Fibre Access Terminal (FAT)
A fibre access terminal is the small enclosure near a group of customers where fibres from the distribution cable are split out, or connected, to individual drop cables.
What is Fibre Access Terminal (FAT)?
In a fibre-to-the-home network, the FAT is the second point of flexibility after the fibre distribution terminal. It is placed close to the premises it serves, typically within roughly 50 to 250 metres, so that drop cables can be kept short. Depending on the design, a FAT can be a pole-mounted box, an underground joint closure, a wall box or a unit on each floor of a block of flats. It often holds a second-level optical splitter, together with splices, connectors and spare cable.
How it works
Fibres arrive from the FDT on a distribution cable. Inside the FAT, they are spliced or passed through a level-2 splitter (for example 1:8), and each output is connected to a drop cable running to one customer. The box is sealed against weather and tampering, and engineers can reach it to connect new customers without disturbing the rest of the network.