In the broadband access market traditional network operators face strong competition from e.g. power utilities and must respond to this challenge by improving their offering. Laying a traditional copper network is hardly a suitable answer to the utilities´ fibre offerings. Despite the recent advancement in modulation techniques enabling the delivery of multi megabit speeds over copper wires in the access network, there is a general consensus that the possibilities of copper will be soon exhausted and its limits will be met, and only fibre represents a truly future proof solution that can meet the ever increasing demand of customers fixed networking needs.

The focus of the study will be on optical access network solutions in greenfield environments for residential customers and how the legacy copper paradigm may be replaced by the fibre paradigm.

What are the main objectives of this Project?

The objective of this study is to support network operators in selecting the right technology for greenfield access network installations and make a transition from copper to fibre.

To facilitate this the study will compare fibre based point-to-point Ethernet and PON solutions, from the following aspects:

• Impact on network design and topologies

• Status and availability of customer premises equipment

• Service provisioning

• Security

• Scalability and flexibility to meet the requirements of future services and the growth of demand

Active and passive solutions will be considered, including active star and passive fibre network topologies with single or multi stage splitting.

In addition to the above aspects, the comparison will cover the following more specific issues:

• local exchange complexity, versus many distribution points

• Initial investment costs

• Operational expenditures

• Expected component cost evolution trends

• Operational and maintenance issues, such as possible failures and measurability

The study will also provide a high level economic comparison to the legacy copper network.

Last but not least the study will consider the legislation and regulatory prerequisites for fibre roll-out in the access network. It will provide a survey of the regulatory situation in the US and in Europe regarding fibre unbundling with the aim to identify whether the regulatory framework in Europe is friendly towards and supportive of fibre roll-out in the access network. The study plans to contribute in this regard to ETNO's regulatory group.