Fibre to the node

Pushing optical fibre closer to end users presents significant new challenges to service providers all over the globe. Infrastructures and methodologies differ from country to country and, to date, many have been quite happy with their physical plant despite virtually no overhead distribution and very little buried fibre cable. In most cases, there is little likelihood that any new physical plant will be deployed any time soon. Rather, service providers are seeking the best way to use existing ducted infrastructures to deliver new services and the highest possible speeds, to customers. The key for network planners is to consider - in the early stages what architectures will make the most sense for building a flexible network that will take them into the next decade of high-bandwidth demand