An economic ATM passive optical network

Abstract

ATM network technology simplifies considerably the provision of services by providing the user with a unique interface to a single integrated service network that will handle all the user's needs. However, while it is possible to think of direct fiber connection to large business customers, where the amount of traffic (and hence the revenue) justifies the expense, the provision of broadband access to residential and small business customers has always been considered a challenge. The RACE II project BAF (Broadband Access Facilities) rose to that challenge, developing an ATM broadband access network that allows a relatively large number of users to share a single point of entry to the high-speed network economically. The BAF access network is not only cost effective but provides full dynamic bandwidth allocation between endpoints. This article presents a description of this network, the key issues that arose from the work, and the innovative ideas that were incorporated in the system. The article concludes with a discussion of some of the results of the field trial that was carried out on the demonstrator.