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Case Study – FTTH
The principle of Fibre To The Home has long been recognised as the ultimate
objective in enabling the provision of true triple play services to residential customers for many
different types of telecom operators.
Triple play services (video, internet and telephony) are seen as the primary method for
capturing and maintaining residential customers for future revenue streams but until recently there
have been capital expenditure barriers restricting the deployment of such optical networks,
particularly for large operators. However, the recent cost reductions for active optical components
and the innovation of new deployment technologies have now enabled many operators to ‘live the
dream’ and deploy FTTh networks. The Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden have been
amongst the first to exploit these innovations and cost reductions, which have resulted in a major
FTTh network roll-out across the region.
Sirocco® has been a key enabler for these operators deploying FTTh networks. The
flexibility and scalability of the system allows easier network design, installation and
configuration than conventional optical cable systems. In fact, in some installations the whole
FTTh network has been constructed with the use of Sirocco® from the central office all the way to
customer homes. In other examples, the system has been combined with conventional optical cable
networks to obtain maximum cost efficiencies, flexibility and scalability.
Many municipalities and utilities have chosen to construct the physical layer of their
network using a Point to Point fibre network which gives the ultimate optical solution with one or
two fibres dedicated to each customer all the way from the central office.
Due to the hostile conditions during the winter months across the region it is common for the
ducting and cable network to be constructed during the summer months. Customer connections can then
be established at any time during the year by blowing the Sirocco® fibre units into place from a
variety of network locations. As a consequence, fibre units have been blown in a wide range of
climatic and weather conditions at all times of the year.
In rural regions, it is common for blown fibre cables to be directly buried roadside and
customer connections completed with the use of branching units and single Direct Buried tube
cables. Customers are then easily connected by blowing fibre units up to 1000m from distribution
closure or cabinet or even in some cases directly from the central office. In this way, capital
expenditure is minimised on day one and avoidance of unlit fibre in the network. Hundreds of
thousands of kilometres of Sirocco® bundle have been installed as customer connections.
Sirocco® Features and Benefits
· Easy network construction/planning
· Rapid customer connections
· Minimises fibre splicing
· Durable network
· Network easily upgraded
Urban areas can be constructed in a similar manner but the frequent occurrence of Multi
Dwelling Units (MDU’s) means that Sirocco® can be used in a slightly different application. Here,
traditional cable or Sirocco® can be used to deploy fibre to the basement of MDU’s or street-side
cabinets nearby and Sirocco® tubing installed to each apartment within the MDU in a variety of
configurations. Once again, Sirocco® allows deployment of the fibre only when customers sign up for
service and the fibre units can be blown in either from within the MDU or from outside the
building. For both MDU and single dwelling units the use of pre-connectorised blown fibre units
(connectors at one end of the fibre unit) is becoming increasingly common to achieve quicker
customer connection.
Other network operators are now choosing to deploy a Passive Optical Network (PON)
infrastructure to further reduce the network construction costs. In these types of networks, the
signal sent down one optical fibre from the central office is split downstream in the network with
the use of passive optical splitters. Typically, the signal can be split up to 32 times but the
ratio of the split depends on the distance between the customer and central office. Splitter
devices are most commonly housed in either street-side cabinets (commonly referred to as fibre
distribution hubs), or within closures which can be stored in underground chambers or hung from
poles. There are a variety of PON topologies but, broadly speaking, they would be designed around
Converged, Cascaded or Distributed PON architectures which are shown in the following pages of this
catalogue. The Sirocco® system contains a range of products which can be used within all of these
network architectures.
Prysmian offers a portfolio of products that will support whichever network topology most
suits the environment and strategy of each individual network operator. These products range from
external to internal elements of the network, from the central office through to feeder and
distribution elements of the network and finally to the customer drop/connection. In addition,
Prysmian continues to add new products and technologies to its FTTh portfolio as the market
continues to expand.
•
Point
to Point, Point to Multipoint
•
Converged
PON
•
Cascaded
PON
•
Distributed
PON
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