Ofcom Report: Fiber capacity limitations in access networks

In Januray 2010 analysys mason delivered a report Fibre capacity limitations in access networks to UK Internet regulator Ofcom.

The report, full of technical detail, and with very useful appendices of acronyms and a glossary, concludes that, in the short to medium term, fiber could handle double the predicted traffic. What’s more economies of scale and the implementation of photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology. As new services become available and providers are forced to upgrade point-to point (PTP) networks would be easier to upgrade than passive optical networks (PON), because in a PTP network there is no passive (or active) equipment in the field and users can be upgraded individually. PON networks (such as FIOS) are cheaper to build than PTP, however operational issues regarding upgrades could prove to be a significant bottleneck, which could, in the worst case, prevent them from being upgraded at all.

Technology evolution requirements