If you have read our blog before, you are probably familiar with the concept of FTTH, which stands for Fiber to the Home. It basically comes from the acronym FTTx, which refers to fibre for home use: it can be to a general building, or to the office, or to the flat you live in.

The discovery of this last part of the telecommunications we use in our daily lives greatly improved internet connections. Whereas before, with other types of connections such as ADSL, the connection speed was much slower. But then, thanks to FTTH, connectivity has improved enormously. This makes it possible for everyone to have the same quality in using the online world at home.

So now the next question may arise… What is GPON then, and how is it related to FTTH? There are many people who think that they are opposite concepts. But this is not the case: each refers to one part of the internet connection journey, and GPON has brought a new breakthrough in the use of FTTH.

In order to clear up any doubts about GPON, we are going to talk in depth about GPON and its advantages, as well as the relationship between the two acronyms. If you are interested, then read on to find out more about the advantages and the relationship between the two acronyms!

What exactly is GPON?

The GPON concept comes from an acronym for Gigapit-capable Passive Optical Network, which is literally: “”Gigapit-capable Passive Optical Network””. This in English means “Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network”. It refers to all the equipment involved in the transmission over the cable at a good speed.

This concept started to be developed in the early 1990s, but has logically evolved until today. In this way, it has become a true revolution in the telecommunications world. GPON allows different connections to be made in the same active equipment procedure at the same time.

A GPON connection, to make it more or less clear to you how it works, has several devices or equipment operating. These are the following:

• The OLT (Optical Line Terminal), which is the device that is in the switchboard of a given telephone company. This links directly with the other device that is the main protagonist of the GPON connection.
• This other device, which is the one in your home, is called the ONT. This stands for Optical None Terminal.
• Other elements that we find in the middle of the path between the OLT and the ONT are the well-known splitters. These are passive devices and only group the different fibres together, so they have nothing to do with the quality of the signal.

What is the relationship between GPON and FTTH?

So what is the relationship between GPON and FTTH? We’ve told you all the time about fibre to the home and now it seems that this is what GPON is all about.

Well, the truth is that the FTTH type of connection is simply the system by which fibre reached your home. This was even before the breakthrough of GPON. When simply operating with an FTTH system, it was necessary to have a central element that was responsible for the line to reach the home or office. That central point basically stored the information necessary for the connection to take place.

In recent times the FTTH connection is still used every time a person contracts an internet service with a company. They have simply now adapted to work with the GPON connection so that there is no need for that central element. Now all the information can come directly to you without having to go through an element that has become obsolete.

And how does this improve the quality of service? Well, everything! Now the service is much faster, and all the information that the GPON passively transfers to us is also more accessible.

Main differences between the two concepts

As you can see, and we told you at the beginning of the post, GPON and FTTH are not opposites. The former is an advance to improve the quality of the latter. Today you are probably still using direct fibre to your home, but thanks to the existence of GPON the speed with which you can interact with your computer is much faster.

What are the differences, then, if we were to talk about the FTTH concept intrinsically in terms of how it worked before GPON? Of course, the biggest difference is the speed at which we can make use of the internet, both for downloading and uploading.

But GPON also has a number of advantages that speak to the differences with FTTH:

• The fact that it does not need intermediate elements (splitters do not count because they are passive elements), simplifies the installation process and, of course, also makes it cheaper. In the case of FTTH before GPON, everything was more difficult and costly.
• It also brings a security element that is another big difference with FTTH alone: the information that travels over the fibre is encrypted using AES encryption.
• In terms of maintenance by the companies in charge of providing these services, it is also much simpler: you can work remotely, and therefore it is not necessary in the vast majority of cases for a technician to come to your home or office.
• The number of kilometres that the connection can reach is exponentially higher than before GPON, so that the proximity to the PBX does not affect the quality of your internet connection.

In short, as you can see, the world of internet and connections is advancing at breakneck speed. Of course FTTH is a central element in the understanding of how these systems work, but there are also many other important steps, such as GPON, which mean that we are increasingly able to communicate via the online world.

We hope we have helped you work out what the differences between GPON and FTTH are, and that you have a good understanding of what each is for – thanks for reading!

«KeyFibre, the peace of mind that comes with a secure network»

[Sassy_Social_Share]