Fiber to the Premises

» Fiber-to-the-Premises Frequently Asked Questions

3 Rivers Communications is in the process of upgrading major portions of its network using fiber optic cable whenever feasible. Fiber optic technology is a more reliable and efficient way to serve our telephone, Internet and future video customers and it positions us to better meet needs yet to come.

Most people currently receive telephone and Internet services via copper wire, which has a limited bandwidth capacity compared to fiber optic cable. The farther your home or office is from a central office, the slower your data delivery is. Fiber optic cable is a thin strand of glass that allows pulses of light (data) to pass from one end to the other. Light can travel great distances over fiber optic cable without any weakening of the signal, so the speed of data delivered via fiber optic cable is not distance dependent. And with a much greater bandwidth capacity, it can transfer more data to and from your home or office at a much faster rate.

There are two different ways 3 Rivers uses fiber optics to connect our customers. The first is referred to as “fiber-to-the-curb” in which we run fiber optic lines to the edge of your property with traditional copper wires running from the “curb” to your house or office. This eliminates the sluggishness created by distance problems when only copper wire is used.

3 Rivers has long range plans to replace copper lines with fiber optic cable running all the way to customer premises in many exchanges. We refer to this as “fiber-to-the-premises” or FTTP. FTTP allows us to provide even more capacity for fast transfers of large amounts of data.

By providing fiber optic cable to the edge of your property or directly to your home or office, you can receive regular phone service, high speed Internet and eventually even 3 Rivers’ own high definition digital TV service (3RTV) all over one line. This technology still leaves additional bandwidth for future applications. While it’s impossible to know what your future bandwidth needs will be, we know for sure that fiber optic cable will be much more capable of handling those needs than will copper. Other broadband technologies used today, such as wireless and cable modem, are already struggling to provide bandwidth-heavy services. Fiber optics ensures that as more products and services become broadband enabled, your connection is powerful enough to take it—today and tomorrow.