A vision for residential broadband services: ATM-to-the-home

The arrival of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks has enabled a wide range of new interactive multimedia applications for the residential market. The article presents a vision for supporting universal residential broadband services based on an ATM-to-the-home (ATTH) network architecture. This network architecture applies to the various residential access network (RAN) architectures being deployed today, such as hybrid fiber/coax (HFC), fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC), fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), and asymmetric digital subscriber loop (ADSL) technologies. The article addresses today's residential networks and applications, to understand why a switched broadband residential network is required to support residential broadband services. After exploring residential broadband application requirements, a new class of service is proposed to support a very important class of residential broadband applications that has been not addressed. Then, the technical and strategic motivations for using the ATTH architecture are discussed in detail. A universal model for residential broadband network architecture based on ATTH is described, which is shown to apply to various RAN architectures. Finally, it discusses the signaling requirements of residential broadband services and explain why the ATM multiconnection per-call model is much more efficient than the digital stored media command and control (DSM-CC) session control protocol approach for the ATTH architecture     

Open technical issues in provisioning high-speed interactive dataservices over residential access networks

This article is intended as an overview of high-speed data services delivery over residential access networks. The author identifies and lists some of the most important open technical issues that deserve further investigation by members of the global technical community prior to a truly large-scale deployment of a wide variety of high-speed interactive multiple-media services over state-of-the-art residential broadband access networks. The target access options include hybrid fiber/coax, fiber in the loop, digital subscriber line, digital satellite, broadband wireless, and so forth     

“光进铜退”下宽带业务发展策略的探讨

宽带业务已成为固网运营商的重要业务,运营商正通过"光进铜退"的实施,大幅提升宽带接入带宽.本文通过分析宽带业务发展现状、家庭宽带用户ARPU值,探讨在高带宽下如何采取合适的宽带业务发展策略,有效利用接入带宽资源,提升宽带价值,促进宽带业务的健康持续发展.     

光纤通信在市内接入网的应用

先说明市内接入网的单位用户和住家用户两大类使用通信和电视、交互型和分配型业务的要求不相同，相应地对光纤传输的应用须作不同的考虑，文中认为；光纤从市内交换局直连办公大楼是合乎现实需要的，而对于居民住家，宜选用光纤连至路边或光纤与同轴结合和适当利用无源光网络等方案，俟将来时机成熟才实行光纤连至每一家，文末有概括总结，说明接入网不同于长途网，接入网的光纤系统可以使用常规单模光纤，工作于波长1．3μm，而光放大器和波分多路系统不是普遍需要，但光电子集成在光端机中是必要的。     

Optical fiber access-perspectives toward the 21st century

The vision of an all-fiber telecommunications network delivering an ever increasing variety of services to both business and residential customers has been the subject of much speculation for more than a decade. However, although optical fibers are now used routinely for longer haul transmission and for connections to large business customers; fiber to provide the final link to the generality of customers has proved to be a tougher challenge than originally expected. The extent to which fiber will penetrate the network depends not only on technical capabilities and economic performance, but also on regulation, competition, and the types of service that customers will actually want. The interplay between these complex factors is discussed, and potential scenarios are described. An endpoint vision of a future broadband infrastructure is described in order to illustrate the major new service delivery and operational benefits, which can flow from the revolutionary new technologies that can now be unleashed     

Residential video services

A local exchange telephone company's (LEC's) investigation and development of new residential video services and the technologies and market needs that are making such services possible are discussed. Several potential LEC residential video services are described, and the technology necessary to implement such services is discussed, including network access and transport, switching, network management, and customer premises equipment (CPE). The LEC's experiences with residential video technology and service trials are presented along with new service implementation plans     

The residential gateway

Burgeoning competition in telecommunications is multiplying the number of communications paths into the home-but a standard multinetwork connection could sort them out. Services going into the residence may enter over copper wires, hybrid fiber coax, RF transmission, fiber to the curb, or, most importantly, by any combination of these sources and structures. To have a successful market, residential customers must be able to move smoothly from one combination of these offerings to another so that the customers consider the move worthwhile. For this multinetwork-to-multiservice interconnection to have value, it must be simple, and that simplicity is the basis for the residential gateway concept. In other words, the substantial complexity of the interconnection must be hidden from the consumer. The concept is essentially the development of a set of interface standards between the broadband residential access networks and the communication services (the internal networks) required for the consumer's home     

Parametric methodology for analyzing implementation strategies ofresidential broadband networks: the incremental cost of integratedaccess

An engineering framework for estimating the investment cost of two implementation strategies intended to provide broadband (video services) access to residential customers in new construction areas is described. One strategy is the deployment of a single (digital and fiber) integrated network, and the other is the codeployment of dual, separate networks (one for narrowband and the others for TV distribution). The methodology derives the investment per subscriber as a function of network element's costs and demographical, topological, and service penetration parameters. The methodology is applied to TELEFONICA's network. The incremental cost of the integrated network (compared with dual networks codeployment) is estimated to be around $700 per customer. The results highlight the importance of broadband services that would not be fully provided by conventional cable TV distribution networks     

Broadband communications: the commercial impact

The impact of broadband ISDN (integrated services digital network) is assessed. It is pointed out that the key step in its introduction, i.e. the replacement of the copper wire infrastructure by optical fiber, is already taking place. Two alternative routes for the introduction of broadband services are described: the market-driven route and the investment-led route. The market-driven route entails carriers responding to the demands currently being made of them. In the investment-led route, carriers lead the market and create demands by substantial investment in fiber residential networks. Carrier costs and rewards and anticipated market growth are examined. Broadband applications, the role of video communications, and the technology that will be used are briefly examined     

大型小区分布系统设计方法研究

相比于传统大型小区分布系统设计多采用干线放大器加馈线的方式,新型大型小区分布系统设计通过载频分配、光纤直放站和美化天线的方式,很好地解决了新情况下的大型小区覆盖、容量及环保要求。     

Broadband access over cable for next-generation services: a distributed switch architecture

The hybrid fiber coax architecture deployed by the cable service providers has been successful in capturing a substantial piece of the residential broadband access market. In the United States over five million homes connect to the Internet using DOCSIS cable modems. We describe an evolution path to enhance the HFC plant to provide, initially, Gigabit Ethernet (and eventually multi-Gigabit Ethernet) on the trunk and feeder portions, and 100 Mb/s Ethernet on the subscriber drops. This next-generation HFC network will enable cable service providers to address the vast and underserved small and medium-sized business market, as well as offer emerging applications and services to the residential market.     

法国宽带接入市场现状与分析

介绍法国近几年宽带接入在技术、用户和业务等各方面的发展。法国宽带接入住宅市场目前应用最广泛的技术是ADSL,其次是有线电视网,其他如BLR,WiFi和电力网等技术应用有限。专业市场除了以上技术外,还有光纤专网,但小企业更愿意选择大众化服务,且许多用户将从专网向DSL转移。总体来讲,住宅市场的竞争程度高于专业市场,因而发展更快。由于相关法律的出台,有线电视市场处于重组之中。     

Optical fiber cables for residential and business premises

This paper describes a new drop cable, a new cluster-type drop cable for residential premises, a new indoor cable, a new termination cable and a new riser cable for fiber distribution in residential and business premises. The structural design of these cables is investigated and the optimum structures for cost reduction of cable and installation are obtained. Based on the results, these cables are manufactured and their transmission and mechanical characteristics are confirmed to be stable     

Cable access beyond the hype: on residential broadband dataservices over HFC networks

Current efforts in digital data transmission over hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) networks will provide an efficient data transport mechanism for the “last mile” to residential users and will enable a very large number of services to the home. Provision of these services requires a complete end-to-end network architecture that provides an efficient connection between the server and the end user. Thus, it is necessary for the currently isolated HFC islands to gradually evolve into an efficient, highly connected, high-speed network. In this article, the authors review HFC networks and establish that they provide a more attractive and promising solution than the alternatives for “last mile” connectivity to the home, such as telephone connections. A list of broadband services are listed that are enabled by the high-speed data capabilities of HFC networks, and the necessary end-to-end infrastructure to support these applications is described, as well as possible evolution and migration paths for developing these end-to-end network architectures     

Broadband ISDN technology and architecture

Broadband integrated services digital network (BISDN) network architecture for local public serving areas is described. It is designed to offer end-users access to bandwidths up to 155 Mb/s. The BISDN protocols described support the simultaneous delivery of voice, data, image, and video services to business and residential customers. The objective of the broadband architecture described is to suggest designs that can evolve from today's base of narrowband equipment toward BISDN. It supports the use of fiber for narrowband services, in order to ensure that a broadband infrastructure is in place to serve as a platform from which broadband services can be offered. It also uses optional broadband modules on existing narrowband systems to facilitate evolutionary growth of broadband services and recognizes the metropolitan area network (MAN) protocol defined by IEEE 802.6 as a possible early implementation of BISDN     

New transport services for next-generation SONET/SDH systems

SONET/SDH systems have been the preferred transport technology over fiber optics for almost two decades now. Carriers have developed extensive expertise in operating, managing, and developing business models for these systems. Manufacturers' technical expertise in such systems has increased to a deep understanding of what transport over fiber is about. In short, SONET/SDH can be called a mature transport technology. Out of this mature expertise, new techniques for bettering transport over fiber services have appeared. These techniques are likely to considerably reshape the next generation of SONET/SDH systems in many aspects: new transport techniques, new transport services, new management systems and business models. We describe several new transport techniques, and discuss their impact on the creation of new transport services for next-generation SONET/SDH systems     

Guest editorial

Emerging technologies bring very high-speed connectivity for residential users through both fixed and mobile access: fiber to the home/curb/... (FTTx), Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) 3.0, WiMAX, Long Term Evolution (LTE), satellite. Typical speeds are reaching 100 Mb/s, even 1 Gb/s. Furthermore, symmetrical channels are offered (as opposed to asymmetrical digital subscriber line [ADSL]). Already in 2008 (source: FTTH Council) almost 3 million consumers used direct fiber optic connections in the United States, more than 10 million in Japan, and about 15 million worldwide. This enhanced capacity certainly removes the barriers and constraints of limited broadband offers, paving the way to future digital services for the home.     

MLAP: a MAC level access protocol for the HFC 802.14 network

Interactive residential broadband/multimedia services are expected to be the next main event in the cyberspace experience. The large excess bandwidth (well over 300 MHz) available in today's cable TV (CATV) hybrid fiber/coaxial (HFC) plants is an ideal candidate to provide the underlying communications infrastructure for interactive digital services to the home; cable operators that have not yet upgraded their all-coaxial plants to HFC are quickly moving in this direction. MLAP is a flexible ATM-friendly MAC protocol that is capable of supporting various types of traffic with diverse quality-of-service requirements. We introduce a very versatile MAC protocol for the HFC 802.14 network. MLAP can provide integrated broadband services to the home, internetwork easily with ATM wide area networks, support QoS constraints for various types of traffic, and operate over a variety of physical layer protocols. Our presentation is only an extended summary of our medium-sharing protocol proposal to the IEEE 802.14 WG. We consider only error-free system operation. MLAP provides for the use of timers for the recovery of error situations in the network. MLAP is also supported by a management suite of protocols for management of the overall system     

Convergence of residential gateway technology

A new OSI-based model is described that can be used for the classification of residential gateways. It is applied to analyze current gateway solutions and draw evolutionary paths for the medium to long term. From this it is concluded that particularly set-top boxes and broadband modems, as opposed to game consoles and PCs, have a strong potential to evolve toward gateways that deliver network services to the home on all OSI layers, although they probably will not converge. In our model, we have not found any compelling reasons for the residential gateway industry to support concurrent multiple broadband access network connections on a single residential gateway in the near future.     

A Field Trial of Fiber Optic Subscriber Loop Systems Utilizing Wavelength-Division Multiplexers

Future subscriber loops will provide various services including broad-band video. Fiber optic technology is the key for introducing these services. The Electrical Communication Laboratories (ECL) of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation (NTT) have been promoting research and development on basic technology of fiber optic subscriber loops, and studying the ways to use fiber optic subscriber loops for new services. As one of the programs, a field trial of fiber optic subscriber loops was planned and conducted in the Yokosuka area from April 1980 until May 1981. This paper first describes fiber optic transmission technologies for subscriber loops. Then, the system configuration and experimental results of the Yokosuka field trial are presented.