Do you get fiber in your home or building? How to find out

Before signing any contract for landline telephony or Internet at home it is always worthwhile check the technology available in your area and the theoretical speed that can be achieved.

Even if the person proposing the contract assures us that there are 100% no problems and that our area or our house is covered “at maximum speed”, carrying out an own check is a must, given that we cannot really trust what we are told over the phone by those who absolutely want to sell us a season ticket.

READ ALSO -> Best home internet offers, ADSL or Fibre, more convenient and reliable

1) Not all fiber is FTTH fiber

Check carefully what type of technology we can use at home or in the office and obtain an estimate of the theoretical speed it will protect us from disappointments and scams carried out by operators who call to offer us new offers.

It may happen, in fact, that after signing the contract and after having canceled the previous one, we risk being without a connection for a long time just because, even if our area is actually covered by the telephone operator, it is not possible to connect immediately for a call. saturation of the wardrobe or the difficulties in bringing the promised technology, making us fall back on slower connections (the classic ADSL, which are often also saturated and offer even lower speeds).

Then if there was availability and there a connection of a certain speed is promised, you might be very disappointed by the fact that the Internet is much slower than you thought. Not to mention if the contract talked about the possibility of a fiber connection which instead doesn’t exist and will never exist.

To avoid these disappointments and frustrations with internet connections, as mentioned above, it is best not to trust anyone but yourself and check the type of technology that can be exploited at our address, also retrieve information on the cabinet serving telephony in the area and also the distance from the nearest telephone exchange (very useful for understanding what the maximum speed will be).

To delve deeper into the various types of Internet technology that can be exploited at the moment, I refer you to reading our guide on What is the difference between FTTH optical fiber and mixed copper fibre.

2) Control technology via website

The simplest method to check what type of Internet connection we can use at home or in the office is to check specialized websites.

At the moment we can refer to the website of Fibermapwhich provides very precise data regarding availability and speed of internet services, ADSL and Fiber, for every area of ​​Italy.

To check Internet coverage we just need to select our region, then the province where we live and finally enter the name of the municipality in which we want to carry out the check. After a few seconds we will see the window appear where we can enter the home address, also accompanied by the choice of house number (the app itself will indicate the house numbers reviewed for the area).

Once all the required data has been entered, we will see information relating to the type of Internet technologies that can be activated at the address provided. At the top we will immediately be offered information relating to optical fibre: if we find a Yes next to the name of the technology, it is available (on paper).

To obtain good line speed without having to change the telephone system wires, let’s make sure that the technology can be activated in the indicated area VDSL (up to 100 Mega in download) or the eVDSL (up to 200 Mega in download).

If, however, we want maximum speed and are not worried about the work necessary to bring the optical fiber into the home, we check that it is possible to activate the technology FTTH (up to 5 Gigabits per download in many cities, i.e. 5000 Megabits per second).

Lack of fiber optics

We do not find no positive confirmation in the field reserved for optical fiber? In the indicated area the highest speeds cannot be achieved and we will have to make do with ADSL technology to be able to connect to the Internet.

In this regard, we check that the entry is not present SATURATED next to Adsl ATM (which is very likely in large cities, but also in small towns): in this case the speeds will be limited to 8 Mega per second, even if we are offered the 20 Mega by contract: the exchange is too saturated to be able divide the bandwidth correctly to everyone, so expect very slow speeds.

A good move could be to focus on a separate ADSL line managed directly by the operator (in ADSL ULL jargon): in this case the saturation is lower and it is possible to reach (almost always) speeds above 10-12 Mega per second . Unfortunately this type of information is only available from operators, who can tell us if their network coverage is offered at the address provided.

If we want to check the theoretical maximum speed available at the indicated address, we click on the entry Detail present next to the name of the technology on the Fibermap screen. We will obtain valuable information on the distance from the cabinet, the estimated speed (download and upload) and the cabinet code (useful for speeding up the technicians’ work in case of switching from one technology to another).

The speeds indicated are to be taken with a grain of salt, there are too many factors that can modify this parameter (we can have a higher but also lower speed).

3) App to check coverage

If we don’t want to use the PC to control the Internet service, we can rely on a convenient free app for Android, i.e Check Coverage and SpeedTest.

With this app we will have a convenient speed test to be able to test the network conditions at any time (both Wi-Fi ch5 5G), but above all a valid help to verify the type of technology and Internet coverage present in a given address.

All we need to do is open the menu Check coverage and enter the required data in the tab Address; alternatively we can use the tab Your locationso that we can use geo-localization to obtain the address.

Once you have entered the necessary data, simply click on Check to obtain information on the available Internet technology, the average speed and the saturation of the telephone exchange.

Alternative a FTTH

Today it is possible to connect to high speed even without fiber optic cableexploit satellite technologies or wireless Internet connections (using dedicated radio links or 5G antennas).

The best operators to use as an alternative to fiber are By line, Aeolus and the new Starlink. The first two use 5G technology and radio links to connect to the Internet, while Elon Musk’s service uses satellites in orbit to provide high-speed Internet wherever the sky is visible (in theory everywhere).

To learn more we can read the guides above how to have Internet without telephone and landline come on how to have Internet without TIM.

Conclusions

The true optical fiber is FTTH, the only one that can be called that on the contract and the only one that can provide the maximum connection speed. Alternatively we can still focus on VDSL (or FTTC) for the cable connection or on Starlink and the operators that work with radio links to have excellent speed even without a fixed telephone line. I advise against relying on ADSL, which is now too obsolete for modern times.

For further information we can read the guide above How to measure internet speed.