Fiber In The Loop (FITL) is a system implementing or upgrading portions of the POTS local loop with fiber optic technology from the central office of a telephone carrier to a remote Serving area interface (SAI) located in a neighborhood or to an Optical Network Unit (ONU) located at the customer premises (residential and/or business). Generally, fiber is used in either all or part of the local loop distribution network. FITL can be implemented with any FTTx architecture, such as fiber to the curb (FTTC), fiber to the node (FTTN), and fiber to the premises (FTTP).
Residential areas already served by balanced pair distribution plant call for a trade-off between cost and capacity. The closer the fiber head, the higher the cost of construction and the higher the channel capacity. In places not served by metallic facilities, little cost is saved by not running fiber to the home.
A similar network called a hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) network is used by cable television operators but is usually not synonymous with "fiber In the loop", although similar advanced services are provided by the HFC network.
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