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ISP says if the U.K. wants to be a world leader, then it needs FTTP.
Hyperoptic this week gave short shrift to telcos like BT that refer to anything less than fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) as fibre broadband.
"Please stop calling FTTC (fibre-to-the-cabinet) ‘fibre’ because it puts a cap on ambition," said Dana Tobak, founder and CEO of Hyperoptic.
Even DSL broadband makes some use of fibre, but no one would refer to DSL as fibre, she said during a panel session at Connected Britain on Wednesday.
"I like to think we have some ways to go on fibre," Tobak said.
Hyperoptic operates fibre-to-the-building (FTTB) networks, and has deployed 15,000-20,000 km of fibre. It aims to pass 500,000 premises by 2019 and Tobak asserts that 50% of its network footprint would otherwise be left unserved by fibre.
"The U.K. is nearly bottom of the league for FTTP, but then you have BT come in and say we’ve got the fastest speeds across Europe," she said.
Indeed, the U.K. is ahead of its European peers when it comes to broadband rollout and take-up, but lags behind in terms of FTTP.
"FTTC is fine for baby steps," Tobak said. "But if you want to be a world leader you need FTTP."
