FTTH for cable companies
I need a reality check... For telcos, going from barely twisted copper pair to FTTH presents huge incremental improvement. FTTN is basically a stop gap medium term solution that is more pleasing to some beancounters. However, for a cable company, is there an advantage to deploy FTTH/GPON to bring light originally destined to the neighbourhood node all the way to the home and do away with coax ?
From what I have read, cablecos limit FTTH deployments to greenfields.
Do they save much by replaciung the "node" with a simple optical splitter which no longer limits how much upstream bandwidth is retransmitted back to head end ? Will there be a point in the next 10 years where cable companies might start to upgrade brownfields from coax to FTTH as some telcos have done ? While in Canada, FTTH deployment by telcos has been accompanied with IPTV deployments on the data path (single wavelength), I hear that Verizon has used twin wavelengths, on for GPON data, and one for RFoG for TV signals. Would it be fair to state that FIOS is basically identical to FTTH deployments by cable companies ? Do twin wavelength systems as deployed by Verizon end up costing far more ? Or is the price difference mininal ? Any information/insight appreciated.
I believe the difference is fairly negligible between RFoG and IPTV. RFoG allows the cable companies to leverage the existing RF head end while FTTH requires a IPTV head end. IPTV is less familiar to most cable operators and requires new investment in facilities and skills. Mark On 10/19/13 6:35 AM, Jean-Francois Mezei wrote:
I need a reality check...
For telcos, going from barely twisted copper pair to FTTH presents huge incremental improvement. FTTN is basically a stop gap medium term solution that is more pleasing to some beancounters.
However, for a cable company, is there an advantage to deploy FTTH/GPON to bring light originally destined to the neighbourhood node all the way to the home and do away with coax ?
From what I have read, cablecos limit FTTH deployments to greenfields.
Do they save much by replaciung the "node" with a simple optical splitter which no longer limits how much upstream bandwidth is retransmitted back to head end ?
Will there be a point in the next 10 years where cable companies might start to upgrade brownfields from coax to FTTH as some telcos have done ?
While in Canada, FTTH deployment by telcos has been accompanied with IPTV deployments on the data path (single wavelength), I hear that Verizon has used twin wavelengths, on for GPON data, and one for RFoG for TV signals. Would it be fair to state that FIOS is basically identical to FTTH deployments by cable companies ?
Do twin wavelength systems as deployed by Verizon end up costing far more ? Or is the price difference mininal ?
Any information/insight appreciated.
-- Mark Radabaugh Amplex mark@amplex.net 419.837.5015
Also, RFoG keeps the same STBs as old-school FTTN, and for bean counters it's pretty hard to justify changing a LOT of STBs to IPTV ones. On Oct 19, 2013 4:17 PM, "Mark Radabaugh" <mark@amplex.net> wrote:
I believe the difference is fairly negligible between RFoG and IPTV. RFoG allows the cable companies to leverage the existing RF head end while FTTH requires a IPTV head end. IPTV is less familiar to most cable operators and requires new investment in facilities and skills.
Mark
On 10/19/13 6:35 AM, Jean-Francois Mezei wrote:
I need a reality check...
For telcos, going from barely twisted copper pair to FTTH presents huge incremental improvement. FTTN is basically a stop gap medium term solution that is more pleasing to some beancounters.
However, for a cable company, is there an advantage to deploy FTTH/GPON to bring light originally destined to the neighbourhood node all the way to the home and do away with coax ?
From what I have read, cablecos limit FTTH deployments to greenfields.
Do they save much by replaciung the "node" with a simple optical splitter which no longer limits how much upstream bandwidth is retransmitted back to head end ?
Will there be a point in the next 10 years where cable companies might start to upgrade brownfields from coax to FTTH as some telcos have done ?
While in Canada, FTTH deployment by telcos has been accompanied with IPTV deployments on the data path (single wavelength), I hear that Verizon has used twin wavelengths, on for GPON data, and one for RFoG for TV signals. Would it be fair to state that FIOS is basically identical to FTTH deployments by cable companies ?
Do twin wavelength systems as deployed by Verizon end up costing far more ? Or is the price difference mininal ?
Any information/insight appreciated.
-- Mark Radabaugh Amplex
mark@amplex.net 419.837.5015
On 10/19/2013 6:35 AM, Jean-Francois Mezei wrote:
I need a reality check...
For telcos, going from barely twisted copper pair to FTTH presents huge incremental improvement. FTTN is basically a stop gap medium term solution that is more pleasing to some beancounters.
However, for a cable company, is there an advantage to deploy FTTH/GPON to bring light originally destined to the neighbourhood node all the way to the home and do away with coax ?
From what I have read, cablecos limit FTTH deployments to greenfields.
Do they save much by replaciung the "node" with a simple optical splitter which no longer limits how much upstream bandwidth is retransmitted back to head end ?
Will there be a point in the next 10 years where cable companies might start to upgrade brownfields from coax to FTTH as some telcos have done ?
While in Canada, FTTH deployment by telcos has been accompanied with IPTV deployments on the data path (single wavelength), I hear that Verizon has used twin wavelengths, on for GPON data, and one for RFoG for TV signals. Would it be fair to state that FIOS is basically identical to FTTH deployments by cable companies ?
Do twin wavelength systems as deployed by Verizon end up costing far more ? Or is the price difference mininal ?
Any information/insight appreciated.
Doing RFoG forward path is simple. The reverse path isn't. VZ has an IP reverse path for VOD asset purchases and keeping their STBs in contact with whatever element management they use. VZ STBs depend on the the local VZ provided CPE as the reverse path for communication. It's been a while since I've looked at a PON deployment but I believe the xPON waves are passively muxed with an EDFA amplified video wave and then sent to the outside plant.
That's no different than what MSOs are deploying as well. Using things like DSG the STB is using IP these days to communicate with application servers, VoD, etc. Really the same as your VZW example, the STB uses DOCSIS for OOB signalling instead of straight RF. PON can use a RF video overlay or not, the PON standards have stayed away from using 1550-1560nm for that reason, but yes it's all passively muxed. Phil On 10/19/13 1:48 PM, "ML" <ml@kenweb.org> wrote:
On 10/19/2013 6:35 AM, Jean-Francois Mezei wrote:
I need a reality check...
For telcos, going from barely twisted copper pair to FTTH presents huge incremental improvement. FTTN is basically a stop gap medium term solution that is more pleasing to some beancounters.
However, for a cable company, is there an advantage to deploy FTTH/GPON to bring light originally destined to the neighbourhood node all the way to the home and do away with coax ?
From what I have read, cablecos limit FTTH deployments to greenfields.
Do they save much by replaciung the "node" with a simple optical splitter which no longer limits how much upstream bandwidth is retransmitted back to head end ?
Will there be a point in the next 10 years where cable companies might start to upgrade brownfields from coax to FTTH as some telcos have done ?
While in Canada, FTTH deployment by telcos has been accompanied with IPTV deployments on the data path (single wavelength), I hear that Verizon has used twin wavelengths, on for GPON data, and one for RFoG for TV signals. Would it be fair to state that FIOS is basically identical to FTTH deployments by cable companies ?
Do twin wavelength systems as deployed by Verizon end up costing far more ? Or is the price difference mininal ?
Any information/insight appreciated.
Doing RFoG forward path is simple. The reverse path isn't. VZ has an IP reverse path for VOD asset purchases and keeping their STBs in contact with whatever element management they use. VZ STBs depend on the the local VZ provided CPE as the reverse path for communication.
It's been a while since I've looked at a PON deployment but I believe the xPON waves are passively muxed with an EDFA amplified video wave and then sent to the outside plant.
For cable companies who have the data service as part of the RFoG wavelengths to provide coax at the CPE, how do they handle collisions/timing on the upstream side ? Does the ONT provide TDMA slots for the upstream wavelength to ensure only one customer transmits RF at a time on the upstream ? Or is it all handled within the DOCSIS /RFoG side ?
I think all of the MSOs in the US have long term (15-20 year) plans to also do FTTH. Advances in DOCSIS and coax technology seem to be outpacing those available on the telco twisted-pair side, so it delays forklifting the existing HFC plant. DOCSIS 3.1 requires some significant capital investment to do things like expand upstream channel spectrum, etc. but the costs still pale in comparison to trenching fiber to houses and will give them enough bandwidth to supply a lot more users with higher speed service. There is also an evoluation to all-IP, everyone sees the writing on the wall and many of the presentations at Cable-TEC (SCTE) in Atlanta next week are focused on IP/IPTV, etc. Like someone else said, it's hard to replace millions of set-top boxes that don't speak IPTV... In a lot of ways IPTV, etc. over a big IP pipe is much simpler than what we have today even with RFoG. But RFoG is compatible with all of the existing systems in place. The are interesting ways to overlay PON on top of existing HFC deployments that aren't really all that expensive, but houses aren't really being built these days like they used to so the opportunities to build into new developments isn't happening like it was 5-6 years ago. As for Verizon, I think their choice to do the 1550 video wavelength had a lot to do with how they were ingesting video in the beginning and the back-end systems, customer premise equipment, etc. It also doesn't require doing things like QoS to separate Internet from video traffic. Phil On 10/19/13 6:35 AM, "Jean-Francois Mezei" <jfmezei_nanog@vaxination.ca> wrote:
I need a reality check...
For telcos, going from barely twisted copper pair to FTTH presents huge incremental improvement. FTTN is basically a stop gap medium term solution that is more pleasing to some beancounters.
However, for a cable company, is there an advantage to deploy FTTH/GPON to bring light originally destined to the neighbourhood node all the way to the home and do away with coax ?
From what I have read, cablecos limit FTTH deployments to greenfields.
Do they save much by replaciung the "node" with a simple optical splitter which no longer limits how much upstream bandwidth is retransmitted back to head end ?
Will there be a point in the next 10 years where cable companies might start to upgrade brownfields from coax to FTTH as some telcos have done ?
While in Canada, FTTH deployment by telcos has been accompanied with IPTV deployments on the data path (single wavelength), I hear that Verizon has used twin wavelengths, on for GPON data, and one for RFoG for TV signals. Would it be fair to state that FIOS is basically identical to FTTH deployments by cable companies ?
Do twin wavelength systems as deployed by Verizon end up costing far more ? Or is the price difference mininal ?
Any information/insight appreciated.
participants (5)
-
Florin Veres -
Jean-Francois Mezei -
Mark Radabaugh -
ML -
Phil Bedard