FTTH Active vs Passive

Mikael Abrahamsson swmike at swm.pp.se
Tue Dec 1 18:49:53 UTC 2009


On Tue, 1 Dec 2009, JC Dill wrote:

> If, 10 years ago (1999) when most internet-connected homes still used 
> dialup, you had suggested that ISPs would be putting in gigabit services 
> to homes, people would have laughed.  Yet today, here we are talking 
> about gig feeds. I wonder how much bandwidth homes will be using 10 
> years from now...

First commercial gige service available to residential here in Sweden was 
a few years after 2000 (be it only a few houses), I'd say at least 10% of 
swedish households can buy at least 100/10 service for less than 50USD a 
month and it's been like that for 5+ years (before that it was 10/10 for 
the same money).

Active ethernet means you upgrade CO and CPE and you can do whatever you 
need on the fiber strand to that household, whereas PON you need to 
upgrade everything that shares that passive stretch sharing 64-128 
households.

Star networks (=active ethernet in the FTTH world) is the way to go, it's 
superior in the vast majority of use cases.

-- 
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se




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