After becoming Malaysia’s first provider to introduce 2Gbps Home Fibre broadband, Time is set to create a new milestone by being the first to offer Fibre-To-The-Room (FTTR) in the country. The broadband provider has teased that it will be offering Huawei’s FTTR technology to Malaysia in Q4 2023.
As the name implies, the solution brings fibre directly to your rooms and it promises to offer superior latency and bandwidth compared to the current Fibre-To-The-Home (FTTH) implementation. With FTTH, the fibre connection typically ends at the Broadband Termination Unit (BTU) before connecting to the WiFi router via LAN.
However, with FTTR, each satellite or node for each corner of your home is connected by fibre instead of copper-based LAN cable or WiFi. As a result, FTTR offers better responsiveness and lower ping which is beneficial for real-time applications.
According to Time’s microsite, this is a brand-new home WiFi service called Gig Speed Home is built on Huawei’s FTTR technology which pulls micro optical fibre into designated spaces, so no rooms get left behind. Time says you can expect full WiFi signal everywhere in your home that’s powered by 100% fibre and WiFi 6.
If you’re interested, Time has kicked off its registration of interest, and you can register online to get notified.
Besides mobile technologies such as 5G, Huawei is also a key player in FTTR technology which aims to address shortcomings of current FTTH technology. With FTTR, the technology aims to address bandwidth limitation issues as more fibre networks are adopting newer standards such as 10G PON which are capable of pushing higher speeds of up to 10Gbps.
While gigabit LAN cables can also deliver high bandwidth, having direct fibre via FTTR can help minimise the impact of radio interference to ensure a more reliable connection for the home. For most home users, this might be an overkill but FTTR is seen as a future-proof solution for next-generation applications that require ultra-low latency.
Based on the teaser video, it looks like Time will be bundling Huawei’s FTTR F30 series routers which provide WiFi speeds up to 2Gbps. For ease of installation, Huawei has its own fibre installation kit that uses self-adhesive transparent optical cables that can be laid discreetly in your home. With this solution, Huawei claims that each point can be installed in 20 minutes.
Early this year, Globe introduced its FTTR broadband bundle in the Philippines and it is said to be the first in Southeast Asia. The Philippines fibre broadband provider currently offers 500Mbps with 1 primary and 2 satellite FTTR hubs for PHP 4,999 (about RM410), while its 1Gbps offering with 1 primary hub and 4 satellite FTTR hubs are going for PHP7,499 (about RM615).
