FTTH Council proposes plan to stimulate network expansion

A new FTTH Council plan could impact FTTH deployment in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets.

By Donna Donnawitz
July 31, 2013

The FTTH Council recently proposed a plan to the Federal Communications Commission that could spur fiber-to-the-home network investments in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets, Lightwave reported.

Developing FTTH networks poses a major challenge in many markets because the connectivity format unlocks important capabilities, but does not always generate immediate revenue results for service providers. If you are a telecom or other internet service vendor, chances are you will stick to established markets for FTTH deployment and wait until the industry prospects improve in other areas. There is, however, one problem with this strategy - the benefits of FTTH expand as more people have access to it.

Many experts agree that FTTH infrastructure serves as a major economy booster because it creates new business opportunities, enables more efficient government operations through better data transmission and contributes to innovation in a variety of sectors. While it is possible to use fiber to the premises to create a foundation for these gains without deploying FTTH, the financial implications of such a strategy can be even less promising than FTTH.

These issues have led to slow FTTH deployment in secondary markets, something the FTTH Council is working to overcome.

Looking at the FTTH Council's plan
According to Lightwave, the FTTH Council's proposal is dubbed Gigabit Communities Race to the Top, a direct and purposeful reference to the Obama Administration's Race to the Top education initiative. In matching the president's broad strategic aims, the FTTH Council hopes to use grants and strategic funding to fuel FTTH deployment. As a result, the council is encouraging the FCC to give out matching grants of approximately $10 million to FTTH projects in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets over the course of the next five years. The goal would be to support as many as 15 new projects in that time.

Developing effective FTTH plans
Fiscal strategies are not the only key component to fueling FTTH deployment. It is also important that telecoms and other network developers formulate methods for efficient network deployment and configuration. Fiber to Ethernet media converters play a vital role in this process by solving compatibility problems in the network. FTTH is extremely effective from a telecom perspective, but fiber is rarely used within homes. As a result, telecoms are responsible to alter the optical signal to make it interoperable with Ethernet systems in homes, making media conversion tools vital to FTTH success.

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.

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