fiber?

[#1]

Hi,

There is a military base on the isle of wight and from what I understand they already share the fiber link under the sea. I could be wrong but whats the difference between fiber and adsl2+. Is the connection fiber to the house or just the exchange's link to the mainframe?
Its just that every speed report I've seen doesn't show light speed ping times so my guess is the adsl2+ line is used but with a smiler interleaving affect to achieve the faster speed. Is this correct or is it a true fiber connection? or has someone magically managed to extend the current copper line capacity?

[#2]

Hi Blim,
Fibre to the premises (FTTP) is a direct fibre connection to your house. The most common though is Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) where a fibre connection feeds a local cabinet and the existing copper is then used from there. ADSL2+ will run from equipment at the exchange (MSAN) to the premises on the existing line from the exchange.
Jojo

[#3]

I would expect that BT on the Isle of Wight already connect into their mainland system using fibre both for Internet and telephony use.
The most common current installation of fibre in England  is FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) this is where the broadband connection from the local exchange is carried to your local cabinet on fibre. The connection to your home is done using your existing copper circuit but with VDSL2 (Very high speed Digital Subscriber Line) technology rather than ADSL. This is being trialled at a 80Mbs rate at the moment and is at 40mbs for most existing installations - or should I say UP TO 40Mbs.
I get a sync rate of 39.997Mbs down and  7.112Mbs up that's at about 600m from the cabinet.
So yes "someone magically managed to extend the current copper line capacity?"