FTTR is finally here in Malaysia, thanks to TIME Internet, which calls this latest service – Gig Speed Home. If you’re not sure what it is and how it can help you get high-speed connectivity to boost your internet speeds in every single room in your house, here is everything that you need to know.
What is FTTR?
Firstly, what is FTTR? And no, it’s not a trendy dance move. Well, it stands for Fiber-To-The-Room, an awesome technology developed to offer fast and stable speeds in every corner or room in your house.
You know how you subscribed to something like super-fast 1Gbps speeds, but as you walk around your house, it can drop significantly as you move further from the router or if you have a mesh system around the house?
Or just imagine you’re gaming; at one moment, you’re hitting that sweet 5ms ping, but at the moment you’re just about to go for the final kill, your ping jumps to 666ms, and then your opponent kills you first?
Or it just happens that you make your parents angry and you’re forced to live under the staircase, which is fine until you realize that you’re under a Wi-Fi dead zone?!
So now you know how it sucks to live without something cool like FTTR that will give you consistent speeds everywhere, let’s look at how the current Wi-Fi system typically works.
How Does Previous Wi-Fi Service Work?
So traditionally or currently, there’ll be at least two frequencies coming out from your Wi-Fi router, which is 5GHz and 2.4GHz. Now, many of you may probably already know this, but in case you did not know, that 5GHz signal is a very dense signal that is capable of giving incredible speeds but easily blocked by a door or, worse, a concrete wall.
Now, here’s why 2.4GHz exists because it’s a much less dense frequency with less chance of being blocked. But compared to the 5GHz, it is way much slower.
So the only way to get consistently real speeds that you’re actually paying for is either by sticking way too close to the main router or directly connecting to the main router using a physical cable like a LAN cable.
So yeah, unless you’re cuddling with your router in your living room, you’re not going to be getting the best speeds everywhere.
Well, that is why and where FTTR comes in, where it will give you uncompromised speed and connectivity, no matter where you’re in the house.
How FTTR works
So how does FTTR do it? Well, it’s not groundbreakingly new because it still uses physical cable routed all around your house’s main area. But wait, does that mean that I will have my home turning into a very ugly spiderweb cable seen in my RM2.36 million penthouse? Or worse, do I have to hack inside the wall and put the cables inside of the wall? That sounds super expensive and complicated?!
Yeah, well, no and no.
No, because you’re using a thin transparent optical fiber cable that can blend seamlessly between the baseboard and the wall. Baseboard being that wooden thing between the floor or wall, or for tile floors, it will be tiles instead.
So this thin and transparent cable is laid using a specialized tool which is called the Fiber Cable Installation Kit, which has a built-in hot glue gun, hence the installation is super easy and seamless. Even I could do it, but you know what, let’s just leave it to the great TIME professionals.
This could be run across the middle of the wall, but the main purpose of having this is so it blends with the surroundings seamlessly. Then a newly laid cable can be connected from the main to the child node FTTR units that you have, and that’s it!
Next, for quality Inspection, there’ll be a light that will be emitted through the newly laid cable, and if there is a bright light, this means that it needs to be adjusted slightly to ensure the most consistent connection. Now that was pretty cool.
Keep in mind that these child nodes require a plug point to power those devices, so be sure to prepare that before getting the FTTR installed.
FTTR vs Mesh Wi-Fi
Now, if you think that FTTR sounds very similar to the mesh Wi-Fi system, you are probably right. So why is it better?
Well, the potential issue that Wi-Fi mesh has is that the more nodes that you have, while it does increase the signal range, you may encounter slower speeds because it’s also connected using wireless technology, so you might get a clash of frequency.
However, with FTTR, you will get Gigabit speeds throughout the entire house, and all of the units are interconnected by using optical fiber cable, which is a more stable connection compared to wireless connection.
Experience
So how is my experience with FTTR? Well, I have been using this FTTR connection for the past week, and I have to say that I have been extremely impressed with the overall performance. There has never been a point in time where I’d experienced any drop-offs in every room that I was in.
As I’ve placed the child devices in my living room, my bedroom, and my home office, where I could consistently get high values of Wi-Fi everywhere I go in the house, close to my 1Gbps plan on the 5GHz signal.
And since I have separated my 2.4GHz frequency specifically for my smart home devices, which is a lot, there were absolutely no connection issues with my smart home cameras, the lights, and every other device as well.
How to get it?
“So, Adam, all of this sounds very promising and excites me, but how do I get it?”
Well, it is TIME to tell you the good news. Get it? Time?
If you’re already a TIME subscriber, all you have to do is to log into your Self Care to check it out.
Now, when TIME first launched Gig Speed Home in September, it was only available for existing 1Gbps subscribers. But now they have also opened to 500Mbps subscribers as well and new subscribers too!
So if you’re new and thinking of joining the TIME gang – good news! – because you can select Gig Speed Home during the sign-up process, where from only RM55 per month, you can enjoy consistent speeds throughout your home and get more bang for your buck! But remember to tick it as an add-on!
Remember that it’s only available in selected buildings, so remember to check their website to see if you can get it where you live.
Now, I have personally been using TIME for more than 6 years since they offer one of the best stability, reliability, and speeds as well. And I use it both for my home and the studio right here. So what are you waiting for?
And with that, I guess TIME Internet would maybe need to change their tagline to #kabelnipis now. Haha.
🔗 Learn more and sign up for Gig Speed Home:
https://www.time.com.my/for-home/gig-speed-home
