What is the difference between ONU/ONT?

Optical fiber communication is more and more popular now.

To normal users, what we most familiar with is ONU/ONT.

There still some people who do not know what is the difference between ONU and ONT, hope this article can do help to you.

First, working in FTTH(Fiber to the home).

ISP offer service to your home, there usually will have user equipment, we called it ONU/ONT. Mostly we see it called ONT.

ONU full name is Optical Network Unit, ONT full name is Optical Network Terminal.

Fiber to the home usually has equipment in our house, in this situation, ONT is the same meaning as ONU.

Second, working in FTTB/O(Fiber to the building/Office).

ISP offer service to your building, use a 4 port or 8 port ONU, change network cable to your home.

ISP offers service to office chassis, uses a 16/24 port MDU, change network cable to every computer.

In this situation, fiber does not go into your home, but a node, this node is ONU or MDU (Multiple Dwelling Unit). There won’t have ONT.

After comparison, now we can have a conclude, ONT will only appear in Fiber to the end-user, but ONU can work in multiple applications.

ONU contains MDU, HGU, SFU, if you want to know more about their difference, please kindly subscribe to our homepage. We will show you their difference in the next article.