Fiber-to-the-home advocacy group formed
eetimes.com
By Patrick Mannion
EE Times
(07/03/01, 1:18 p.m. EST)
MANHASSET, N.Y. — The Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Council, a group formed to promote the here-and-now viability of FTTH technology, will get its first public airing next week at the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference in Baltimore.
Announcement of the group, spearheaded by Optical Solutions Inc., Alcatel and Corning, comes on the heels of World Wide Packets' announced delivery of an all-digital fiber-optic Gigabit Ethernet system to Competisys Corp., which plans integrated telephone, video and high-speed Internet service over fiber-optic lines at rates up to 1,000 times faster than digital subscriber lines or cable.
The nascent FTTH market will be a major talking point at the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference. While the technology has been discussed for a number of years, its deployment has been hampered by its high cost relative to alternatives and by a general perception that applications for the higher data rates just don't exist.
"On a graph vs. DSL and cable, [FTTH is] nowhere near [them], but in 10 years it'll be right up there. It's the cost that's delaying it," said Ernie Bergstrom, senior analyst for advanced carrier strategies at Cahners In-Stat Group. Bergstrom sees multi-unit dwellings driving the technology, "as they don't want to mess with twisted pair."
But according to Bernard Daines, chief executive officer of World Wide Packets (Portland, Ore.), and Doug Wrede, director of business development for Optical Solutions, the killer applications for FTTH will be new housing developments and local municipalities that want to serve the community and aren't interested in making a profit.
Whatever the application, In-Stat's Bergstrom puts FTTH deployment in 2001 at 95,000 subscribers, vs. 10 million for cable and DSL. Fixed broadband wireless is at 350,000, and satellite is about the same, said Bergstrom.
"While fiber is still at the back of the bus," he said, "by the end of 2005 we should be somewhere around 2.5 to 3 million subscribers — but they have to drive the cost down. The price of $1,300 per customer-premise equipment is hard to justify."
Nonetheless, next to cable and DSL, Bergstrom sees the cost/performance advantage of fiber making it extremely attractive.
But getting the word out about the viability of FTTH is not easy, according to Bob Murtagh, regional vice president of sales for the western region at World Wide Packets.
Competisys, an integrated utilities company, plans to provide integrated telephone, video and high-speed Internet service over fiber-optic lines. Its first deployment will be in a residential development in Northern California. Service will begin this month in a model-home environment, which will also be used as a demonstration facility for pre-arranged tours. The complete package of services will begin in 12 weeks.
"The biggest challenge is the adoption of a new technology and getting people comfortable with video-over-IP [Internet Protocol] and what the business model might look like for delivering converged service — as well as taking on the incumbents, who are offering price drops and starting litigation," Murtagh said.
Service package
Nonetheless, Murtagh anticipates customers' being able to offer subscribers a standard package of services (for example, with 60 channels of broadcast cable video content, local and long-distance phone services and Internet connectivity at above 2 to 10 Mbits/second) at a price around $100 monthly per subscriber.
"We would be providing a superset of services for the same as or less than what they're paying now for incumbent services," he said.
Such untapped potential has given rise to the FTTH Council. The three founders — Optical Solutions, Alcatel and Corning — say they have put out invitations to 23 other major players in the industry, ranging from engineering companies to service providers to municipalities. The list of those who have signed up will be announced at the conference next week in Baltimore.
Fighting misconceptions
The founder "came to the same conclusion: that to get momentum and move things along in FTTH, the biggest problem we have is ignorance and misconceptions," said Optical Solutions' Wrede. He lambasted current media and analyst reports of high cost as "a major misconception that is based more in history than current reality."
The second misconception, according to Wrede, is that FTTH isn't ready. "Some analysts say that there are no FTTH deployments yet. That's just not true. We [OSI] have 23 in the U.S. alone, and that's just us. There are many other vendors deploying right now," he said.
As for analyst forecasts, Wrede was equally critical. "We looked at eight to 10 different forecasts for FTTH, but none use the same nomenclature, none use the same basic concepts, and all come to very different conclusions." Hence the need for the FTTH Council, "for market education, industry coordination and bringing diverse companies together to exchange ideas and provide education to the marketplace," he said.
The council is architecture-agnostic, with invitations going out to passive-optical-network (PON) vendors, where Optical Solutions fits, as well as point-to-point vendors, such as World Wide Packets. "We don't care about the architecture," said Wrede. "Either way, it's not going to be $5,000 to $6,000 per sub, as some would have you believe."
As an indicator of the cost, Wrede refers to the cost per splice, or labor costs. "That's dropped from $100 only a few years ago, down to $30 today. That's a big drop and is indicative of the industry as a whole, including components such as lasers, fibers, etc.," he said.
Optical Solutions plans to demonstrate its FiberPath 400 100-Mbit/s solution at next week's conference. |
