Abstract
Optical access networks provide a future proof platform for a wide range of services, and today, several operators are deploying fibre to the home (FTTH) networks. Installing an FTTH infrastructure, however, involves very high investment cost. Therefore, a good estimation of the investment cost is important for building a successful business strategy and, consequently, to speed up the FTTH penetration. In this paper, for calculating the amount of cable and fibre in the outside plant together with the associated civil works, and the number of required network elements, two different approaches are investigated: (1) geometric modelling of the fibre plant based on approximate mathematical models and (2) geographic modelling of the fibre plant based on map-based geospatial data. The results obtained from these two approaches can then be used as input for preliminary investment cost calculations and/or techno-economic evaluations. Compared to more complex and accurate geographic modelling, we verify that especially with uneven population density and irregular street system, simple geometric models do not provide accurate results. However, if no geospatial data is available or a fast calculation is desired for a first estimation, geometric models definitely have their relevance. Based on the case studies presented in this paper, we propose some important guidelines to improve the accuracy of the geometric models by eliminating their main distortion factors.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to articulate special thanks to Péter Katzenberger (HSNLab) for the population density variance calculations and figures, created for his MSc Thesis, within the frame of the AccessPlan framework.
This work was partly supported by the Network of Excellence “Building the Future Optical Network in Europe” (BONE), funded by the European Commission through the 7th ICT-Framework Programme.
Part of the research presented in this paper was carried out in the frame of the NGAdesigner project, in cooperation with NETvisor Ltd., Hungary, issued by the Hungarian National Development Agency, supported by the EU.
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Mitcsenkov, A., Kantor, M., Casier, K. et al. Geometric versus geographic models for the estimation of an FTTH deployment. Telecommun Syst 54, 113–127 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11235-013-9720-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11235-013-9720-3