Fiber investments about more than performance

From an end-user perspective the decision tosubscrib​eto telecom services supported by fiber-optic cabling is often built around the price-to-performance ratio. The bandwidth and speed gains offered by fiber are huge, but the costs can be high. With a tight economy and solid broadband available through other means, many telecoms have found themselves struggling to find enough fiber users to justify the costs of installing a new network. That may be okay though, as a recent study from the Fiber to the Home Council Americas found that FTTH saves small- and medium-sized telecoms a significant amount of money each year.

Looking at current FTTH trends
According to the study, small- and medium-sized telecoms that have converted to an all-fiber network have witnessed incredible operational gains. On average, such solution providers experience operational costs that are 20 percent lower than they were prior to the fiber investment. This adds considerable value to FTTH investments from a telecom perspective.

The news source also revealed that FTTH investment is rising at a steady clip in North America. In the past year, the number of homes in the region that have access to FTTH increased by approximately 17.6 percent. The total number of North America homes with access to FTTH climbed to 22.7 million during that period.

Heather Burnett Gold, president of the FTTH Council North Americas, explained that FTTH is not only becoming more popular, its benefits are becoming clearer.

"This latest survey shows not only the continued build-out of high-bandwidth fiber to the home networks in North America, but also provides one reason why hundreds of small and medium sized telcos have been upgrading to fiber - it saves them real money in the long run," said Burnett Gold.

The study foundthat FTTH installations are not only becoming more common, they are also gaining popularity. The total number of homes currently connecting to FTTH, not just with access to it, but actually connected, has climbed by 20 percent since April 2012.

Maximizing the cost benefits of FTTH
For small- and medium-sized telecoms, the operational gains of FTTH investments may be significant, but the installation fees can still be high. Using fiber to Ethernet media converters can ease interoperability when it comes to actually connecting FTTH to homes, enabling more cost-effective deployment processes. This can enable telecoms to maximize the value of their FTTH spending.

Perle has an extensive range of Managed and Unmanaged Fiber Media Converters to extended copper-based Ethernet equipment over a fiber optic link, multimode to multimode and multimode to single mode fiber up to 160km.