Access network target architecture

Access networks have always been a very significant part of public network operator investments and operating costs. They have, however, not been a very dynamic part of telecom networks, planned, as they were, for the long-term and usually with limited technological innovation. These changing and access networks are increasingly coming into focus for technological innovation and as platforms for the provision of new advanced services in a competitive business environment. New fibre, radio and copper based technologies, in combination with flexible multiplexers and management tools, provide new possibilities for the improved quality of services, cost reduction and provisioning of new advanced services. In order to fully benefit from these possibilities, for extending and upgrading existing, as well as building completely new access networks, a flexible service-independent network architecture and access network system are required. Studying different models, one target network architecture is suggested in this paper. The models are oriented towards the provision of services for voice, data and video transmission as the most interesting services for subscribers at the moment. They used existing public switched telephone network (PSTN), N-ISDN and advance B-ISDN