Techno-Economic Analysis of Active Optical Network Migration Toward Next-Generation Optical Access

Abstract

Abstract-Active Optical Network (AON) has been one of the most deployed fiber access solutions in Europe.However, with the increasing traffic demand, the capacity of the existing AONs is becoming insufficient. For the legacy AONs, there are two major variants of architectures, namely point-to-point and active star.Considering the different characteristics of these two AON architectures, this paper proposes and analyzes several migration paths towards Next Generation Optical Access (NGOA) networks offering a minimum 300Mbit/s sustainable bit rate and 1Gbit/s peak bit rate to every end-customer. Furthermore, this paper provides detailed descriptions of the network cost modeling and the processes for AON migration. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for the proposed migration paths are evaluated taking into account different migration starting times, customer penetration, node consolidation and business roles in the fiber access networks. The migration from AON to NGOA can be economically feasible. The results indicate that a network provider plays a key business role and is responsible for the major part of TCO for AON migration.Moreover, performing node consolidation during AON migration can be beneficial from the cost point of view, especially in rural areas.

Passive Optical Networks: Introduction

“…After several recommendations for business cases to PIPs and NPs a general recommendation arises in the form of Open Access (sharing) infrastructures, as the basis for considerably reducing investment costs and enabling competition between service providers, those leading to lower prices and more opportunities for end users. On the other hand, a detailed techno-economic analysis, extended in [83,84], shows network consolidation (reduction of sited and active nodes) as a principal way, when possible, for reducing the TCO. Finally, OASE project recommends the TWDM solution, later on standardized in NG-PON2 to provide high guaranteed data rate with the lowest infrastructure cost for greenfield deployments with G-PON and different solutions for brownfields, depending on the previous infrastructure and node-consolidation scenarios.…”

Providing broadband access to extremely sparse areas

“…However, in order to increase the reach, other solutions consider active ODN, e.g., a cabinet with an Ethernet Switch. The so-called Active Optical Networks (AONs) have been also considered as broadband access solutions [3,4].…”

“…This last objective seems realistic to be implemented in dense urban areas where optical distribution networks (ODNs) are available and hence operators expect low required investments and high revenues. Different alternatives have been proposed in literature to upgrade and migrate existing access networks to offer at least 100 Mbps per user: for both passive [2] and active [3,4] access solutions. However, the problem is to find the best access technology able to offer 100 Mbps per household in rural areas: the sparser the area, the higher the cost per user and hence, the lower (if not negative) expected benefits for the operator.…”

Optical Access Networks: A Comparison Study

“…It depends on devices which are electrically powered such as routers and switches to distribute the signal [2,10]. There is a dedicated Ethernet connection to each user that provide dedicated bandwidth of about 1 Gb/s for each user which is acceptable for the current triple play services (voice -video -data) [2,9,11]. Nowadays it can support applications with bandwidth of 10/40/100 Gb/s to each user and in future it can support 400 Gb/s [8] .There are two types of the AON which are based on active Ethernet switch, Point to point (PtP) and Active Star (AS).…”

“…Nowadays it can support applications with bandwidth of 10/40/100 Gb/s to each user and in future it can support 400 Gb/s [8] .There are two types of the AON which are based on active Ethernet switch, Point to point (PtP) and Active Star (AS). In PtP, there is a dedicated fiber link between Optical Network Terminal (ONT), Residential Gateway (RG) and the Ethernet switch of Optical Line Terminal (OLT) inside the Central Office (CO) as shown in Fig.2 (a) [9,11]. In AS there is an Active Remote Node (RN) which is an Ethernet switch, and it is located in a cabinet or a building for connecting multiple (RGs) as shown in Fig.2 (b) [9,11].…”