Over the past d
ecade, fiber opt
ic cable, once u
sed only for lon
g-haul
communications
, has been exten
ded all the way
to end users’ pr
emises.
Today, fiber to
the home (FTTH
) is a mature, p
roven technolog
y, and
with costs that
are comparable
to and even bel
ow those of old
copper
technologies, it
is certain to be
the technology
of choice for se
rvice
providers movin
g forward.
In the United St
ates, FTTH is av
ailable to about
one home in fiv
e. In
countries such a
s Japan, Korea, D
enmark and Swe
den, the figure i
s closer
to four out of fiv
e. Due to vast ga
ins in available b
andwidth, reliab
ility and
security – gains
that spur econo
mic growth and
enable new serv
ices for
telehealth, dista
nce learning, clo
ud computing a
nd more – these
nations
have committed t
o deploying fibe
r on a broad sca
le.
In 2010 alone, fi
ber-fed home b
usinesses sustai
ned 700,000 job
s –
mostly new jobs
– in a poor U.S. e
conomy. Fiber d
eployments stim
ulated
investment and
economic grow
th in communit
ies across the c
ountry,
and stimulus fun
ding established
the promise of f
urther expansion
in the
coming years.
The details are i
n this publicatio
n, which gives n
etwork builders
, real
estate develope
rs and managers
, and governme
nt officials an ov
erview
of the power of
fiber optics and
the benefits it d
elivers to comm
unities. It
makes the busin
ess and environm
ental case for fib
er to the home, a
s well.
For more inform
ation, please visi
t www.FTTHCou
ncil.org.
We call fiber the
Light Fantastic.
When you’ve re
ad this primer, y
ou’ll
see the light!
Daniel O’Connel
l
President
Reliability... Bandwidth... Affordability... Future-Proofing... Standards...
Security... Economic Development... Sustainability... New Broadband
Content & Services... Higher Revenue...
Fiber to the Home: Pathway to Ultra-Broadband . . . 4
Fiber and Bandwidth . . . 6
Applications for FTTH Providers: Beyond The Triple Play . . . 9
Fiber: The Light Fantastic . . . 12
Telehealth: The Time is Now . . . 14
FTTH Aids Sustainability . . . 15
Builders, Real Estate Developers and FTTH . . . 16
Questions Real Estate Developers Ask About FTTH . . . 18
Beating the Recession with Fiber: Three Case Studies . . . 21
Focus on Municipal Priorities . . . 24
Key Questions Municipal Officials Ask . . . 24
FTTH Success Stories . . . 28
Introducing 1 Gbps to the Home . . . 30
Understanding Fiber Network Architectures . . . 31
FTTH Council Certification Program . . . 32
This primer was originally written by Steven S. Ross and updated by him and by Masha Zager, both of the Broadband Properties staff. It summarizes research commissioned by the FTTH Council as well as independent reporting by the authors and by BBP contributing editor Joe Bousquin.
Contents
FTTH providers notice significant economic impacts borne by fiber; 42 percent specifically cited expansions or establishment of large businesses. Source: RVA LLC.
Local Economic Impact of FTTH Noted by
FTTH Providers
3%
3%
5%
6%
8%
22%
42%
0%
5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%
Residential growth
Construction stimulus
Quality of life (services, home education…)
Rural growth/agricultural efficiency
Business efficiency
Work from home/SOHO expansion
Large business development
Fiber to the home:
Pathway to Ultra-broadband
F
iber to the home (FTTH) has be-come the leading technology for next-generation communica-tions networks worldwide. On every continent, telecom providers are build-ing FTTH networks to replace legacy copper networks that are running out of headroom to support the demand for communications services. Because governments view fiber as critical na-tional infrastructure, many have de-veloped national broadband plans to encourage the buildout of fiber.Already, fiber reaches at least 200 million homes globally – a tenth of all the households in the world – and an estimated 62 million households subscribe to fiber-based services, in-cluding voice, video, data and more. In the United States, fiber reaches 20 million homes; half of those now have direct fiber optic connections, as do 17 million homes in Japan, more than 12 million in Korea and 8 million more in Europe. These numbers continue to grow exponentially. China alone expects to have 100 million fiber sub-scribers by 2015.
Providers and governments
around the world all agree fiber to the home is the endgame for communi-cations infrastructure. No alternative infrastructure is even a contender
(al-though wireless networks are being integrated with FTTH – more on that later), and everyone agrees that fiber will meet the world’s needs for the foreseeable future. The only debates involve the speed of the transition.
why Fiber?
The reason for this striking degree of unanimity is simple: FTTH offers far
more bandwidth, reliability, flexibility, security and longer economic life than alternative technologies, even though its price is comparable. It is also less ex-pensive to operate and maintain than copper.
Because of these advantages, FTTH can support many more communica-tions services than legacy infrastruc-tures, including newly emerging ser-vices such as health care and cloud computing. Fiber’s reliability and se-curity are particularly critical for such new services as telehealth and tele- presence.
FTTH also allows network opera-tors to derive more revenues from to-day’s communications services. FTTH subscribers today often spend 30 to 40 percent more per month than DSL subscribers – not because basic ser-vices are more expensive (they aren’t), but because more and better pre-mium services are available.
For example, multiple simultane-ous HD channels are difficult to imple-ment well over any medium but fiber; 3D TV and high-definition video com-munications are even more challeng-ing. At the end of 2010, Verizon, thanks to its all-fiber FiOS network, was within
The number of Internet-connected devices in the home will grow from 2 billion today to 10 billion in 2015, says Pyramid Research. Only FTTH can meet this demand for in-home bandwidth.
a few cents per month of the highest average monthly customer revenue of any large network provider on Earth.
Because other media have inher-ently limited capacity, tweaking more bandwidth from them becomes in-creasingly difficult and expensive as time goes on. This isn’t true of opti-cal fiber, whose capacity is effectively unlimited.
Fiber can handle any bandwidth demand with ease. In fact, one bundle of fiber cable not much thicker than a pencil can carry all of the world’s current communications traffic. The technologies for transmitting data over fiber are well understood, and the upgrade path for the electronic components that send and receive signals has been defined for years into the future. If anything, increasing fiber bandwidth will become less expensive rather than more expensive.
who’s bUilding Ftth?
By our count, well over 700 network operators have already deployed FTTH in the United States. Even in a down economy, most developers put fiber into new properties and many are
up-and municipal buildings. In 2010, when Google announced that it planned to build one or more community fiber networks, more than 1,100 local gov-ernments proposed their communities as suitable locations. (In March 2011, Google selected Kansas City, Kan., for its initial fiber deployment.)
adding ValUe to ProPerties
Access to utilities makes private prop-erty more valuable. A house is worth much more if it has access to a public
street, water and sewer services, pub-lic schools and other utilities than if it does not. In the same way, FTTH adds value to properties. Fiber connections make single-family homes easier to sell and multiple dwelling units easier to rent. Renters and buyers know they can get the most attractive services available on the market today – and that if an exciting new service is intro-duced in a few years, they’ll be pre-pared for that as well.
This publication explores these is-sues, and more, in detail. It’s written in nontechnical language so you can un-derstand the value of next-generation infrastructure – and what it means to you – without a degree in optical engineering.
We want to communicate ...
The Advantages of Fiber to the Home.
Fiber duct being laid in Chennai, India.
Telepresence is one of the advanced applications that depends on a high-bandwidth, high-reliability network. In this photo, the people on the far side of the table are actually sitting in a remote office, but can interact with the local group as if they were physically present.
grading existing properties. Larger telcos are deploy-ing fiber in cities and suburbs, and smaller telcos in rural areas. Cable providers use fi-ber to compete for lucrative commercial-services busi-ness. Even some small electric compa-nies have extended the fiber networks they use to manage their own facilities to serve their customers as well.
Municipalities are attracted to FTTH because it positions their com-munities for tomorrow’s jobs and eco-nomic growth. Nearly 100 localities have built or are building fiber net-works to serve residents or businesses; hundreds more have fiber to schools
Fiber and bandwidth
Q: What is bandwidth?
A: In a network, bandwidth (what engineers call bitrate) is the abil-ity to carry information. The more bandwidth a network has, the more information it can carry in a given amount of time. Networks with high bandwidth also tend to be more reliable because fewer bottlenecks disturb the flow of information.
Q: How much bandwidth –
or information delivered by bandwidth – do we need?
A: A standard-definition television signal requires a bandwidth of about 2 Mbps – two million bits (ze-ros and ones) per second. HDTV re-quires as little as 2.5 Mbps if the im-age is rather static – a person being interviewed, for instance. But fast action, such as in some sporting events, requires more – as much as 8 Mbps, even with new compres-sion technology such as MPEG-4. Now, full-frame 3D is hot. While it can be delivered at 2.5 to 3 Mbps, a high-quality experience requires closer to 5 Mbps. 3D immersive HDTV – a technology already being used in some academic and indus-trial settings – will require between 50 and 300 Mbps.
Q: What about data?
A: Bandwidth requirements for many kinds of data are exploding. For example, the digital cameras that consumers buy can create larger and larger images. In health care, the medical images produced by equipment such as CT scanners are orders of magnitude larger than camera images – a hundred times larger, and more.
The biggest growth in data trans-mission has been for video, and this trend is expected to continue at least for the rest of this decade. Video requires not only extra band-width but also extra reliability. The smallest delay in data transmission can result in distorted views.
Q: Can’t copper carry high
bandwidth?
A: Yes, copper can support high bandwidth, but only for a few hun-dred yards. The longer the signal travels on copper, the lower the bandwidth. Optical fiber is unique in that it can carry high-bandwidth signals over enormous distances. Fiber uses laser light to carry sig-nals. Under some circumstances, a signal can travel 40 miles (60 kilometers) without degrading enough to keep it from being re-ceived. Another difference is that fiber is better able to support up-stream bandwidth – that is, from the user out to the network. High upstream bandwidth is important for video communication and for many business applications.
Q: What exactly makes fiber
“future proof”?
A: The equipment necessary to send light signals keeps getting better. So equipping an existing fiber net-work with newer electronics and with lasers that pulse light faster, or lasers using different wavelengths of light, can vastly increase avail-able bandwidth without changing the fiber itself. The new electron-ics are very cheap compared with the original cost of laying the fiber. Therefore, once fiber has been deployed, network operators can keep increasing bandwidth at very little cost.
Q: How long has fiber optic
technology been in use?
A: Fiber optic cable has actually been used in communications networks for more than 30 years. Fiber first delivered a signal directly to an American home (in Hunter’s Creek, Fla.) more than 20 years ago. Before that, fiber was – and still is – relied upon to carry communications traffic from city to city or country to country. The first trans-Atlantic fiber cable was laid in 1988. Almost every country on earth has some
fi-ber, delivering services reliably and inexpensively.
Q: All providers seem to claim they
have fiber networks. What’s different about fiber to the home? A: Don’t be fooled! It is true that most
cable and DSL networks use fiber. In these networks, the fiber carries the signal close enough to a home so that copper can carry it the rest of the way. However, this approach requires expensive, difficult-to-maintain electronics at the point where the fiber meets the cop-per. The available bandwidth is far less than an all-fiber network. And these halfway approaches do not allow symmetrical bandwidth – ex-isting cable and DSL systems can download much faster than they can upload information.
Q: Isn’t that good enough?
A: That depends on what you want to use your bandwidth for. If all you want is to send emails, download songs or share family photos, the bandwidth provided by today’s cable modems and DSL lines may be good enough. If you want to log on to the corporate LAN from home and work effectively, you’ll need more. And what about uploading a high-def video of the school play, or sitting down to dinner with family members a thousand miles away?
Q: Why does it matter how close
to the home fiber comes in DSL and cable systems?
A: With copper cable, there is a marked relationship between dis-tance and available bandwidth. For example, the latest commercial versions of DSL can carry a signal of more than 200 Mbps for about 750 feet. Over a distance of a mile, DSL can deliver only about 30 Mbps. That’s the theoretical limit. In prac-tice, the real bandwidth is less.
Q: With cable and DSL, there’s often
VisUalizing Fiber-borne bandwidth
Source: BBP LLCBandwidth
Comparisons
Only the
Beginning
In a few years, even 1 Gbps will look small. Soon, most content will be 3D and ultra-high-definition.
64 Kbps: Phone Line 128 Kbps: ISDN
1.5 Mbps for a T1 Line
20 Mbps: Wireless maximum per user with latest technology
100 Mbps: DSL maximum per user with latest technology
160 Mbps: Cable maximum per user with latest technology
Today, fiber’s bandwidth is orders of magnitude bigger than other technologies. As the new generation of 10 Gbps equipment is deployed, the fiber circle will move off the page.
1+ G bPS FIbe r Pe r USe r, A ND Gro WIN G (2011 ) 1+ G bP S FI be r Pe r US er , A ND G ro W IN G (2011 ) 1+ G bP S FIb er P er US er , AN D G ro W IN G (2 011) 1+ G bP S F Ib er Pe r U Se r, A N D G ro W IN G (2 01 1) and actual bandwidth. Is that
true for fiber?
A: Cable, DSL and even wireless net-works are usually more heavily oversubscribed than fiber – that is, providers promise users more than the total amount of available
band-width because they know all users aren’t going full throttle most of the time. As a result, copper-based networks slow down during peri-ods of heavy use – such as when teenagers come home from school. Fiber has enough bandwidth that
providers can guarantee high speeds with little or no oversub-scription. If a fiber network is de-signed properly, users will always get the speeds that are advertised. The Federal Communications Com-mission now insists that carriers de-liver the bandwidth they advertise.
Q: Is FTTH technology expensive? A: In new construction, fiber costs
about the same as copper to build, and it costs much less to oper-ate and maintain. Building fiber to the home is expensive only when compared with not building any-thing – that is, with adding new electronics to an existing copper network or building fiber only part of the way to the home. The prob-lem is that these less-expensive
solutions don’t always meet users’ needs. In the last few years, the flood of video content has outrun the ability of older technologies to handle bandwidth demands. Pro-viders are shutting off or slowing
down service or imposing prohibi-tive fees for customers who exceed monthly bandwidth caps. Custom-ers don’t like these restrictions, and they don’t appreciate being called “bandwidth hogs” for using
services they have paid for. In ad-dition, it’s not clear that providers save money by failing to meet us-ers’ needs, because limiting band-width means limiting revenue po-tential as well.
Increased bandwidth lets us do familiar things faster. Send an email. View a website. But its real value is that it lets us do entirely new things with our computers, cam-eras, televisions – with our network. Today, the network is often called the “cloud,” which is a way of saying, “I don’t even have to think about where data is stored or where processing is happening.”
Things we talk about in everyday conversation today would have been bewildering a decade ago. In the past few years, we have seen such dazzling innovations as
• Tablet computers for easy access to games, ebooks, TV programs, email, shopping, banking and an ever-expanding suite of new “apps.”
• Smartphones that aren’t just for mobility anymore but are increasingly used for personal media con-sumption in the home.
• Internet-connected televisions, radios, set-top boxes, Blu-ray Disc players, cameras and picture frames that receive or deliver movies, TV and photos via the Web.
• Voice over Internet Protocol telephones that direct incoming callers to any line and take messages in text and video as well as voice.
• Social media that keeps people continuously in touch and up to date – who needs phone calls anymore?
• Two-way video communication whose quality is good enough to bring the illusion of “being there” to teleconferencing. It’s called “telepresence.” High-definition video communication has even reached the home market; telecommuting workers can send telepresence robots in their offices to sit in for them at meetings while they watch from their home TVs.
• Easy distribution of user-created video that lets grandparents see children, musicians develop audi-ences and manufacturers demonstrate new products.
• Digital media lockers that let consumers store mu-sic, TV, videos and services in the cloud and access them from many devices.
• Telehealth devices and applications that bring medical services to remote areas and to the home-bound elderly.
YouTube appeared in February 2005 and quickly be-came one of the five largest users of bandwidth on earth and the largest single user of Internet bandwidth. The social networking platform Facebook, the world’s most visited site, has more than 600 million active users who share photos and videos, play games and use half a mil-lion other embedded applications.
The least expensive netbooks today come with 160 GB hard drives, because users need the file space. And if they need the file space, they also need to transmit large files and back them up online. Users become annoyed when network speeds lag behind local connection speeds – and USB transfer rates have now reached 5 Gbps.
Internet-connected TV sets and set-top boxes let viewers watch high-definition online video on the big screen as easily as they can watch video from the local cable or phone company. Users don’t have to “think Inter-net” to put Internet video on the TV. They just check out what’s available, using their TV remotes. Internet-capable TV models are today’s standard offering.
New services let people access health care and take classes from their homes. With home automation, resi-dents can take care of their homes while they’re away, using Internet- connected security cameras and remote energy monitoring devices.
Telecommuting and home-based businesses are on the rise, too. In October 2010, market researcher Mi-chael Render reported that new businesses created by fiber-connected residential users had pumped more than $40 billion into the economy in just the previous 12 months, the largest source of new jobs in 2010. Owners and managers of multifamily communities are turning social rooms into fiber-connected business centers and concierge offices.
We have every reason to believe that innovation will continue, that bandwidth needs will keep on growing – and that only fiber to the home, with its superior reliabil-ity and plentiful upstream capacreliabil-ity, will be able to keep delivering the bandwidth we need.
a
decade ago, cable companies introduced the triple play of voice, video and data that has now become the standard telecom of-fering worldwide. But fiber’s greater bandwidth and reliability gives FTTH providers the option to think beyond the triple play and offer multiplay ser-vices tailored to the needs of particu-lar communities.Fortunately, new broadband ap-plications become available every day, and many of them create opportuni-ties for use or resale by fiber providers. These new applications fall into sev-eral categories. Some help differenti-ate fiber-to-the-home communities; some generate additional revenue streams for providers or help retain customers; still others can be used by providers or property developers to manage their assets more efficiently. Many do all three.
diFFerentiating a CommUnity
Fiber has become the norm in new de-velopments, especially in new master-planned communities, according to market researcher Mike Render. In or-der to further differentiate their com-munities, developers are now seeking applications to leverage their fiber infrastructure.
Telehealth gives residents in-stant access to medical specialists via videoconferencing from the home, the fitness center or the community room. The videoconferencing may be integrated with Internet-enabled diagnostic devices (blood pressure cuffs, respiration measurement, etc.), electronic medical records systems, online prescription services and on-line appointment scheduling. Tele-health helps keep older adults living independently longer, and it is a boon for members of the “sandwich genera-tion,” who are responsible for caring for both their children and their elders. Social applications use the fi-ber infrastructure to build a sense of community. They range from social
networking sites focused on the com-munity, to intranet sites featuring lo-cal news and events, to Web-based or IPTV video channels broadcasting local athletic contests, artistic pro-ductions and political discussions. Because these offerings can be inter-active, they easily trump conventional “public access” stations on cable.
Home-automation and con-cierge services, such as Verizon Concierge, take advantage of the fi-ber network within a community to make residents’ lives comfortable and convenient. Cameras that recognize residents’ cars entering the commu-nity can alert parking attendants and security personnel and then turn on lights and heating or air conditioning at home. Residents can connect with
one click to community services or schedule a dry-cleaning pickup, pizza delivery or home repair. These appli-cations can also help owners control energy use.
Mobility is easier to accommodate with a robust fiber-to-the-home net-work. Using the backhaul afforded by FTTH, providers can offer Wi-Fi con-nections to residents in indoor and outdoor public spaces throughout a community. Residents can bring their laptops or tablets to the pool, check email from the laundry room or listen to Internet radios in the gym.
generating new reVenUe streams
Customers have become used to pur-chasing such over-the-top Internet
aPPliCations For Ftth
ProViders:
beyond the triple Play
Interest in Futuristic Services
Current FTTH Users Over Age 55
16% 17% 23% 25% 26% 27% 30% 31% 35% 36% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
Advanced online college 3D TV Business video conferencing Advanced websites/full video Remote home and pet monitoring Two-way video calling Advanced online shopping One device for TV, Internet, & phone Very large HDD with super resolution Online face-to-face healthcare
Interest in Futuristic Services
Current FTTH Users Under Age 40
33% 41% 42% 46% 47% 47% 49% 50% 52% 52% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 3D TV Advanced online college Two-way video calling One device for TV, Internet, & phone Online face-to-face healthcare Advanced online shopping Remote home and pet monitoring Advanced websites/full video Business video conferencing Very large HDD with super resolution
Older FTTH customers put online face-to-face health care above other video services, but one in six say they’d also use FTTH for online courses. Source: RVA LLC.
services as Skype or Netflix, but often they’re happier to deal directly with network providers they know and trust. Broadband providers of all kinds now offer a variety of applications to their customers through Web portals or through set-top boxes, often at lower prices than the customers could obtain by purchasing these services directly.
These applications reduce cus-tomer churn; they lower expenses by keeping more traffic in-network; and they create new revenue streams. Be-cause fiber-to-the-home networks have virtually unlimited capacity and unparalleled reliability and remote service monitoring, fiber providers have a far wider choice of applications for resale.
online storage allows users to store their data files on the Internet, access them from anywhere and share them with others. Indeed, the cloud computing revolution has moved ap-plications from the desktop to the Web. Service providers are now sup-plying the types of services to business customers that until recently were pro-vided by corporate IT departments.
Home security, like many other technologies, is migrating from ana-log to digital. Digitally based home security allows residents to control settings, receive alerts and view their homes via the Internet or cell phone. Digital security systems also support a wider range of sensors – not only tradi-tional motion detectors but cameras,
water detectors, smoke detectors and many others. Because digital security uses wiring that is already installed for broadband, it is inexpensive to install and makes economic sense for renters as well as homeowners.
over-the-Top Video may be of-fered as either an adjunct to or a substi-tute for a pay-TV offering, and it may be delivered either through a provider’s Web portal or via a specialized set-top box or a hybrid set-top box. The busi-ness models, technologies and even legal status of provider-delivered OTT video are evolving rapidly – a fact that demonstrates the enormous amount of interest in this application. If OTT video eventually displaces the traditional pay-TV model, fiber-to-the-home providers are well-positioned to benefit from this change because they can guarantee the quality of user experience.
Videoconferencing or video chat is universally available through free or low-cost Web-based services, but it is cumbersome and the quality is often poor. Fiber to the home, with its high upstream bandwidth, presents oppor-tunities for providers to make high-quality videoconferencing avail able,
and several such services have been introduced in the past year.
FTTH providers are generating new revenue streams not only from residential and business customers but also from advertisers, utilities and wireless providers.
Targeted advertising sold to advertisers represents an important potential revenue stream. One mech-anism is through IPTV, which lets pro-viders insert ads based on nearly any criteria. IPTV ads can be sent to house-holds with certain demographic crite-ria, or to households (or even individual TV sets) with certain viewing patterns.
Another potential source of adver-tising dollars is t-commerce, in which television viewers click the remote on an ad – or even a product placement in a television show – to either see more information about the product or actually to order it.
Automated meter reading is usu-ally the first smart-grid application that utilities deploy because it is relatively straightforward to implement and has an immediate payback. Though most fiber deployers that have installed smart meters on FTTH networks are ei-ther public or cooperative electric utili-ties, a few telcos are installing and read-ing smart meters and chargread-ing utilities on a per-reading basis.
Beyond automated meter reading, such smart-grid applications as de-mand-response programs, SCADA and outage investigation greatly reduce electric utilities’ operating costs. Smart-grid applications are major reasons that electric utilities across the country are now building fiber infrastructures. The federal government’s stimulus programs have subsidized smart-grid upgrades and coordinated FTTH with smart-grid initiatives.
Mobile backhaul has become an enormous revenue opportunity for fiber deployers. The exploding de-mands for mobile bandwidth have made clear to wireless providers that they must upgrade the connections from their cell sites to the Internet
Fiber-connected cameras can be used for com-munity security applications.
(traditional connections are copper T1 lines with 1.5 Mbps bandwidth). FTTH deployers are already beginning to run fiber to the busiest cell sites – about one cell site in five is now served by fiber. In addition, the next genera-tion of wireless architecture will move all baseband processing from cell sites to the cloud; cell sites will have to be connected via fiber to hubs where processing takes place.
ProPerty management
Broadband enables property owners to control their properties and assets more efficiently than ever before. The addition of broadband – especially the high-capacity, high-reliability broad-band that fiber enables – turns “smart” buildings into “genius” buildings, according to one expert. Internet- enabled sensors and applications au-tomate work that was once done by maintenance crews – and get it done it more quickly and accurately. Broad-band applications also help
own-ers communicate with tenants and employees.
Guarding construction sites can be managed through IP-based video surveillance. Asset tagging, typically with inexpensive RFID, helps prevent theft or misplacement of equipment, and tags worn by employees help make sure people are where they’re autho-rized to be. Videoconferencing allows construction managers to make virtual site inspections more frequently than they can make physical inspections.
online work order scheduling helps property managers be more re-sponsive to their residents while reduc-ing operatreduc-ing expenses. Residents can request repairs at any time – not just when the office is open or they can find the super – and management person-nel can deal with problems that require personal attention rather than routine requests. Residents can be automati-cally notified when work is completed.
energy management and water management can be broadband-en-abled. Motion sensors, intelligent thermostats and automated venti-lation equipment can keep public spaces and unoccupied units at ap-propriate temperatures; applications that moni-tor and analyze usage help property managers and residents find op-portunities to shift loads to nonpeak times and re-duce their overall usage.
Remote music lessons.
Join the FTTH Council
Isn’t it time you enjoyed the benefits of FTTH Council membership? The Council offers several membership categories, with dues startingat only $395/year for organizations and as little as $50/year for individuals. We are:
n Independent telecom providers from across
North America that are future-proofing their networks by upgrading to FTTH.
n Competitive broadband providers that are
differ-entiating their offerings with all-fiber connectivity.
n A wide variety of FTTH equipment manufacturers
and other broadband solutions providers showcasing their latest products.
n Engineering, outside-plant, consulting and
construction firms that work with telecom service providers to design and deploy North America’s next-generation networks.
n Municipalities and electric utilities that operate
all-fiber networks as a way of enhancing prospects for local economic development.
n Educational institutions, students and individuals
interested in learning more about all-fiber networks and their role in communities’ economic growth and competitiveness.
n Industry and professional groups whose
missions are enhanced by the availability of ultra-broadband networks.
Our areas of focus include:
n Building a legislative and regulatory framework
for advancing FTTH deployments.
n Educating policymakers and the public about the
benefits of FTTH.
n Sharing information and best practices concerning:
‑ Emerging optical access technologies and FTTH industry trends.
‑ All-fiber network design, operations and optimization.
‑ Fiber-to-the-home business planning and marketing strategies.
‑ Smart-grid and green technology evolution. ‑ High-bandwidth consumer applications,
content and in-home networking. For more information, please consult the membership section of the FTTH Council website,
www.ftthcouncil.org, or email [email protected].
U
nlike copper cable, which car-ries low-voltage electrical sig-nals, fiber optic cable carries information by transmitting pulses of light. The pulses are turned on and off very, very quickly. Multiple streams of information are carried on the same fi-ber at the same time by using multiple wavelengths – colors – of light.The pulses of light are usually cre-ated by lasers. (Some short-range fiber systems use LEDs.) The equipment that transmits signals keeps getting faster and cheaper, so the same old fiber can be used to carry ever more information. New equipment is just slipped in.
Fiber has many advantages over copper wire or coaxial cable, as it is easier to maintain and delivers far more bandwidth. Three of the biggest advantages are these:
1
Signals travel long distances inside fiber cable without degradation – 50 miles or more in some real-world networks and 65 miles or more in the laboratory. By contrast, bandwidth decreases in copper wire or coax as the distance traveled increases. Short lengths of coax, for instance – the lengths typically found in a small building – can carry 1 Gbps if the coax network is well designed. That’s 500 times more bandwidth than typical broadband services using DSL over copper wire, and 200 times more than typical broadband over cable TV coax. But those speeds are impossible over longer distances.The closer fiber gets to a building, the shorter the copper loop and there-fore the faster the service that can be made available to the building’s resi-dents and businesses. Fiber all the way to the living unit can deliver virtually unlimited speeds.
2
Fiber cable is thin. Individual fibers can, in fact, be made thinner than a human hair. Thin fibers can be carried on a narrow ribbon or inside a microductof hollow plastic typically less than 1/8 inch in diameter. One typical fiber cable configuration with about 200 super- thin strands is about the thickness of a standard coax cable.
That fiber cable could theoretically carry enough bandwidth to handle all
the information being sent on earth at any one time today. The bottom line: Fiber can be hidden easily on the sur-faces of walls in old construction. It is also flexible and rugged. In 2007, many vendors introduced inexpensive fiber that is tough enough to be stapled to
Fiber:
the light FantastiC
Even in today’s deployments, which often do not exploit the full potential of fiber, FTTH has a siz-able, and growing, downstream bitrate advantage over cable and DSL. The advantage of fiber is even more apparent on the upstream side – on average, FTTH connections have more than three times the upstream speed of cable or DSL connections. Source: RVA LLC.
(DSL and cable data for 2007–8 not available.)
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 2007 2008 2009 2010 FTTH Cable Modem DSL
Comparative Bitrate in Mbps,
Downloads
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 2007 2008 2009 2010Comparative Bitrate in Mbps,
Uploads
walls by installers and flexible enough to be bent around sharp corners. Though such fiber had been available for years, in the past it had been dif-ficult and expensive to manufacture. Optical fibers made of polymers (plas-tics) rather than glass are now starting to be deployed for indoor networks. These cables are easy to install and close to invisible.
3
Once installed, fiber is up-graded by changing the electronics that create and receive the light pulses, not by replacing the cable itself. Fiber ca-ble deployed in the access network is considerably longer lived than copper. It has a recommended depreciation life of 20 to 25 years, according to consult-ing company TechnologyFutures Inc. in a study commissioned by several Tier 1 telephone compa-nies. The actual physical life expectancy of fiber is even longer; its economic life is limited by the pros-pect of competition.
4
Fiber networksare far less expensive to maintain and operate than copper net-works. The fiber is amaz-ingly reliable. Nothing hurts it except a physical cut or the destruction of the building it is in. Pas-sive optical networks, or PONs, are the most
common type of fiber network. They use a minimum of electronics. In fact, there are no electronics at all between
the provider’s central office and users. This improves network reliability and cuts deployment costs. But optical networks that do require electronics in the field have some advantages as well, especially when a network is built to carry content from multiple provid-ers on the same fiber. Either way, the amount of power needed to run a fiber network is far less than that needed to run a coax or other copper network. This aids reliability and contributes to sustainability as well.
Average Number of Times Modem
Rebooting Necessary Per Month
1.5 2.4 2.5 3.4 4.9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 FTTH DSL FTTN Cable Modem Wireless
Another measure of FTTH reliability: Customers report only about 1.5 reboots necessary per month – better than twice the reliability of cable. Source: RVA LLC.
Very Satisfied with Specific Internet
Aspects, FTTH Versus Cable Modem
69% 64% 63% 61% 58% 49% 46% 52% 42% 43% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% Reliability – service uptime
Broadband speed Installation process Consistency of speed Provider’s customer service
Telcos generally outperform cable operators on service, but telcos offering FTTH widen the gap even further. Source: RVA LLC.
Most Important Advantages of FTTH
As Reported by Customers
0.5% 0.5%0.6% 0.8%1.0% 1.1%1.4% 2.3%2.5% 2.7%3.0% 5.2%5.4% 5.8% 5.8%9.8% 10.7%15.8% 20.2% 44.8% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%Can run two computers at once Easy installation Lines are buried/ not overhead Better technology/ up to date No satellite dish Video-on-demand/ movie downloads Better than previous cable company Other Convenience DVR General positives - pleased to have it Better customer service Number of channels/ entertainment choice Fewer weather disruptions Quality Cost Bundle of several services on one bill Reliability/consistency/ no hassles Picture clarity/ video clarity Speed/ faster/ better Internet/ bandwidth
F
iber’s bandwidth, reliability, safety and security have made it the technology of choice for in-hospital networks, and health care providers increasingly depend on fi-ber for exchanging huge image files and even for remote consultations and surgery. Until recently, regulatory requirements have limited the oppor-tunities for using broadband to sub-stitute live-at-home options for costly nursing home care. A recent study in Philadelphia, however, suggests that these savings are too large to ignore. Moreover, the situation studied could be copied by many local network pro-viders under current regulations.NewCourtland, a senior services provider in Philadelphia, operates the LIFE program, modeled on the Medi-care/Medicaid Program of All-Inclu-sive Care for the Elderly (PACE) initia-tive. PACE serves individuals who are
age 55 or older, certified by their state to need nursing home care, able to live safely in the community at the time of enrollment and in a PACE service area. A total of 75 providers in 29 states have received Medicare and Medicaid waiv-ers to operate PACE programs.
Although all PACE participants are certified to need nursing home care, the program keeps 93 percent of par-ticipants living safely in the commu-nity. PACE providers deliver all needed
medical and supportive services, in-cluding adult day care, medical care, drugs, social services, medical special-ists, and hospital and nursing home care when they become necessary.
By employing remote monitoring technology, NewCourtland enabled 33 residents to move from traditional nursing home care, realizing an annual savings of more than $1.8 million. Es-sentially, the technology helped sub-stitute a $125 per month technology
telehealth:
the time is now
hoUsing with teChnology
saVes mediCal Costs
Number of patients 33 in 26 housing units or rooms
Annual technology cost $39,000
Annual home care cost $249,600
Total nursing home cost avoided $2,135,250
Annual savings $1,846,650
Become a CFHP!
Certified Fiber to the Home Professional Program
The rapid growth in FTTH is creating significant demand for technical staff trained in FTTH technology and installation techniques. Many service providers are struggling to find enough trained staff. In response to this need, the FTTH Council has embarked on a training and certification program in cooperation with professional training organizations, educational institutions and other third-party training programs offered by major vendors and service providers.
This program benefits the fiber industry and develops in-demand job skills for people dislocated during the current recession.
Certification as a CFHP indicates a professional level of technical competence in fiber-to-the-home technologies. Certification requires demonstrating knowledge of and familiarity with FTTH architecture, network design, deployment technology and operational skills, not a specific vendor’s products.
Candidates for CFHP certification include management and supervisory staff, technical support managers and administrators, design specialists, telephony and network engineers and administrators, and advanced network engineers and administrators. Individuals participating in or graduating from community and technical college programs in telecommunications can also be candidates even if they have little or no experience in telecommunications.
The Council recommends participating in a training course before taking the certification exam. The current CFHP course consists of two days of classroom instruction and is structured to provide competence in overall FTTH theory, terminology, topology, equipment and system cost estimation.
CFHP COURSE DATES for 2011
Dallas, TX (at the Broadband Summit) • April 28 - 29, 2011 Spartanburg, SC • June 1 - 2, 2011
St. Louis, MO • June 9 - 10, 2011 Seattle, WA • July 6 - 7, 2011
Minneapolis, MN • September 7 - 8, 2011
Orlando, FL (at the FTTH Conference) • September 26 - 27, 2011 Austin, TX • December 8 - 9, 2011
The first two-day CFHP training course has been developed by The Light Brigade with assistance from FTTH Council member companies and organizations. For more information, go to www.lightbrigade.com.
After completing the course, candidates can take the online examination to confirm certification on the FTTH Council’s website. Those who successfully demonstrate knowledge of the course matter through this online examination by achieving a passing percentage of 80 percent or higher will receive the CFHP designation and a certification diploma valid for three years. The CFHP exam and certification fee is $150 for the three-year period. After that time, another exam will be required to maintain certification. For further information, please contact [email protected].
F
or service providers con-cerned about the impact of their networks on the envi-ronment, there’s good news about fiber. The environmental impact of FTTH is more positive than that of traditional copper networks, according to a Pricewaterhouse- Coopers study commissioned by the FTTH Council and released in October 2008.Even with conservative assump-tions about take rates, the greenhouse gases produced in manufacturing equipment and deploying networks are far lower for fiber than for cop-per networks and are outweighed in about five years by the savings from increased telecommuting alone. Tele-commuting saves more than triple the amount of greenhouse gases released by powering the network.
That’s an annual carbon-reduction dividend of close to 20 percent. Other environmental impacts are recouped with fiber in time periods ranging
from one to six years, according to the report, which examined an “average” American FTTH deployment. The im-pact of any actual network would be slightly different from the typical case that was studied.
Earlier studies have shown smaller annual savings, but almost all studies show a positive impact. Savings on gasoline (both for commutes avoided and for commuters who now enjoy less congestion on the highways) are partially offset by extra electricity use at home and by the power used to run the networks.
Savings are likely to increase in the future as the uses of broadband networks expand. For example, Price-waterhouseCoopers did not consider other energy-saving applications, such as:
• Telepresence, which is beginning to replace a significant amount of business travel;
• Cloud computing, which enables
data centers to be located near sources of renewable energy; • Smart-grid applications, which
make electricity generation and distribution far more efficient; or • Distance learning, which reduces
travel for educational purposes. About three-quarters of green-house gas emissions in the network life cycle come from the manufacture of active network equipment, Pricewater-house Coopers found. The researchers also examined how FTTH deployment affected such environmental issues as resource depletion, air acidification, algae growth in the oceans and the release of toxins into the environment.
By every measure, FTTH had a ben-eficial environmental impact. A more complete presentation of the report’s results can be found at http://www. ftthcouncil.org/en/knowledge-center/ documents-of-interest-to/ftth-equip- ment-vendor/environmental-bene-fits-of-ftth-deplo.
Ftth aids
sUstainability
cost per person for $225 per day innursing home costs, starting in 2008. Seven of the patients were in a group home, and 26 lived separately.
Instead of staffing the patients’ homes with live-in help, NewCourt-land installed a Healthsense eNeigh-bor system that includes sensors placed around the home, biometric devices as appropriate, medication dispensing, and a check-in button in each person’s home. A problem or un-warranted change brings a call from the monitoring center and, if neces-sary, a response from nearby staff. In a group home, there is one caregiver, supplemented with regular extra sup-port mornings and evenings.
“Keeping even one person out of
the hospital can pay for all systems for a PACE program for a year,” said Jim Reilly, Director of Courtland Health Technology. “And more important, the individuals we helped were motivated to leave a nursing home and move into the community, making the extra effort to participate in rehab.”
Inside the patient’s living unit, all the equipment is connected by Wi-Fi to a network gateway. Fiber providers, whose networks rarely suffer outages that require on-premises gateway re-sets, have a huge advantage over DSL or cable providers in supporting pro-grams like this one.
“Keeping even one person out of the hospital can
pay for all systems for a PACE program for a year.
The individuals we helped were motivated to leave
a nursing home and move into the community,
making an extra effort to participate in rehab.”
bUilders, real estate
deVeloPers and Ftth
V
irtually all large developers of single-family homes and many developers of multi-family communities add FTTH to new properties. Many are working on ret-rofitting older properties as well. Ret-rofit work has expanded as new-home sales have fallen in the recession.Before the housing boom ended, Michael Render of RVA LLC estimated, on the basis of surveying home buyers and developers, that FTTH added about $5,000 to the price of a home. The size of the increase is less certain now, but it is clear that FTTH homes sell faster.
By mid-2006, FTTH was economi-cally viable in new developments with as few as 80 MDU living units or 100 single-family homes. That number has
continued to fall due to improvements in deployment technology. As fiber and fiber deployment costs have fallen
and copper costs have increased, fiber has achieved cost parity with copper in most new construction.
Major Categories of Fiber-to-the-Home Deployers And Take Rates, Winter 2010
25.0% 30.0% 32.0% 42.0% 44.0% 58.0% 85.5%
Municipality or Public Utility District Acting as Wholesaler Regional Bell Operating Company (within MSA) Competitive Overbuilder (Urban) Municipality or Public Utility District Acting as Retail Provider Competitive Overbuilder (Rural or Suburban) Incumbent Rural Telephone Company Developer With Competitive Overbuilder Source: RVA LLC Source: RVA LLC
FTTH Homes Passed, March 2011 (Cumulative, North America)
19,400 35,700 72,100 110,000 180,300 189,000 970,000 1,619,500 2,696,846 3,625,0006,099,000 4,089,000 8,003,000 9,552,300 11,763,000 13,825,000 15,170,900 17,227,000 18,249,900 19,966,200 20,914,476 -4,000,000 1,000,000 6,000,000 11,000,000 16,000,000 21,000,000
Sep-01 Mar-02 Sep-02 Mar-03 Sep-03 Mar-04 Sep-04 Mar-05 Sep-05 Mar-06 Sep-06 Mar-07 Sep-07 Mar-08 Sep-08 Mar-09 Sep-09 Mar-10 Sep-10 Mar-11 Source: RVA LLC
FTTH is now available to almost one out of five American homes. In the six months be-tween September 2010 and March 2011, an additional 948,000 homes were passed by fiber despite the recession and the worst winter weather in a decade. That’s below the previous 6 months but in line with the same period a year earlier.
For single-family homes, customer-premises equipment is typically located outdoors.
FTTH Homes Marketed, March 2011
(Cumulative, North America)
19,400 35,700 72,100 110,000 180,300 189,000 413,221 829,7001,754,300 3,218,600 5,079,999 6,643,000 7,996,400 10,082,065 12,369,000 13,875,600 16,048,500 16,992,600 18,167,300 19,344,791 0 2,000,000 4,000,000 6,000,000 8,000,000 10,000,000 12,000,000 14,000,000 16,000,000 18,000,000 20,000,000
Sep-01 Mar-02Sep-02 Mar-03Sep-03 Mar-04Sep-04 Mar-05Sep-05 Mar-06Sep-06 Mar-07Sep-07 Mar-08Sep-08 Mar-09Sep-09 Mar-10Sep-10 Mar-11 Source: RVA LLC
The number of homes marketed for FTTH rose by almost 1.2 million from September 2010 to March 2011, a gain slightly above the previous six months and well above the year-earlier period. The latest six-month increase was far below the 2.2 million record logged for March 2009 to September 2009, but it shows a clear turnaround.
FTTH Homes Connected, March 2011
(Cumulative, North America)
5,500 10,350 22,500 38,000 64,700 78,000 146,500 213,000 312,700548,000671,0001,011,000 1,478,597 2,142,000 2,912,500 3,760,000 4,422,000 5,275,000 5,804,800 6,452,300 7,094,800 -500,000 1,000,000 1,500,000 2,000,000 2,500,000 3,000,000 3,500,000 4,000,000 4,500,000 5,000,000 5,500,000 6,000,000 6,500,000 7,000,000 7,500,000
Sep-01 Mar-02 Sep-02 Mar-03 Sep-03 Mar-04 Sep-04 Mar-05 Sep-05 Mar-06 Sep-06 Mar-07 Sep-07 Mar-08 Sep-08 Mar-09 Sep-09 Mar-10 Sep-10 Mar-11 Source: RVA LLC
FTTH connections are rising. The number of homes connected rose by 647,500 from September 2010 to March 2011, faster than in the same period a year ago, while the ratio of homes connected to homes passed remained steady at a record 32 percent, up from 29 percent two years ago. The number of new connections, 647,500, is higher than the total of 529,800 a year earlier but well below the record 853,000 of March 2009 to September 2009.
Percent of US Households Passed and Connected to FTTH, 2006 - 2011 (RVA LLC data) 0.6% 0.9% 1.3% 3.5% 5.3% 6.8% 8.1% 9.9% 11.9% 13.0% 15.1% 15.7% 17.3% 18.2% 1.8% 2.5% 3.2% 3.8% 4.6% 5.0% 5.6% 6.2% 0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18% 20%
Mar-06 Sep-06 Mar-07 Sep-07 Mar-08 Sep-08 Mar-09 Sep-09 Mar-10 Aug-10 Feb-11
Passed Connected
More than 18 percent of all homes in the U.S. were passed by fiber by March 2011, making FTTH technology a major player in broadband and video services. More than 6 percent of all U.S. households were actually connected to FTTH.
There is a wide range of devices for placing fiber underground.
Q: How can I justify adding to the
price of a home in a weak market?
A: The data are clear: Homes sell for higher prices when they are wired for high bandwidth and provide access to fiber. What’s more, FTTH homes sell faster than non-FTTH homes in the same market. In good times, this may translate into a greater profit, but it’s even more important in bad times. If few homes are being sold, you can bet that homes with high-bandwidth amenities will sell faster. This is equally true for rental properties: Developers of multiple-dwelling unit communities say their new buildings lease up faster if they can advertise them as fiber-connected.
Q: Do I need to hire an engineering
firm to design the installation?
A: Fiber does need to be engineered in large apartment complexes – that’s true for coax, too. But smaller installations, as with smaller corpo-rate LANs, do not need that kind of sophistication to work well. Greater standardization, clever new sys-tems from equipment vendors, fiber that can be stapled and bent tightly around corners, the growth of distributor-supplied design help
and an expanding corps of quali-fied technicians have made less-formal design regimes feasible in the last few years.
Q: Do I have to worry about other
labor on my construction site damaging the fiber cable?
A: Optical fiber is very, very thin – thinner than a human hair. But fiber vendors have developed many techniques to protect the fibers from harm. Cable can be ar-mored to ward off cuts. Contrac-tors can route inexpensive micro-duct – hollow
plastic tubes typically three-eighths of an inch in
diam-eter – through walls before the walls are closed in with drywall or other materials. The microducts are easily repairable. After every-thing else is done, thin fiber can be “blown” through the microduct for hundreds of feet. New fiber can be bent almost like copper. Some vendors offer fiber in thin adhesive tape that can be rolled onto walls.
Q: Do any building codes pertain to
fiber? The stuff seems inert.
A: Yes, all the regular fire and life-safety issues apply. For instance, just as copper with PVC sheathing
QUestions real estate
deVeloPers ask aboUt Ftth
Likelihood of Adding FTTH Lines,
Current Non-RBOC FTTH Providers
9% 2% 15% 70% 4% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% Very unlikely Somewhat unlikely Somewhat likely Very likely All customers have FTTH
Source: RVA LLC
Fiber can now be bent tightly around corners.
Thinner, more bend-tolerant fiber also allows more compact fittings, like this box. That makes installation easier in older structures.
would be considered a life-safety hazard because of the combustion products released when it burns, so would various plastics used in fiber that is meant for outside installation. Indoors, look for Low Smoke Zero Halogen (LSZH) cables. If you are using thin plastic microduct that fiber can later be blown through, it should be labeled Halogen-Free Flame Retardant. You use a simple junc-tion box to change from “outside” to “inside” wiring, just as you might with electrical cables.
Of course, you should check with your local building code inspector. Aside from fire issues, codes may govern where fiber optical network terminals (ONTs – the boxes that convert pulses of light from the fiber into electrical signals for the computer or TV) may be placed on the out-side walls or in common areas. A few municipalities spec-ify where in the home the network connections should be placed.
Q: Where should we put users’ network connections,
assuming there is no specific building code or guidance document covering that subject?
A: You should expect users to desire broadband connec-tions in virtually any room in the house – bedrooms, office-dens, the kitchen. That’s because Internet connec-tions these days accommodate telephones, televisions, set-top boxes, digital picture frames, security sensors, fire and smoke monitors and, of course, computers. As the “Internet of things” develops, more and more appliances will be Internet-enabled.
Because portable consumer electronics devices, such as smartphones and tablets, in addition to appliances, in-creasingly communicate with the Internet via Wi-Fi (ap-pliance manufacturers have now adopted a standard for building Wi-Fi into major appliances), you will also need a wireless gateway. Such gateways are offered by all ven-dors as standard-issue, to be used on the home side of fiber network deployments.
Most of the devices in FTTH networks convert electri-cal signals that travel along wires to pulses of light that travel on fiber, and back again. Let’s start at the begin-ning of a fiber network.
olt stands For
oPtiCal line terminal.
The OLT puts the pulses on the fiber in the first place. Because most of them are located in telephone ex-changes and other network central offices, residents and property owners rarely see them.
onts are oPtiCal network terminals.
These are the devices at the consumer end that turn light pulses back into electrical signals. They are some-times called ONUs, for optical network units. In net-works built by cable companies they may be called micronodes. Customer devices, such as computers, usually expect Ethernet – a standard networking tech-nology. Your computers and home wireless system use Ethernet and probably have Ethernet connectors built in. A typical ONT turns the light pulses into Ethernet signals.
In the United States, ONTs are typically placed in cigar-box sized enclosures on the outside walls of houses or apartments. But they can be made smaller than a deck of cards and can be placed inside customer premises as well.
Fiber ConneCtiVity
You’ll also hear about the point of presence, or POP. That’s the point at which the signals from multiple cus-tomers join the rest of the extended network.
Pedestals and larger fiber distribution hubs are en-closures. They can hold beam splitters that take the signal from a single fiber and divide it (typically be-tween 8:1 and 32:1 but as much as 128:1) among fibers that go to individual dwelling units.
Pedestals and hubs can be below ground, above ground (they often look like short posts or squat, air-conditioner-size boxes) or attached to buildings. Con-nections and splits can also be made in boxes that are hung under roof eaves, in attics or basements, on tele-phone poles, or on what look like power lines or tele-phone lines. For best reliability, many contractors bring two fibers into each dwelling unit from the pedestal. The fi-ber leading from a hub or pedestal to a user’s premises is called the drop cable.
ComPonents oF a
Fiber-to-the-home network
Fiber networks are easy to test; the testing
Q: In single-family homes, I often
see ONT boxes hung on the outside walls. Can they also be placed indoors?
A: Yes. In harsh climates, where heat or heavy snow could affect the out-side installation, you will probably want to put ONTs indoors. Outdoor ONT models are sometimes placed in garages or utility rooms; you can also buy small, portable indoor models that are more like cable or DSL modems, and connect them
with tough, flexible fiber that can be laid anywhere. Indoor ONTs,
which are popular with apartment dwellers, can be designed to be user-installed.
Q: Why do ONTs require backup
bat-teries?
A: Optical fiber cannot conduct elec-tricity. Thus, to keep a network con-nection running during a power outage, you need a battery at the user premises or a fiber cable that includes a thin copper conductor connected to an off-site battery. This requirement may change as cellular phones replace landlines – a change that has already taken place in most of Europe. In North America, where most customers still have landlines, many standard designs are available for in-wall, between-stud boxes that hold the battery, ONT and fiber connections.
Q: Does every dwelling unit or
office need its own ONT located at the unit?
A: No. Separate ONTs for each unit in a multiple-dwelling-unit building can be located centrally, often in a basement or an equipment cabi-net. There are also ONTs designed to serve multiple units, typically 4 or 8. This flexibility is made pos-sible by new, smaller, low-power circuitry and by the fact that some ONTs can deliver 1 Gbps or more – enough bandwidth to share among multiple customers.
Q: Is lightning a problem with fiber? A: No. In fact, because fiber does
not conduct electricity, lightning strikes do not affect fiber at all.
Modular ONT can be customer-installed.
Pathways for structured wiring can be created before walls are finished.
mdU in lexington, ky
When Ball Homes of Lexington, Ky., started building Forty 57, a 360-unit luxury apartment community just southeast of downtown Lexington and the University of Kentucky, it needed an edge for today and the fu-ture. With the first units coming online in May 2009, the developer was not only leasing a greenfield development in the midst of the Great Recession but also offering a higher-end product for a sophisticated demographic at a time when doubling and tripling up had suddenly come back into vogue.
To add value to its offering and ensure that the community stayed on the cutting edge of technology for the foreseeable future, Ball Homes partnered with Little Rock, Ark.-based Windstream Communications. After negotiating a bulk subscription deal for residents, Windstream deployed a GPON fiber-to-the-unit network at the community to light up a triple-play of-fering of voice, video and data, includ-ing dedicated 911 connectivity. Now,
for $89 a month, residents can enjoy a take-if-you-want base programming package that includes 12 Mbps data speeds; 60 channels of DISH Network programming, including HBO; and
in-coming terrestrial phone service plus 911 over traditional phone lines. It is the first fiber-to-the-unit MDU in the Lexington market.
Although Ball Homes thought an optional amenity would be more palatable during tight times, Wind-stream saw nearly a 100 percent take rate from residents who moved into the first phase of the project, and oc-cupancy was 75 percent after nine months. Why? Forty 57 has amenities that go beyond the pool, gym and community lounge.
“By going with fiber, we’re at the top of the game here locally while future-proofing the property for the foreseeable future,” says Brandon Buf-fin, Ball Homes’ IT director. “It’s been quite a positive.”
mgm CityCenter las Vegas
Imagine that you’ve just arrived at a ho-tel. As you walk into your room, a bell-hop greets you by name, switches on the lights, puts some music on the ste-reo and draws the curtains to reveal a spectacular view. The bellhop asks you for precise instructions about how you would like the room to be lit, heated
