Why Fibre to the Cabinet is being phased out

many ways to distribute data to our wireless routers.

One of these involves fibre optic cables transmitting data to local pavement exchange cabinets, before copper cables complete the data’s journey to individual homes.

Rather unimaginatively known as Fibre to the Cabinet, or FTTC, this used to be the most popular method of domestic connectivity.

Some ISPs were able to circumvent that inefficient copper cabling entirely, extending fibre cabling directly into people’s homes.

This became known as Fibre to the Premises, or FTTP.

The UK home broadband market has long been dominated by these two connection types, but FTTP has finally gained the upper hand as its slower and older sibling is steadily upgraded.

Indeed, a series of recent industry announcements suggest Fibre to the Cabinet’s demise is closer than we might previously have suspected…

A high fibre diet

Although it’s great at carrying analogue audio content, the copper cabling used in phone lines is less adept at transferring digital data.

While FTTC connections typically offer average download speeds between 33 and 65Mbps, FTTP covers anything above that – from 100Mbps to 2Gbps home broadband.

Eliminating copper cabling from telephone networks and replacing it with more efficient full fibre cabling is a high priority among ISPs and infrastructure specialist like Openreach.

On Guernsey, residents have been warned that the island’s legacy copper telecoms network will be switched off altogether by the end of this year.

With 98 per cent of Guernsey dwellings now fully cabled, and 80 per cent of residents already having made the switch, the demise of Fibre to the Cabinet is only months away.

On the mainland, Hyperoptic recently announced they were retiring all their 33Mbps FTTC services, which were asymmetric and had average upload speeds of just 1Mbps.

A 50Mbps tier is still being offered depending on your postcode, but Hyperoptic are known as FTTP specialists, so even this service is unlikely to survive much longer.

Feeling full

According to research from telecoms analysts Point Topic, there are now more Fibre to the Premises connections than Fibre to the Cabinet ones in the UK, for the first time.

In the second quarter of 2025, there were 11.1 million FTTC connections and 10.6 million FTTPs.

By Q3 2025, these figures had reversed to 10.3 and 11.2 million respectively, while Q4 saw 12 million FTTP connections compared to just 9.6 million FTTC ones.

That’s a remarkably rapid evolution – the fastest rate of FTTP adoption on record.

Then again, it’s not surprising when you consider the merits of FTTP, not least its symmetrical upload and download speeds.

As well as being far faster than FTTC, it’s also more resilient, since sheathed subterranean fibre cables are less exposed to the elements than copper phone lines.

Full fibre is more practical in family homes where several people may be trying to use online services at any given moment.

It’s also more capable of supporting the growing portfolio of smart home gadgets, including security systems, health/fitness equipment and smart speakers.

There are few instances where FTTP connections become bogged down and exhibit issues like latency, buffering or sluggish uploads, all of which commonly affect FTTC services.

Then we come to the issue of choice.

While copper phone lines tend to be provided by Openreach, the UK’s myriad altnets generally offer full fibre, giving consumers greater choice in cabled areas.

Competition among brands like Virgin Media, CityFibre and Grain resulted in another 250,000 new connections being made during the final quarter of 2025 alone.

Openreach are also rolling out fibre services, with 570,000 extra FTTP connections created in Q4 2025, bringing the national total of UK dwellings with Openreach FTTP to 21.4 million.

Given the benefits outlined above, and the growing availability of full fibre services, many consumers are happily upgrading long before they’re required to.