Our hybrid fibre network starts at our special sites around the UK before running to our street cabinets. (That’s why it’s sometimes called fibre to the cabinet, or FTTC.) There’s usually one of these a few hundred metres from you as the crow flies, or even less.

Here, we convert light signals into high-frequency signals, which run on coaxial cables that support broadband speeds of more than a gigabit per second. These weave through our underground network, with one heading straight to your home. So, most of your broadband runs over a fibre link, while our coax cables finish the job.

Our full fibre network starts at our sites and runs to our street cabinets. It then powers straight through to your home, which is why it’s often known as fibre to the premises, or FTTP.

The connection zips along – sometimes underground, sometimes across aerial poles, and through our street cabinets. When it reaches your home, a fibre optic cable will guide it in through a small hole – this’ll end on an outer wall or plug straight into our kit.