The telecommunication industry nowadays has ushered in various new and advanced services that changed human life dramatically. With the demand for higher bandwidth consistently on the rise, an increasing number of service providers endeavored to provide a one-stop shopping service to cater to customer’s requirements. FTTx technology has proved to be viable and effective network solution.

FTTx is a general term referring to describe fiber-based access networks, and the x could be H (home) if the fibers are terminated at the home of the subscriber; x could also be B (business), if the fibers are terminated at an office building. In addition to these two types, there also exist common ones like FTTC (Fiber-to-the-Curb) and FTTN (Fiber-to-the-Neighborhood).

It is generally accepted that compared to copper or digital radio, fiber features higher bandwidth and lower attenuation. FTTx technology enables users to get more extensive bandwidth and enjoy more diversified services at home by installing optical fiber all the way to subscriber. It is hence natural that FTTx technology is rather prevalent throughout the world.

Just as what we have mentioned above, the fiber can be terminated at the user’s premises, a block of apartments or offices in a FTTx network. In some scenarios the optical fiber can be laid all the way to the subscribes’ premises such as FTTH, whereas in others, fiber optics may be terminated at either a place or node close to groups of subscribers, which depends on several factors. In this part, we will explain some common deployment scenarios.

In FTTH deployment, the fibers are being laid from the central office (CO) to each house or apartment. As a house or a home is usually occupied by a family, it is frequently referred to as a single dwelling unit (SDU). The following picture shows the FTTH deployment scenario.

Likewise, FTTB is a deployment scenario where the fiber is laid directly from the CO to an office or private apartment with multiple business tenants or homes. And the term Multiple Tenant Unit (MTU) is frequently used to those tenants or apartment units. The ONT in this scenario is often connected to an Ethernet switch that used to link all the tenants within the same building. Moreover, while in FTTB deployment, there is no need to replace the existing copper LAN cables in the building for optical fibers.

In FTTC deployment scenario, however, the fiber is laid from the CO to an optical network unit (ONU) or optical network termination (ONT) that is located within 300 m from office building or home. Instead of optical fiber, in FTTC scenario we often use transmission medium such as twisted pair cable or coaxial cable to achieve connection to the subscribers.

FTTN is a deployment scenario where fiber from the CO is terminated at a communication switch located within 1 km from office buildings or homes. FTTN can contribute to save a significant amount of cost since one can use the existing coaxial or twisted pair infrastructure to provide the final physical connection to the end users.

FTTx effectively and efficiently provide users triple play, which is a standard mix of traffic types known as voice,video and data. Traditional subscribers must connect to three different networks and service providers for their phone service, video broadcast and the Internet. However, once adopting FTTx, all of these types can be integrated into a single fiber network just by using different wavelengths. Hence, on the basis of triple play service, the FTTx network can thus be applied to IP telephony, video on demand (VOD), IPTV, interactive games, telepresence, video conferencing, and externally monitored home security. To this end, service providers need to offer bandwidths of 50 to 100 to enable subscribers using these services.

In conclusion, FTTx network is a popular tendency in current telecommunication industry since it offers a better networking experience and more convenience for subscribers. The article simply describes some rudiments of FTTx technology, for more information concerning the FTTx solution, visit Fiberstore at www.fs.com. We provide professional FTTx solutions and tutorials for your infrastructure.