A FLEXIBLE POLYMER FIBRE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR AN EVOLUTIONARY CUSTOMER PREMISES NETWORK

✍ Scribed by A. N. Sinha; M. Groten; G. D. Khoe

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 214 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1074-5351
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1131(199701)10:1<23::aid-dac322>3.0.co;2-d

✦ Synopsis

The developments in compressed digital video technology are paving the way for video-based services. Provision of such services requires a broadband communications network, which should extend into the customers' premises up to the terminals. This indicates a growing need for a customer premises network. This paper presents an infrastructure for an evolutionary and future-proof customer premises network. Such an infrastructure allows for early deployment and gradual upgrades associated with service demand.

A key element in the concept is the use of the graded index polymer optical fibre (GIPOF) which combines an intrinsically high bandwidth with easy and therefore low-cost handling. There are two opposite approaches for the choice of network topology. In one approach, all applications are forced onto a single topology. In the other approach, the topology best suited for each application type is used. This paper considers the 'best-suited topology' approach and presents a network infrastructure that can support many topologies simultaneously as independent overlay networks. The proposed infrastructure consists of bundles of fibres, which can be interconnected and accessed by terminals in any required manner.