FTTC (Fiber to the Curb)
An access architecture where optical fiber terminates at a curb-side cabinet, with copper or coax delivering service over the final run to each premises.
FTTC stands for Fiber to the Curb. It refers to a fiber-optic access architecture in which optical fiber runs from the central office to a curb-side cabinet (sometimes called a serving area cabinet or SAC), and the final segment to each premises is delivered over copper twisted-pair (typically VDSL2 or G.fast) or coax.
FTTC was widely deployed in the 2010s as an upgrade path from copper-only DSL networks, allowing operators to extract more bandwidth from existing copper plant by shortening the copper run. Compared to FTTH, FTTC is faster and cheaper to deploy because it reuses existing in-premises copper infrastructure — but it's bandwidth-limited by the copper segment and has higher long-term maintenance overhead.
In 2026, most new fiber deployments under BEAD and similar programs target FTTH directly, skipping FTTC. FTTC remains common in legacy networks being progressively upgraded to FTTH on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis.
In MapItRight, FTTC networks are modeled with explicit fiber-to-cabinet routing plus per-cabinet copper-distribution mapping, supporting both as-built documentation of legacy FTTC plant and progressive overbuild planning toward FTTH.
FTTC uses ITU-T G.993.2 (VDSL2) or G.9700/G.9701 (G.fast) standards for the copper segment. VDSL2 vectoring achieves up to 100 Mbps downstream at sub-500 ft copper loops; G.fast achieves up to 1 Gbps downstream at under 250 ft. The fiber segment from the central office to the curb cabinet is typically GPON or point-to-point Ethernet at 1 Gbps or 10 Gbps, delivered via G.652D single-mode fiber with standard 28 dB optical power budgets.
FTTC vs FTTH: FTTC reuses existing in-premises copper wiring, reducing installation cost per subscriber by $200–$400 compared to full FTTH deployment, but caps maximum bandwidth at 100–500 Mbps and has a copper plant maintenance cost of $40–$80 per line per year. FTTH eliminates copper entirely; after the upfront investment, maintenance costs drop to $5–$15 per line per year for the fiber drop. FTTC cabinet electronics (DSLAMs) also require power and cooling, adding $0.50–$2.00/subscriber/month in operating cost not present in passive FTTH networks.
Accurate FTTC documentation is critical for upgrade planning, fault isolation, and regulatory compliance. BEAD-funded overbuild projects must document existing FTTC infrastructure to justify upgrade need and calculate the unserved/underserved classification. In FTTC networks, copper-segment fault isolation requires knowledge of which copper pairs serve which subscribers from which cabinet — data that is often missing from legacy OSP records and must be field-surveyed before an upgrade project can begin.
FTTC deployments are most common in legacy incumbent networks (AT&T, BT Openreach equivalent structures) that deployed serving-area cabinets in the 2005–2015 timeframe. In a typical FTTC network, one cabinet serves 100–500 homes within a 1,500 ft radius, with the fiber backhaul running 0.5–5 km to the nearest central office. Operators planning FTTH overbuild typically convert the FTTC cabinet to a fiber distribution point, reusing the conduit pathway and pole infrastructure where possible to reduce civil construction cost by 30–50%.