Taipei initiates major FTTH project

The Taipei city government plans to use the sewer system to facilitate a rapid FTTH rollout.

By Max Burkhalter
January 4, 2012
The government of Taipei, capital city of Taiwan, recently announced a fiber to the home deployment strategy that will connect approximately 80 percent of the city's residential buildings to an optical network by 2015, the Taipei Times reported.

The report explained that five different contractors will be included in the project, as the city government intends to install the FTTH network as quickly as possible. Taipei City Mayor Hau Lung-bin explained that the ambitious timeline for the project is well within the reach of the contractors' capabilities because most of the installation will be run through the city's sewer system. This allows the cable installation to reach homes and businesses without having to dig up streets, find space on utility poles or deal with other typical installation issues that are both expensive and time consuming.

During the next 25 years, Taipei's government will devote approximately $1.3 billion in financial resources to the construction and operation of the new FTTH infrastructure, according to the news source. Actually building the network will take place in four stages.

The first part of the project will connect approximately 8 percent of the city's population to the network. When the second iteration is completed, 32 percent of Taipei's residents will have access to the optical network. Stage three will see connectivity rise to 56 percent and the final construction phase will leave 80 percent of Taipei's population with access to the fiber-optic cabling infrastructure. These stages will all be completed by 2015.

In many cases, urban areas are among the more difficult environments to reach with FTTH technology. The installation itself can be cost-prohibitive because there is little room for construction, either below ground or on utility poles. Using sewer systems is an innovative solution. However, a major problem with urban FTTH deployments comes in the form of challenges associated with multi-unit dwellings.

Currently, no standard exists to allow seamless integration of an FTTH system into such a setting. However, progress is being made toward that end. This could lead to significant investments in FTTH connectivity in urban areas by creating significant value for telecom providers. Without this new revenue opportunity, it can be difficult to install new FTTH infrastructure without taking too much of a financial risk. However, combining FTTH with FTTB solutions can help reduce the dangers of an urban optical network deployment.

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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