Dark fibre and spare copper: cable planning for the new generation of UK access networks

The cable planning features of newly emerging UK access network, both Telco and cable TV operator provided, are compared and contrasted with traditional copper pair networks. The volume of cable plant per subscriber in the new networks can be significantly lower than in the traditional copper access but increased competition and churn tend to erode this advantage. Cable TV networks with electrically separate TV and telephony delivery show cable volume per subscriber similar to Telco 32-way PONs for fibre to the business. With telephony integrated onto the fibre and coaxial RF, the resulting cable volume is significantly lower than in the PON case