Re: BellSouth's FTTH Plans with Marconi
"We had a discussion on this thread, concerning Realtec about 8 months ago. Now, Cleveland based Realtec has been renamed Marconi Communications. So we'll probably be hearing more and more about Marconi. This confusing post may be a good point for future reference."
Thread,
Here's an interesting article (hope it hasn't already been posted) about bringing fiber closer to the home (FTTH). For those that don't already know, in order for the telcos to win the bandwidth war against the cable companies, they need to bring fiber optics closer to the end user. At that point they change over to the good old twisted copper pair. IMHO, the ILECs will not win the bandwidth battle unless they commit to bringing fiber in closer to their customers.
So the big decisions the incumbent phone companies (ILEC) are making, is how far do they run the fiber out of their COs(central offices)? Of course the closer they bring it to the user, the more bandwidth they can pump over the tiny copper wires, but the more expensive the deployment is.
Seems bringing it only to the curb (FTTC)causes havoc when the weather turns bad and rains all over the field cabinet. This is where light is converted to electricity, so it must be kind of touchy.
As an alternative, where it doesn't make economical sense to run the fiber all the way to the home, BellSouth has coined another term, Integrated Fiber in the Loop (IFITL). I don't understand why it's different from FTTC? Maybe it's not but BellSouth just wanted to create an acronym from scratch to confuse us even more.
MikeM(From Florida)
PS1 I think I spelled the former "Realtec" incorrectly in my linked post above. I believe it was, "Reltec."
PS2 Regis sorry but I just realized this is a re-hash of your post of June 10th. But at least pasting it below will save it for future reference.
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Affordable at last?
BellSouth taps Marconi for FTTH
Conventional wisdom says fiber to the home is too expensive. But BellSouth?which announced last week that it would test a fiber solution based on passive optical networking to 400 homes in Dunwoody, Ga.?believes that architecture may be more economical in the long run than fiber to the curb.
The carrier has been deploying FTTC in new network builds since 1995 to support POTS and has been concerned about operational costs associated with the active electronics in the optical network unit at the curb. With FTTH, those electronics are at the home.
"The home is a much more benign environment," said Dave Kettler, executive director for BellSouth science and technology.
Although the initial installation cost for FTTH is higher than FTTC, Kettler believes FTTH will reduce ongoing operational costs by avoiding problems such as wasp nests and hot temperatures that plague FTTC systems.
FTTH will also lower power consumption costs by using a single-fiber architecture. "Others may take a dual-fiber approach, but using our FiberStar access platform can prove more cost-effective," said Mark Cannata, vice president of access network systems marketing for Marconi.
The FTTH system, which BellSouth is purchasing from Marconi, will support up to 100 Mb/s of data connectivity, although initially the carrier will offer digital subscriber line speeds. Eventually the system could be upgraded to higher data rates, and those upgrades will be easier with FTTH than with FTTC, said Kettler.
Customers in the Dunwoody trial will be able to obtain 120 channels of digital video, 70 channels of analog video and 31 channels of CD-quality digital audio service. Depending on the trial?s results, BellSouth may decide to deploy FTTH more broadly, said Kettler.
In the meantime, the carrier will emphasize what it calls integrated fiber in the loop (IFITL). IFITL brings fiber to the curb, but in addition to POTS service, it offers entertainment video and brings both a copper pair and a coax connection to the home.
For video transmission, fiber must be closer to the end user, said Cannata. But, deep fiber is not always the right thing to do, he added. "There are still cases where utilizing existing copper makes sense, but for this type of deployment, the economics are hard to beat."
BellSouth expects to reach 300,000 homes with FTTC and 200,000 homes with IFITL by the end of the year. |
