Different Types of Broadband Explained

1. Fiber Optic (Glass)

Fiber is the "Gold Standard" of internet infrastructure. It uses light signals sent through glass strands to transmit data. It is immune to electromagnetic interference and offers the highest speeds.

Architecture: PON vs. AON

• PON (Passive Optical Network): Used by 99% of residential providers. One powerful fiber line runs down the street, and electricity-free "passive" prisms split that light to 32 or 64 different homes. While efficient, you technically share total bandwidth capacity with your neighbors.
• AON (Active Optical Network): Uses electrically powered switching equipment to manage signals for specific customers. Rare in homes, common in enterprise.

Connection Types (The Last Mile)

• FTTP / FTTH (Premises/Home): The fiber cable physically enters your home and plugs into an ONT (Optical Network Terminal) on your wall. This offers the lowest latency and highest speeds.
• FTTB (Building): Common in high-rise apartments. Fiber goes to the basement server room. From there, the internet reaches your specific apartment via existing copper phone lines or ethernet cables. This creates a bottleneck where you might not get full gigabit speeds.

Speed Standards

• GPON: The current standard. Supports up to 2.5 Gbps download / 1.25 Gbps upload per split.
• XGS-PON: The future standard rolling out now. Supports 10 Gbps symmetrical speeds (upload = download).

Key Providers

• USA: AT&T Fiber, Verizon Fios, Google Fiber, Frontier Fiber, Quantum Fiber. Municipal Broadband is also growing, where cities like Chattanooga, TN, run their own fiber networks.
• UK: BT (Openreach), Sky, Virgin Media (Project Mustang), and "Altnets" (Alternative Networks) like Hyperoptic, CityFibre, and Community Fibre who dig their own roads to compete with BT.

2. Coaxial Cable (TV Lines)

Uses the shielded copper cables originally laid for Cable TV. It is dominant in urban areas.

HFC (Hybrid Fibre-Coaxial)

This system is a hybrid. Fiber optic cables carry data to a "Node" in your neighborhood. From that node, coaxial copper cables run the final distance to your house.

DOCSIS Versions

• DOCSIS 3.0: Older standard, maxing out around 500 Mbps.
• DOCSIS 3.1: The current standard. Enables 1 Gbps+ downloads using efficient OFDM technology. However, upload speeds are usually capped at 35-50 Mbps due to frequency limitations.
• DOCSIS 4.0 (Coming Soon): Launching in select US cities. Uses "Full Duplex" technology to allow faster upload speeds, competing with Fiber.

Key Providers

• USA: Xfinity (Comcast), Spectrum (Charter), Cox, Optimum.
• UK: Virgin Media O2 (almost exclusive provider).

3. Copper / Telephone Line (DSL Family)

Uses twisted-pair copper wires designed for voice calls. Speed degrades heavily with distance (Attenuation).

Modern Variations

• FTTC / FTTN: Fiber runs to a street cabinet; copper runs to your house. The standard "Superfast" broadband.
• G.fast: A "turbo-charged" DSL using high frequencies to hit 300 Mbps, but only works over very short distances (<300 meters). Common in UK cities; rare in the US.
• SoGEA (UK Specific): "Single Order Generic Ethernet Access." A modern copper connection providing data only, without a voice landline service. This is the standard for the UK's PSTN switch-off.

Key Providers

• USA: CenturyLink (Lumen), Windstream, Frontier (legacy areas).
• UK: Plusnet, TalkTalk, BT (non-fiber areas), Now Broadband.

4. Wireless (Ground-based)

Internet delivered through the air from a tower. No digging required.

5G Home Internet (FWA)

• Sub-6 GHz: Good range, goes through walls. Speeds 100-300 Mbps. (T-Mobile US, Three UK).
• mmWave: Ultra-high speed (2 Gbps+) but blocked by windows/trees. Requires external antenna. (Verizon US).

TV White Space Internet

A rural solution that uses the unused gaps between television broadcast frequencies (the "white noise" channels). These lower frequencies travel huge distances and penetrate dense forests better than 5G or Wi-Fi.

Community Mesh

A decentralized network where neighbors install antennas on roofs to bounce signals to one another, bypassing big ISPs. Examples include NYC Mesh (USA) and rural B4RN projects (UK).

WISP (Wireless ISP)

Common in rural USA. A local company beams a proprietary radio signal from a water tower to a dish on your roof. Requires Line-of-Sight.

Key Providers

• USA: T-Mobile Home Internet, Verizon 5G Home, Starry, Rise Broadband, Wisper Internet.
• UK: Three (Broadband Hub), EE, Vodafone Gigacube, Quickline, National Broadband.

5. Satellite (Space-based)

LEO (Low Earth Orbit)

Starlink satellites orbit ~340 miles up. This drastically reduces latency (~30ms), making gaming and Zoom calls possible. It is a game-changer for rural areas.

MEO (Medium Earth Orbit)

Satellites like O3b (Other 3 Billion) orbit around 5,000 miles up. Primarily used by cruise ships, military, and telecom backhaul, rather than residential homes.

GEO (Geostationary)

Traditional satellites (HughesNet, Viasat) sit 22,000 miles away. Signals take ~600ms to travel, causing massive lag. Only use this if no other option exists.

Key Providers

• Global/USA: Starlink (SpaceX), HughesNet, Viasat, Amazon Kuiper (Future).
• UK: Starlink, Konnect (Eutelsat), Bigblu, Freedomsat.

6. Business & Enterprise (Dedicated)

High-cost connections designed for reliability and uptime.

DIA / Leased Line

• Contention 1:1: You do not share bandwidth with neighbors. Guaranteed speeds 24/7.
• SLA (Service Level Agreement): Guaranteed fix times (e.g., 4 hours) if the line breaks.

Dark Fiber

Renting raw, unlit optical fiber strands from a provider. The business attaches their own lasers/equipment to either end. This allows for infinite bandwidth scaling and total privacy, as the ISP cannot see the data.

MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching)

A routing technique used by large corporations to create a private wide area network (WAN) linking multiple office branches securely, avoiding the public internet.

Bonded Internet

A solution for slow areas. It uses a specialized router to combine multiple connections (e.g., two DSL lines, or DSL + 4G) into one single, faster virtual pipe. Examples: ShareBand (UK).

Key Providers

• USA: Lumen (Level 3), Cogent, Zayo, Crown Castle, AT&T Business.
• UK: Colt, BT Wholesale, Virgin Media Business, Vorboss, Neos Networks.

7. Infrastructure Delivery Methods

How does the internet actually get from the exchange to your house? It's not magic; it's construction.

• PIA (Physical Infrastructure Access): In the UK, Openreach allows other ISPs (Altnets) to run their own fiber cables through Openreach's existing telephone poles and ducts. This speeds up rollout.
• Micro-trenching: Instead of digging up the whole road, a machine cuts a narrow slot (2 inches wide) in the pavement/sidewalk, drops the fiber in, and seals it. Fast and cheap, but controversial due to potential shallow damage.
• Overhead Poles: Cheaper than digging, but vulnerable to storms and fallen trees.
• Underground Ducts: More expensive and requires digging permits, but aesthetically cleaner and protected from weather.

8. Legacy / Niche Technologies

Technologies that are obsolete or extremely rare.

Dial-up (56k)

Uses a modem to "call" the internet over a phone line. Blocks voice calls. Still exists in deep rural US (AOL) and some legacy UK systems.

ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network)

The digital predecessor to DSL. Used to be common for business voice recording. It is being actively switched off in the UK (PSTN Switch Off).

BPL (Broadband over Powerline)

Delivers internet over electrical power grid lines. It largely failed commercially due to interference issues, but tiny pockets still exist.

Key Providers

• USA: AOL (Still active for Dial-up), NetZero, EarthLink (Legacy services).
• UK: Most major ISPs have ceased selling these, though some specialty retro-computing ISPs exist.

9. UK vs USA Terminology Guide