Planning and designing FTTH networks: Elements, tools and practical issues

Fiber-To-The Home (FTTH) provides the offered and new broadband services. Now it is deployed massively worldwide with Passive Optical Networks (PONs), being the EPON and GPON standards the most used. In this paper we consider solutions for planning and designing such optical fiber access networks from the point of view of an incumbent operator; taking into account components administration, mapping tools, design applications and automation resources; therefore, managing infrastructures, materials, geography, houses, buildings and users databases. The networks will be dynamic, so the proposed designs and utilities must also be active to reach thousands of passed homes and to cover the life-cycle of the networks and not only the initial built.