to a network terminal (NT). FTTCab is similar to FTTC, except that its ONU is located in the telecommunications transfer box (Cabinet). The FTTB, FTTC, and FTTCab in the figure are all "partial" fiber-to-the-home, which means that the fiber is not directly connected to the end user, but reaches the vicinity of the end user, and then connects to the end user through the twisted pair network. In FTTCab, the ONU in the telecommunication switch box is usually 1000-2000m away from the end user, and in this case, one ONU unit can support about 500 end users. In FTTC, the ONU is closer to the end user, 200-1000m, and can support 8 to 32 end users. The network between OLT and ONT/ONU is called optical distribution network ODN, and its distance can reach 20km.

FTTH related terms

FTTH (Fiber to the Home) fiber to the home

FTTB (Fiber to the Building) fiber to the building

FTTO (Fiber to the Office) fiber to the office

FTTC (Fiber to the Curb) fiber to the curb

ODN (Optical Distribution Network) Optical Distribution Network

OLT (Optical Line Terminal) Optical Line Terminal

ONU (Optical Network Unit) Optical Network Unit

PON (Passive Optical Network) passive optical network

EPON (Ethernet Passive Optical Network) Ethernet-based passive optical network

GPON (Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network Gigabit-capable passive optical network

NT (Network Terminator) network terminal

ONT (Optical Network Terminator) optical network terminal, electronic equipment located in the user's premises

P2MP (Point to Multipoint) point to multipoint

CO (Center Office) central office, the central location for providing services