Fibre-to-the-Cabinet broadband uses fibre optic cable from the local telephone exchange to connect to the nearest street side cabinet which serves your property. This is normally within a few hundred metres of your property. BT Openreach will usually install a new cabinet adjacent to or near the existing ‘green cabinet’ which serves your phone line. The new cabinet will house a VDSL2 capable DSLAM (a mini-version of what currently provides your ADSL broadband service) to which your phone line will be connected. As the cabinet is close to your property and also uses newer VDSL2 technology, the speed of your broadband is usually much higher.
The cabinets are available in a variety of sizes, and installation requires the cabinet to be supplied with mains power, as well as ducting to link it to the old cabinet and of course ducting to carry the fibre back to the telephone exchange. In some areas the fibre from a cabinet does not go back to the existing exchange, but a neighbouring exchange. This does not affect the speeds possible, since fibre can run for many kilometres without the signal being affected.