236 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 23, NO.

1, JANUARY 2005
FTTP Deployments in the United States
and JapanEquipment Choices and
Service Provider Imperatives
Mark Abrams, Philippe C. Becker, Member, IEEE, Member, OSA, Y. Fujimoto, Vincent OByrne, and David Piehler
AbstractThis paper discusses the status of FTTP plans and de-
ployment in the United States and in Japan. An overview of PON
standards is provided, along with a discussion of video delivery
over a PON network. The choice of a particular technical imple-
mentation for PON and video delivery is explained by equipment
providers (AFC and Harmonic Inc.) and followed by a discussion
of its deployment in Verizons service provider network. Finally,
we review the history and status of FTTP deployments in Japan.
Index TermsAPON, broadband, EPON, ber to the home,
ber to the premises, PON, FSAN, GPON, video delivery.
I. INTRODUCTION
F
IBER-TO-THE-PREMISES (FTTP) has long been a holy
grail of the telecommunications industry. Fiber connec-
tions directly to the consumer have always been viewed as at-
tractive due to their presumed longevity (an unpowered ber
network versus a powered copper network), lower operational
costs, and tremendously larger bandwidth compared to copper
twisted pair. FTTP also allows the service provider to branch out
from being a single service delivery company to participating in
various consumer activities with potentially attractive revenue
streams, ranging from communications, to entertainment, to in-
formation. It has long been thought that bers very signicant
bandwidth would open the way to new applications by the con-
sumer, but it is only recently with the advent of the Internet and
the expansion of copper based broadband that this vision may
become reality.
Service provider activities in the United States date back as
early as the 1990s, with several incumbent local exchange car-
rier (ILEC) trials of ber-to-the-home (FTTH) systems. Given
the economic costs, these trials did not result in widespread de-
ployment. Fiber-to-the-curb type deployments did develop, in
particular at BellSouth. Cable companies widespread deploy-
ment of hybrid ber coax (HFC) in the late 1990s also deepened
the reach of the ber plant. Municipal deployments of FTTH
broadband have seen steady growth in the United States, no
doubt due to the longer economic payback time horizons uti-
lized by the municipalities.
The advent of high-speed Internet has seen renewed interest
in FTTP systems due to the potentially greater economic rev-
Manuscript received June 29, 2004; revised October 29, 2004.
M. Abrams is with Advanced Fibre Communications, Petaluma, CA 94954
USA.
P. C. Becker is with Wasserstein & Company, New York, NY 10019 USA.
Y. Fujimoto is with NTT Access Network Service Systems Lab, NTT, Japan.
V. OByrne is with Verizon Technology Organization.
D. Piehler is with Harmonic Inc., Sunnyvale, CA USA.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/JLT.2004.840340
enues. Broad-band deployment via digital subscriber line (DSL)
and cable modem opens the way to new applications that use
broadband and potentially create real user pull for the FTTP
technology.
Technology maturity consists of two aspects: the products
themselves and the standards they are designed to. When con-
sidering the economics of FTTP, all aspects have matured sig-
nicantly in the past decade. Beyond the electronics themselves,
all of the costly aspects of deploying ber have come down sig-
nicantly. This can range from the time to complete a splice to
the rawcost of spools of ber cable. But combined together they
enable the FTTP business case to prove in easier then ever be-
fore.
There has been signicant development of the passive optical
networks (PON) standards over the past 10 years, with little
actual deployments until recently. A convergence of unrelated
events and situations has enabled PON to be deployable today,
and simultaneously increased the pressure and opportunity to
deploy these technologies sooner.
What are these conditions? They include governmental regu-
latory policy, technology maturity, and competition as the three
most commonly cited. Each of these has varying degrees of im-
portance fromcountry to country, but all are having a signicant
impact on carriers decisions.
Regulatory environments have evolved to where public policy
is motivating PON. In North America, the Federal Communica-
tions Commission (FCC) has protected new FTTP deployments
from unbundling, increasing the incumbent carriers likelihood
of making a good return on investment (ROI) on their invested
capital. In Asia, local governments see broadband as an invest-
ment in their overall economies and provide various stimulants
to inspire the rollout of these technologies.
FTTP efforts have typically focused on a tree and branch net-
work architecture, where one network head end is connected to
multiple users via a common ber for at least part of the inter-
connection, so as to minimize the amount of ber and cabling
work in the outside plant as well as the need for multiple con-
nections at the head end. Point to point ber systems have been
deployed as well, especially in Asia (at the end of 2003, there
were one million FTTH connections in Japan).
The paper is outlined as follows. In Section II, we overview
the different types of PON architecture that exist today. Sec-
tion III covers video delivery over a PON. Section IV discusses
AFCs choice of broadband PON (BPON) to implement a com-
mercial PON system, and Section V covers Verizons experi-
ences to date in deploying a PON system in the United States.
Section VI discusses FTTH deployment in Japan.
0733-8724/$20.00 2005 IEEE
ABRAMS et al.: FTTP DEPLOYMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN 237
TABLE I
APON/BPON, GPON, AND EPON STANDARDS AND SELECTED CHARACTERISTICS
II. THE FLAVORS OF PON
Given the high cost of an FTTP system, and the need for
volume production of components in order to obtain an econom-
ically viable deployment and service model, industry groups
have sought to dene a common set of specications. The goal
is for multiple operators to jointly procure similar equipment.
Efforts to standardize PON date back to the full services access
network (FSAN) group in the late 1990s and the development
of ATM passive optical networks (APON) specications. Se-
lected characteristics of the different PON standards are shown
in Table I.
A. BPON
BPON has its genesis in APON. This standard was the result
of early efforts by the FSAN to develop an ATM-based PON
system. This system is designed to t in well with incumbent
operators use of ATMfor trafc transport and management. The
rst denitions for BPON are from the joint work of NTT and
BellSouth, dating back to 1998. The group was later augmented
with British Telecom, France Telecom, and SBC. The speci-
cations that have resulted from this work are the ITU G983.1-8
and annex specications.
BPON has the following characteristics:
20 km maximum distance between OLT (central ofce
head end) and ONT (customer premise unit);
symmetric PON or asymmetric PON with a maximum of
1.244 Mb/s downstream to the customer and 622 Mb/s
upstream;
the upstream and downstream frames are organized
with 56 cells downstream (54 ATM data cells and 2
PLOAMphysical layer operation, administration, and
maintenancecells) and 53 cells upstream;
multicasting of downstream trafc to all ONTs with only
the ONTbeing addressed extracting the relevant data cells;
downstream PON payload encrypted with a changing
128-bit key, using the AES system;
use of a ranging protocol to account for the different dis-
tances between the head end and the ONTs and ensure
proper TDM management.
238 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 23, NO. 1, JANUARY 2005
Fig. 1. Standardized and out-of-scope specications for the EPON system. Out-of-scope specications are set by the operators at their own discretion.
Early deployments of BPONdate back to 1996 with deployment
of a eld trial by NTT. NTT moved to commercial deployment,
with an emphasis on business customers, in 1998. Primary used
interfaces were ATM in nature. BellSouth deployed a eld trial
of BPON for residential services in 1999, to approximately 400
homes in a suburb of Atlanta. For this trial, video services were
offered via a second ber and a video ONT. High-speed Internet
was provided via an Ethernet connection at the ONT.
BPONhas been chosen by AFC as the standard for the equip-
ment supplied to Verizon for their FTTHdeployment, due to the
technologys maturity, cost effectiveness, and ability to deliver
the services the carriers want to deploy.
B. GPON
GPON specications are set out in ITU G984. The goal of
GPON is to provide for a next generation successor to BPON
at Gb/s speeds. In contrast to BPON, GPON provides for trafc
other than ATMto be transported in native fashion, via the use of
TDM partitions and GFP similar formats. Trafc rates are 1.244
Gb/s and 2.488 Gb/s downstream, and 155 Mb/s, 622 Mb/s, and
1.255 Gb/s upstream. Support is provided for telephony, leased
line services, and Ethernet up to GbE speeds. The main drivers
behind the new GPON standards have been the large incumbent
service providers.
C. EPON
EPON is being dened by the IEEE 802.3ah Task Force
Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) as one of the Ethernet interface
series. At this time it consists of extensions to the IEEE 802.3
Media Access Control (MAC) and MAC Control sublayers
with a family of Physical (PHY) Layers, including twisted
pair copper, optical ber and OAM. A summary of the EPON
standard status is shown in Fig. 1. A key feature is that data is
transmitted in variable length MAC frames of up to 1,518 bytes
(1522 Bytes for Tagged frame). The downstream MAC frames
of EPON are transmitted via original Ethernet mechanisms
and keeping minimum inter-frame gap of 12 octets. The MAC
frames transmitted by the OLT reach every ONT. However, the
two-octets-frame-header called logical link ID (LLID) contains
address information so that only the addressed ONT receives its
MAC frames. The upstream transmission is based on TDMA
arbitration to avoid data collisions between ONTs. The OLT
allocates transmission windows, called Gates, to each ONT.
When the ONT receives the Gate frame, the ONT transmits
MAC frames at 1 Gb/s speed during the time slots assigned by
the Gate. Multi Point Control Protocol (MPCP) governs the
allocation of Gate to each ONT, requests of Gate by ONTs,
and discovery and registration of ONTs by the PON. The
wavelengths of optical signal transmission are based on ITU-T
G.983.3 so that the additional services like video broadcasting
using 1550 nm wavelength are possible. The maximum PON
split is not specied by IEEE802.3ah because it depends on
PMDs (Physical Media Dependents) and on actual optical link
losses. EPON prepares 2 octets (16 bits) for LLID and 15 bits
can be assigned to each MAC. Therefore more than 30 000
ONTs can be logically accommodated in a PON.
IEEE802.3 species the MAC and physical layer (PHY)
and regards the other specications as out-of-scope. When
designing an EPON system, these specications would be
individually dened by referring to other standards, proprietary
proposals, and operator requirements. Although these varia-
tions allow for exibility of EPON systems, it could be a cause
of system inter-operability issues.
III. VIDEO DELIVERY OVER THE FTTP NETWORK
The delivery of high-quality video is among the highest band-
width applications in a ber access network. Table II shows the
bandwidth demands of various services that range from voice at
less than 100 kb/s to high-denition (HD) television signals that
require up to 20 Mb/s.
One can classify two main approaches to video delivery as
Video over IP or RF overlay. Video over IP delivers a specic
video stream to each viewer, as he or she requests it. This is
akin to switched digital video. The RF overlay utilizes a WDM
overlay network where video is delivered to the subscriber on
a separate wavelength using the same sub-carrier multiplexed
modulation format as standard CATV systems. The RF overlay
is a broadcast PON. The RF overlay can be used alongside both
point-to-point (P2P) and point-to-multipoint (P2MP, BPON,
EPON, GPON) optical access networks.
ABRAMS et al.: FTTP DEPLOYMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN 239
Fig. 2. BPON with RF overlay. 1550 nm technology is used to carry and optically amplify the video signals. The subscriber unit contains a video receiver to
convert RF on ber to RF on coax. The coax cable can be fed directly into a standard analog television or a digital set top box. In the above diagram the RF
adaptor converts upstream RF signals from a set-top-box into IP packets, which are sent upstream via the B-PON to the Interactive Network Adaptor (set-top-box
controller).
TABLE II
BANDWIDTH DEMANDS OF VARIOUS SERVICES
The RF overlay is fundamentally a one-way broadcast net-
work. As we discuss below, it strengths are its bandwidth ef-
ciency, maturity, transparency to modulation format, scalability
and exibility. The primary disadvantage of an RF overlay is the
lack of an elegant solution to accommodate the RF return path
signals that a standard CATV set-top-box uses for communica-
tion with the CATV head end.
The Video over IP approach enables a converged network.
With all services, (voice, video, and data) carried over IP, only a
single physical infrastructure is needed. The IP network also ac-
commodates interactive two-way services very naturally, since
it is fundamentally a two-way point-to-point network. Disad-
vantages of the Video over IP approach are lack of bandwidth,
and network congestion issues as the network scales to a large
number of users.
As ber extends to the premises, both models will play a
role. In fact, both networks can co-exist on the same physical
medium. We believe that a hybrid approach, utilizing the
strengths of both the RF overlay and Video over IP network
may be the best approach going forward.
Section V indicates that the immediate FTTP plans use a
BPON with a RF video overlay. The choice was constrained
by the desire to use existing (off-the-shelf technology) and
deliver existing applications. An existing application that may
see signicant growth in the near future is HDTV. A digital
MPEG-2 HD signal requires about 20 Mb/s. Although there
is a roadmap to better compression efciency (i.e., MPEG-4
or H.264 codecs), ubiquitous HDTV use (with three TVs
per home) today would be impossible with the bandwidth
constraints of the B-PON (622 Mb/s downstream, 155 Mb/s
upstream).
The RF overlay provides a solution to this bandwidth con-
straint. Digital (256-QAM) modulation of video data onto RF
subcarriers has efciency greater than 6 bits/Hz. Using the stan-
dard CATV spectrum, over 5.2 Gb/s of video data can be broad-
cast into each home. The RF overlay can carry more than 250
simultaneous (MPEG-2) HD video streams into every home.
The RF overlay can carry analog video as well as digital
video. The use of analog video enables a customer to plug any
of his or her TV sets directly into the ONT, without the need for
a set-top-box.
The RF overlay is shown schematically in Fig. 2. This system
works well for broadcast (analog and) digital video, but is not
well suited for interactive video content such as video on de-
mand. There is not a straightforward way to send the upstream
RF signals from the set-top box in the home over the ber
without adding another wavelength. One solution is the RF
adaptor. Such a device remotes the receiver card of a head end
interactive network adaptor (INA) (set-top box controller) to
each individual home. At the RF adaptor, upstream RF signals
from legacy set-top boxes are converted into IP packets and
routed to the INA via the data network. Since each RF adaptor
deals with only a few set-top boxes instead of thousands, the
entire functionality of the RF adaptor can be integrated into a
fairly simple mixed-signal ASIC.
This RF adaptor solution is somewhat cumbersome. Fig. 3
shows an alternate architecture. In this case both the IP and
RF networks are used to maximize their inherent advantages.
The RF network carries all broadcast video, including legacy
analog and digital broadcast (including subscription services,
and pay-per-view and HD content). The IP (over BPON in this
case) network is utilized for interactive, targeted services such
as video on demand with real time pause, fast forward, and
rewind. The bandwidth of the network is optimized by putting
high bandwidth broadcast content on the RF network, freeing
the IP network bandwidth for both targeted video content as well
as the to-be-dened applications of the future.
In summary, both analog and digital RF technology compli-
ment IP technology to create the optimum network access for
video delivery.
240 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 23, NO. 1, JANUARY 2005
Fig. 3. BPON with RF overlay and hybrid digital RF/IP set top box. In this case the RF network is unidirectional, carrying broadcast (analog, digital, and/or
HD) video. All targeted services, such as video on demand are carried over the IP (over BPON) network. The hybrid set top box provides the user with a seamless
experience as he transitions from broadcast (digital RF) video to targeted (IP) video.
IV. AFCS CHOICE OF BPON FOR AN FTTH SOLUTION
Standard maturity is no small factor when looking to take a
technology fromthe labs to the elds. The major carriers around
the world architect networks to the Five 9s of reliability and
brand new products rarely perform to these levels. Further, stan-
dards enable a wide variety of all the vendors-from silicon to
systems-to create their products with a higher condence and
bring them more quickly to market. Ultimately this will also
lead to interoperability as well, creating more choice in prod-
ucts to be deployed and growing the market as well. To date,
BPON is the most mature of the three standards outlined above.
In parallel to regulation and standards evolution, competition
has grown in many forms, both direct and indirect, for the cus-
tomers themselves and the dollars they spend. This is coming in
from all angles, whether it is for Broadband services delivered
by the cable companies in North America or competing ISPs
in Asia, to Wireless taking away secondary and often primary
voice lines. In addition to these issues, VoIP is looming larger
then ever as it matures, posing yet another threat to the carriers.
With the pressure to upgrade their service mix growing, in
addition to the many other reasons mentioned in later sections
of this paper, BPON is the obvious choice to proceed with. It
is mature enough to be deployable today by the largest carriers,
while simultaneously being able to deliver all of the services
these carriers can envision for many years to come.
What are these services? Loosely called out as the triple play
of voice, video and data, they represent a full range of com-
munications services to meet the needs of the residential and
small business marketplace. While it is certainly easy to envi-
sion these evolving to more advanced features with faster speeds
in the years to come, what is critical to understand is that BPON
delivers what the carriers need for today and the foreseeable fu-
ture in a reliable and cost effective manner.
The most common service, and biggest revenue generator
today is that of POTS. Softswitching and VoIP technology have
made some progress in the past years, but are not yet part of
the access network for any of the largest carriers. Trials are un-
derway with a few, but until that time, TDM voice capability
is a must requirement. As such, BPON enables standards based
POTS in a familiar way, connecting to the wide world of ex-
isting switches. Carriers can continue to deploy this core ser-
vice leveraging their switch investments while the maturity of
soft switching continues over the next few years.
High-speed data services have become an increasingly im-
portant service for carriers to deliver. More and more people
are looking at it as a baseline service in their daily lives. This
view is occurring around the world and in ofces and in homes.
BPONenables a strong offering of Ethernet based data services,
and having a PON in place assures that the plant will be able
to evolve to just about any speed imaginable in the decades to
come.
Video is both the most simple and potentially most evolving
service of the three. At a glance, doing an RF overlay using a
wavelength may seem a bit old fashioned, settling on todays
technology instead of betting on the future of IP-based video ser-
vices. Reality shows that IP video services are still in the very
early days, with many factors needing to develop and mature
for it to be ready for prime time. In addition, technology often
evolves in unexpected ways, and due to the increasingly band-
width needed for video services like HDTV, inband IP solutions
may always be chasing the bandwidth curve to become deploy-
able.
What is clear is that FTTP will likely offer a better experi-
ence then cable is able to provide today. For example, analog
channels often have varying quality in their delivery due to
interference or degraded copper, causing consumers to prefer
one channel to another for common services like the news.
FTTP insures that top quality services will be delivered on
every channel providing benet to consumers and the service
providers as well.
V. VERIZONS DEPLOYMENT OF FTTP
FTTP is an important, emerging technology that will provide
customers with new feature-rich services and improved quality
of these services. Although aspects of FTTP have been around
for years, there are many competing options available which
tend to preclude any economies of scale. Without some guid-
ance and clarity offered on some of the specication options
by the RBOCs, there are risks that FTTP will be developed at
a slower, more sporadic pace as equipment manufacturers are
forced to guess at the needs of network providers or grapple
with the providers functionally similar yet needless disparate
ABRAMS et al.: FTTP DEPLOYMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN 241
views of technological needs. To avoid these pitfalls and provide
the requisite guidance to ensure that FTTP becomes a viable,
quality product in the near term, Verizon together with SBC and
Bellsouth participated in dening the technical service require-
ments for an FTTP platform last year [1]. The clarity offered
as to the requirements as well as overall volume should result
in an overall lower cost for all carriers and help ensure the eco-
nomic viability of FTTP. Verizon sees FTTP as an opportunity
to reinvent its network, increase revenue and decrease the costs,
especially the operational costs. The motivating forces behind
Verizon deploying FTTP are summarized under the following
headings.
Expanding customer needs: Customers demands for data
have increased signicantly over the last several years as
new services have emerged and the importance of the in-
ternet has come into its own. Emerging services, such as
video and more specically high-denition TV (HDTV)
have bandwidth demands signicantly beyond what our
current access networks can provide. To be competitive,
terrestrial networks must make a quantum improvement
in bandwidth delivery, not merely another increment.
Operational efciencies and reduced cost: Verizon has
during the previous years merged with several other
telecom companies (Nynex, GTE, Contel), which have
different platform management systems for their access
technologies. FTTP is seen as a catalyst for developing a
single new common in-house management system across
the company, which reduce operational costs associated
with managing several diverse systems, as well as ensure
the agility in the underlying management and billing
systems and the ability to react to new service demands
in response to evolving customer needs. Additionally, the
outside plant (OSP) in the PON is totally passive between
the central ofce and the subscribers home. The lack of
electronics in the eld is expected to reduce the mainte-
nance costs going forward. As part of rehabbing the OSP
Verizon expects to reduce its overall maintenance costs
attributed to some parts of its aging copper plant.
Technological advances: Verizon requires a tech-
nology/platform that is mature enough to be deployable,
scaleable as well as have the ability to offer/support a full
suite of services. In considering these requirements Ver-
izon decided that such a platform was presently available
and had the support of many vendors. Verizon chose the
ITU-G.983.3 specication as the foundation of its FTTP
platform because it is seen as a stable standard which
afford many services for POTS, Data and video [2], [3]. It
supports large link budgets (2030 dB) that ensure large
splits (1 32) and the associated amortization of the
Central Ofce equipment over the subscriber base. It was
also scaleable and offered the prospect of greater speeds
down the road (e.g., GPON [4]), together with higher
levels of protection (e.g., FSAN protection Type B/C) for
some business applications [3], [4].
FTTP supports both switched and nonswitched POTS
services, and can support the services that we presently
offer over the copper infrastructure. These services may be
supported by means of an integrated access device (IAD)
in the case of the business ONTs, rather than directly from
the ONT.
Nonreal-time data services or best effort services
are readily available for both the business and residential
customer location. The data capability will be positioned
to offer substantially higher data rates than conventional
DSL-based services. The actual data rates envisioned
are greater than 10 Mb/s for residential applications and
up to 30 Mb/s for business applications. The envisioned
interface will be a 10/100 BaseT interface. It is envisioned
that the 10/100 BaseT interface will be designed for
its maximum throughput as it has been found to incur
minimal incremental cost. VDSL (in a modular ONT) is
also envisioned to be an option in MDU locations.
Transport of entertainment video content to the residen-
tial and some business establishments will be available.
The FTTP network will functionally provide a network
substantially improved over the present cable industry and
capable of several hundred channels of content material.
The frequency spectrum supported by the video input in-
terface shall be between 54 to 870 MHz. FTTP shall have
the capability to support multiple 6 MHz RF carriers con-
taining either analog or digital video channels. Analog
channel capability will reside initially in the 54 to 550
MHz spectrum. Digital channel capability will be targeted
for the 550 to 870 MHz region, though their range could
extend to lower frequencies. In addition the platform sup-
ports the transmission of IP video content over the data
channel for possible multicasting applications and other
data/video services. Video over an FTTP ahs been dis-
cussed in Section III above.
Status of present network and services: Copper-based
technologies, such as DSL are limited by fundamental
physics and have a diminishing return for the dramatic in-
creases in capital that are needed for incremental capabili-
ties. These solutions require an expansion of outside plant
electronics, signicantly increasing costs for marginal im-
provements in bandwidth. In addition, the operational cost
of maintaining these active outside plant facilities is seen
as prohibitive in the long run, especially when one con-
siders the shorter life of copper compared with ber.
Regulatory Environment: The regulatory environment is
constantly changing and the ability to deploy a broadband
network and not having to share the infrastructure make
the decision to deploy a lot easier and less risky, and stim-
ulates larger investments, and more efcient network de-
signs in the assess network.
Competition: Networks must concentrate on data and
video services to improve their ability to compete, es-
pecially as the number of POTs lines decrease due to
competition from the wireless industry and other compet-
itive forces.
These representative reasons for deploying FTTP have become
a rallying force within Verizon over the last year and we have
committed signicant resources to-date as well as see signicant
capital investments over the next ve to ten years. Verizon is be-
242 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 23, NO. 1, JANUARY 2005
Fig. 4. Verizon FTTP network.
yond the point of return on FTTP and believes it represents the
network architecture that best serves the needs of our customers,
will represent the architecture for this century and represents a
new opportunity for revenue growth and operational cost reduc-
tions.
A. FTTP Architecture
Verizon is deploying a network similar to that shown in Fig. 4,
which shows the access portion (Central ofce to the End Sub-
scriber), as well as the core network in support of the FTTP. It
is based on the ATM PON as specied by the ITU G.983.x [2],
[3]. It basically consists of a 622-Mb/s downstream data stream
at nominally 1490 nm, while the upstream is at 155 Mb/s at
1310 nm. The video is transported via an additional wavelength
at 1550 nm, which is coupled to the feeder ber and the data
transmission from the OLT via a WDM device.
The ONTis supported by a battery backup. This together with
sleep-mode function of the ONT allows the usage of the POTS
lines even in extended outages . The POTS signals are
carried to the OLT and then split off via a GR-303 or TR008 in-
terface to the PSTN. The OLT can also support a TR-57 analog
interface. The Data is aggregated via an ATM switch before
traversing through a gateway router and LATA core router be-
fore going on to the Internet. The video has an upstreamchannel
(connected to the ONT via and internal or external STB-ONT
adapter) that traverses the data channel and can be sent to the
video headend to support advance video services and two-way
video interaction.
The access portion of the network is shown in greater detail
in Fig. 5.
The Central Ofce (CO) can be connected to the feeder ber
via connectors or through appropriate use of splicing. It is pas-
sive in nature and the splitting occurs at one centralized loca-
tion in the eld. This splitter location would be able to serve
for example between 128 and 256 served homes. The splitters
are centrally located in order to reduce the management of the
connections as well as to be able to serve more homes-passed.
This reduces the OSP costs, which is critical for FTTP to make
any economical sense, as it also ensures higher splitter and CO
ofce equipment utilization. This collocation of splitters also
enables less video signal variation at the ONTs which can be
an issue for video which have smaller dynamic ranges than the
data channel [5]. The drop between the ONT and the terminal is
connected once the service is activated. Thus a large portion of
the cost of the ber plant becomes associated with service ac-
tivation, rather than xed at the time of construction. The drop
is accomplished by employing a hardened connector to reduce
maintenance issues. The cost per drop may be initially higher
than a splice, though it can be done quicker and requires less
skill and auxiliary equipment.
B. FTTP Deployment Scenarios
There are several methodologies to deploy FTTP, which Ver-
izon is considering, each with its own cost implications and
optimum deployment strategy [6]. In general, the deployments
can be considered as split into two major categories, the FTTP
Overlay architecture and the FTTP Full Build. These are shown
in Fig. 6 and described in Sections V-B-I and II.
1) FTP Full Build: The choice of architecture, is dependent
on the specic deployment area and the likely take rates. In
Greenelds where suitable arrangements can be made with the
developer during the building phase then the Full build deploy-
ment would be undertaken since the ber trenches would we
ABRAMS et al.: FTTP DEPLOYMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN 243
Fig. 5. FTTP access network.
Fig. 6. FTTP deployment options: overlay and fullbuild.
open and the cost of FTTP and its copper alternative are rela-
tively similar. The envisioned high take rates in Greeneld ap-
plications almost guarantee high equipment (e.g., splitters, elec-
tronics at the CO) utilization, reducing the effective cost per sub-
scriber. Because video will be offered on each PON once the
rst customer takes video, there is a potential for the installed
rst cost for video to be exorbitant unless aggressive marking
ensures that the effective utilization of the ports is kept at a max-
imum. These are described in more detail in the following sec-
tions.
In the FullBuild architecture, the ber is deployed to each
house and each subscriber gets an ONT together with a battery
backup. These in concert with some novel sleep mode features
of the ONT facilitates the support of POTS services during ex-
tended outages .
2) FTTP Overlay Architecture: In the FTTP Overlay, ber
is available to (i.e., passes) all homes and businesses in a dis-
tribution area (DA) but only a small percentage of homes and
businesses are connected to and served with FTTP. To move
a customer to FTTP, a distribution ber, that originates at the
splitter hub and passes the customers premises, is connected
to a splitter port at the splitter hub. A drop terminal at the
customers serving pole provides access to the distribution
ber. The distribution ber is connected to a ber drop wire.
An ONT is then installed at the premises. The ber drop
is terminated onto the ONT. The inside wires for the cus-
tomers networks are connected to the ONT output service
interfaces.
There are basically two reasons why a subscriber will be
moved over to the FTTP platform in the FTTP Overlay archi-
244 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 23, NO. 1, JANUARY 2005
tecture. These are because of OSP plant rehab or else the trigger
will be service driven [6].
Although the drivers for rehab/relief are different than for ser-
vice driven applications, the design of the Overlay is the same
for both. In an area requiring rehab/relief, customers are trans-
ferred onto the FTTP who have signicant service troubles or re-
quire broadband services. This will have a two-fold effect on re-
ducing maintenance costs. Since ber has a lower overall failure
rate than copper, the POTS lines moved to the ber will result
in less troubles and lower maintenance costs. In market/service
driven applications, FTTP is deployed for the primary purpose
of offering broadband services (video and data). Fiber is not in-
stalled to the premises until the broadband service is ordered.
The Full Build architecture is uneconomical for partial rehab
applications where only a portion of the plant requires replace-
ment or relief. Nor is it economical as a means of enabling
broadband services (i.e., video and data) where expected take
rates are relatively low ( 50%). The Overlay architecture is de-
signed to allow FTTP to be economically deployed to address
these applications.
An important note is that the Overlay is only economical
where there is aerial distribution, and Verizon is fortunate
enough to have one of the largest percentages of aerial de-
ployments relative to the other RBOCs [7]. In existing buried
developments, the required trenching, boring and drilling to
place the cable in the ground are generally too costly.
In most instances, the distribution cables should be sized to
serve 100% of the homes and businesses. This is based on con-
siderations that the incremental labor and material costs are rel-
atively small, compared to the cost of reinforcing the ber at
a later date, and that FTTP will eventually replace the existing
plant and serve all customers. While specic guidelines need to
be developed, splitters can be added on a fairly frequent basis,
depending on the forecasted take rates. The costs of the splitter
investment lying idle must be weighed against the cost for the
technician to revisit the splitter hub. The OLT optical line cards,
that activate a splitter, do not have to be added when a splitter is
cut in. Splitters should be activated at a hub one at a time when
available active ports near exhaust.
A major challenge in the Overlay is being able to quickly
complete service provisioning and meet Carriers response time
objectives when the customer needs to be transferred from the
legacy plant to FTTP. This will be most difcult when the driver
is a trouble report and the customer is out of service. Typically
we want to complete service restore within 24 hours. The major
obstacles are: rst, scheduling an appointment for access to the
premises so the ONT installation can be completed; and second,
having an available qualied technician (or two) who can be
assigned to the job.
The premises will remain served with FTTP, even if the cus-
tomer disconnects his broadband services. Over time, factors
such as churn will result in increasingly higher percentage of
customer locations served by the FTTP platform. Once the vast
majority of customers are served on ber, the remaining cus-
tomers on the copper plant can be proactively moved so the
legacy network can be retired if deemed appropriate.
As previously mentioned, in the Overlay, unlike Full Build,
much of the FTTP build is deferred until it is planned to transfer
a customer to the ber. In the Overlay architecture, splitter
ports are not pre-assigned to a particular customer. Instead,
splitter ports are assigned just prior to transfer. For an Overlay,
in the initial years, the customers moved to FTTP will be only
a small percentage and randomly distributed throughout a DA.
The biggest challenge in the FTTP design is maintaining high
utilization of splitter ports in order to reduce the cost, as the
biggest killer in any business case is the under utilization of the
outside plant equipment.
In very many respects, the way customers are added to the
Overlay network is analogous to how customers are connected
to the traditional copper plant, with the splitter hub functioning
similar to the SAI (Serving Area Interface).
C. Verizon Deployment Plans
Verizon has been deploying ber specically for FTTP ap-
plication since early 2003. This ber is deployed with the afore-
mentioned guidelines in mind. Verizon is on track to deploy ber
and pass in excess of 1 million homes this year (2004) and po-
tentially doubling this in 2005. The deployment will be in over
nine states and over 100 central ofces. The initial service will
be up to 30 Mbps and will evolve over time to 100 Mb/s. The ini-
tial First Ofce Application (FOA) will be in Keller , TX, with
another FOA in the east (former Bell Atlantic territory) later in
the year. Items of consideration in dening the initial areas to de-
ploy in are of course marketing items as well as the percentage
of aerial plant in the central ofces.
Capital funds are being repositioned from other projects to
take advantage of the expected savings from FTTP as well as in
order to cap the capital expenditure in the legacy copper plant.
Verizon sees the FTTP deployment as an opportunity to rein-
vent the network and to move from; manual order taking to
web-based order fulllment; fromcopper-pair allocation to ser-
vice/bandwidth allocation via software; from service activation
via installation and dispatch to software based activation/deac-
tivation; fromlimited reactive trouble isolation to proactive per-
formance monitoring at the OLT and the ONT, and frommanual
asset inventory to autodiscovery and reporting of assets.
Verizon is committed to making FTTH cost effective and
the future PMO (Present mode of operation) and is actively
changing the way it does business in order to ensure that FTTP
is a success. Verizon is beyond the point of return on FTTP.
VI. FTTH DEPLOYMENT IN JAPAN
The rst commercial PON deployment in Japan occurred
in 1997 and provided high-speed leased lines, residential
telephony services and CATV signals transmission. The main
purpose of this deployment was to replace old metallic pairs
with optical ber access systems. The cost of FTTH systems
was thought to be too high to justify their deployment. However,
the system costs have dramatically dropped while focusing on
data communication services. Starting in 2001, point-to-point
and PON FTTH access systems have been deployed widely
in Japan, concurrent with the signicant growth of high-speed
Internet access services, and competition in both monthly
access charges and transmission speed, driven by asymmetric
digital subscriber line (ADSL) access growth (see Figs. 7 and
ABRAMS et al.: FTTP DEPLOYMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN 245
TABLE III
FTTH APPLICATIONS IN JAPAN
Fig. 7. Growth of broad-band access in Japan.
Fig. 8. Residential broad-band access charges in Japan (2003).
8). The access charges difference between FTTH and DSL at
the time were more than four times, however, the differences
today are less than two times for individual FTTH access and
no difference in multi dwelling unit access. The major ADSL
services today provide over-40 Mb/s downstream access, but
the customers who can enjoy this speed are limited with in 1 Km
access loop distance because of the metallic pairs attenuation
characteristics. This would result that customers who want a
stable broadband access move to FTTH access. The number of
FTTH access operators has also been increasing. When FTTH
Internet access services ware stated, only a few operators were
available. Currently, in addition to conventional telecom op-
erators, major power utility companies and long-haul telecom
operators are providing FTTH. Further more, ADSL operators
are seeking to enter this market. As shown in the gures, after
2003, the monthly increase in the number of FTTH users has
reached 50,000 and the total number of themexceeded 1 million
in February 2004. The FTTH growth in 2004 seems to have
accelerated further because the recent three-month increase is
around 100 thousand every month.
A. Point to Point Systems Deployment in Japan
Current point-to-point systems are based on Ethernet, which
is a standard technology for enterprise networks. Recent Eth-
ernet technology supports up to 10 Gb/s speed and the cost re-
duction of lower speed interfaces is very signi-
cant. Thanks to this technological progress, point-to-point ber
access systems are deployed all over the world and targeted at
data services. Point-to-point systems in Japan are mainly used
for multidwelling unit (MDU) access (see Table III) and divided
into two kinds. One is a two-single-mode ber system and the
other a one-single-mode ber system.
B. Two-Single-Mode Fiber System
This system is based on 100BASE-FX PHY as specied in
IEEE802.3u [8]. The original 100BASE-FX supports only up
to a 2-km reach over multimode ber. Therefore each operator
adds their own specications for supporting long distance reach
over single mode bers, as well as operation, administration,
and maintenance (OAM) functions. Lack of standard specica-
tions for this system prevents the interoperability between dif-
ferent systems.
C. One-Single-Mode Fiber System
Due to heavy competition, network complexity reduction
is the most important issue for operators. One-ber systems,
which reduces the number of bers for each access point and in
addition requires inter-operability between different vendors,
was introduced by operators. The TS-1000 standard that sup-
ports 15 km single-ber bidirectional transmission and includes
OAM was specied by the Telecommunication Technologies
Committee Japan in 2003. TS-1000 denes an optical PHY
interface, 1.31 micrometer wavelength for upstream, and 1.55
micrometer for downstream, and a 12 octets short frame for
OAM. The PHY of 100BASE-BX10 as specied IEEE802.3ah
is based on this specication [9].
D. PON
Further cost reduction is required to achieve the goal of
deploying FTTH to residential users. PON architecture allows
operators a signicant savings in ber cost in the access net-
work. Three kinds of PONs are deployed in Japan: Synchronous
Transfer Mode (STM)-PON, proprietary PON, and Broadband
PON.
1) STM-PON: STM-PON was originally designed for
providing telephony services. It supports 50 Mb/s transmis-
246 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 23, NO. 1, JANUARY 2005
sion speed and time compression multiplexing (TCM). Each
downstream and upstream payload is around 20 Mb/s. For
supporting data communications, 10 Mb/s time slots are as-
signed dynamically among multiple ONTs by using a dynamic
bandwidth allocation (DBA) mechanism. This system is called
STM-Shared PON [10]. STM-Shared PON was deployed as the
rst commercial FTTH system for high-speed Internet access
services in Japan. Today, it has been replaced by BPON which
provides 100 Mb/s access.
2) Proprietary PON: For an economical network system
cost, proprietary PON systems are deployed by some operators.
This system employs technologically mature 155 Mbps ATM
PON transceivers and the implementation of proprietary time
division multiple access (TDMA) protocols for transmitting
Ethernet frames upstream. Typically, this type of system has
100BASE-X for both user network interface (UNI) in the
optical network terminal (ONT) as well as for service node
interface (SNI) in the optical line terminal (OLT). It is typically
deployed for residential 100 Mbps Internet access services.
3) BPON Deployment in Japan: The BPON deployed in
Japan is a 155 Mb/s upstream/620 Mb/s downstream transmis-
sion speed ATM-PON specied in the ITU-T G. 983 series.
BPON has been widely deployed in Japan starting in mid-2002
for residential 100 Mbps Internet access services. Deployed
BPON focuses on Ethernet frame transmission. Therefore the
system has no ATM interface in either the ONT or OLT sides.
BPON supports DBA and cell controls in the ATM layer to
ensure the PON section QoS, and even if an Ethernet frame is
divided into multiple ATM cells, multiclass Ethernet access ser-
vice is possible. In 2002, a trial of simultaneous transmission of
both high speed internet and multichannel digital broadcasting
services was launched by using ITU-T G. 983.3 compliant
B-PON and subcarrier modulation (SCM) PON. The optical
transmission wavelengths of this B-PON are 1.31/1.49 .
Consequently, it is possible to multiplex another wavelength
(e.g., 1.55 ) to transmit a video broadcasting signal by
WDM. This trial was designed to display the varied service
capabilities of this kind of PON system.
E. EPON
The operators in Japan give their attention to EPONtoday and
have announced EPON RFPs, because the current major FTTH
services are data communications by Ethernet. In 2004, it is ex-
pected that these operators will start to deploy EPON as one
of the next generation high-speed internet access system. How-
ever, to actually implement EPON in the access system, there
are some missing specications already discussed in the pre-
ceding section. NTT has developed its own set of specications
to optimize its deployment of EPON access system, which in-
cludes interoperability between different vendors. NTT plans to
complete these specications and development by the middle of
2004.
REFERENCES
[1] Fiber-to-the-Premises RFP no. 2 003 000 085/R0 301 020, Bellsouth,
SBC, and Verizon, 2003.
[2] Broadband Optical Access Systems Based on Passive Optical Networks
(PON),, ITU-T recommendation G.983.1.
[3] A BroadBand Optical Access System With Increased Service Capa-
bility by Wavelength Allocation,, ITU-T recommendation G.983.3.
[4] , ITU-T recommendation G.983.4.
[5] F. Effenberger, K. McCammon, and D. Cleary, Analog video and PON
optical loss variations, in Proc. NEOFC, 2003.
[6] J. Finn, Deployment Strategies,, New Orleans, 2003.
[7] V. Shvets, N. Coe, and A. Kieley, Deutsch Bank, Industry Report on
the Wireline Industry, 2004.
[8] Carrier Sense Multiple Access With Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) Ac-
cess Method and Physical Layer Specications, IEEE Std. 802.3, 2002.
[9] . [Online]. Available: http://www.ieee802.org/3/efm/index.html
[10] Y. Fujimoto et al., STM shared access system for high-speed IP com-
munications, in Proc. NOC 2000, Jul. 2000, pp. 110117.
Mark Abrams received the Bachelors degree in economics from the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin, and the MBA from the University of San Francisco, CA, with
a special emphasis in telecommunications.
He is the Senior Director of the FTTP Program at Advanced Fibre Com-
munications. He joined Advanced Fibre Communications in May 1996, with
more than 10 years of voice and data communications experience. Currently, he
oversees all aspects of AFCs FTTP program and manages the PLM organiza-
tion responsible for implementing it. His prior positions at AFC include man-
aging AFCs AccessMAX, TransMAX, and outside plant product lines. Prior
to joining AFC, he held management positions at Anixters San Francisco and
San Jose ofces.
Philippe C. Becker (M94) received the Ph.D. degree in physics from Univer-
sity of California at Berkeley and the M.B.A. degree from Wharton.
He is a partner at Wasserstein Ventures in New York, NY , where he has been
focusing on technology related investments since 2001. He began his career at
Bell Laboratories where his main research interests were high-speed ber-optic
transmission and laser technology. While at Bell Laboratories, he was one of
the pioneers of the erbium-doped ber amplier. He was Director of Product
Management and Marketing of the Lucent passive optical network group from
1997 to 2000. He was Vice President Of Product Management at Corvis from
2000 to 2001. He is coauthor of an Academic Press book on erbium-doped ber
amplier technology.
Dr. Becker is a Member of the Optical Society of America (OSA).
Y. Fujimoto is a Senior Research Engineer, Supervisor, NTT Access Network
Service Systems Lab at NTT, Japan, where he has been since 1990. He is re-
sponsible for developing ber-optic access systems and has over 14 years ex-
perience in both R&D of ber-optic access system and designing FTTH access
networks. Recently, he has been involved in IEEE802.3ah standardization ac-
tivities and the development EPON systems.
Vincent OByrne received the Ph.D. degree and the MBA degree.
He has over 16 years of experience in the communications eld covering both
wireline and wireless technologies at Verizon. Presently, he is Director of Access
Technologies at Verizon Technology Organization (VTO) and is responsible for
the network element specication of the FTTP platform. He recently led Ver-
izons efforts in the FTTP RFP and is responsible for program management of
the Platform within VTO.
David Piehler received the Ph.D. degree in physics (nonlinear optics) at Uni-
versity of California at Berkeley in 1990.
He is the Vice President of Research and Development for Harmonic Inc.s
Broadband Access Networks Division and manages activities at Harmonics
Sunnyvale and Boulder, CO, facilities. He joined Harmonic, Inc., in 1994 and
led the development of Harmonics transmission products, including the cable
industrys rst DWDM transmission system, as well as the Harmonic externally
modulated video transmitter. Prior to joining Harmonic, he initiated ber op-
tics research and development at Uniphase Corporation. From 2000 to 2001,
he served as Entrepreneur-in Residence at the venture capital rm Mayeld
Fund, Menlo Park, CA, and acting-VP of Product Development at two of their
early-stage startups. Most recently, he was appointed Vice President of Har-
monics FTTP Business Unit.