For future-proofing purposes, operations and maintenance lifecycle costs also should be considered in any FTTH technology decision, along with the expected costs for upgrading to newer technologies like 10 Gbps.
The majority of the costs in an FTTH deployment are associated with the outside plant (material costs for conduit and fiber and installation costs). With a life-expectancy of 25 to 40 years or more, it is important to protect this investment and future-proof it as much as possible.
One future-proofing technique is to build the fiber infrastructure in such a way that it is technology-agnostic as future needs and technical capabilities change.
Some projects are being designed to better future-proof their fiber infrastructure by implementing a point-to-point star topology even for PON deployments (by moving the splitters back to the main distribution point).
This design enables the fiber infrastructure to be technology agnostic as future needs and technical capabilities change, and even provides the ability to switch from a PON to an AON implementation or vice versa just by changing out the optical/electronic equipment and leaving the fiber untouched.
Another future-proofing technique is to increase the likelihood that the fiber infrastructure itself can support higher data rates in the future by designing and installing it with the lowest practical optical loss.
To achieve this goal, techniques such as fusion splicing can be employed along with such materials as low-loss connectors and bend-insensitive fiber.
Making the right technology choice for a new FTTH network project can be a daunting task, but with careful consideration and a clear objective, you can make a good decision.
The good news is that there are really no bad choices. All of the choices are proven technologies that can support a wide array of services. It is just a matter of choosing the solution that best meets the needs of the project.
David Hashman is president of Knowledge Works LLC
This article originally appeared on SearchTelecom.com