Last mile

Although fiber-optic systems excel in high-bandwidth applications, optical fiber has been slow to achieve its goal of fiber to the premises or to solve the last mile problem. However, as bandwidth demand increases, more and more progress towards this goal can be observed. In Japan, for instance EPON has largely replaced DSL as a broadband Internet source. South Korea’s KT also provides a service called FTTH (Fiber To The Home), which provides 100 percent fiber-optic connections to the subscriber’s home. The largest FTTH deployments are in Japan, Korea, and recently in China. Singapore has also started implementation of their all-fibre Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN), which is slated for completion in 2012 and is being installed by OpenNet. Since they began rolling out services in September 2010, Network coverage in Singapore has since reached 60% nationwide.

In the US, Verizon Communications provides a FTTH service called FiOS to select high-ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) markets within its existing territory. The other major surviving ILEC (or Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier), AT&T, uses a FTTN (Fiber To The Node ) service called U-verse with twisted-pair to the home. Their MSO competitors employ FTTN with coax using HFC. All of the major access networks use fiber for the bulk of the distance from the service provider's network to the customer.

The globally dominant access network technology is EPON (Ethernet Passive Optical Network). In Europe, and among telcos in the United States, BPON (ATM-based Broadband PON) and GPON (Gigabit PON) are favored because of their roots in the FSAN (Full Service Access Network) and ITU-T standards organizations under their control.

June 6, 2011

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