Fixed Access Network Sharing

Abstract

Fixed broadband network deployments are moving inexorably to the use of Next Generation Access (NGA) technologies and architectures. These NGA deployments involve building fiber infrastructure increasingly closer to the customer in order to increase the proportion of fiber on the customer’s access connection (Fibre-To-The-Home/Building/Door/Cabinet… i.e. FTTx). This increases the speed of services that can be sold and will be increasingly required to meet the demands of new generations of video services as we evolve from HDTV to “Ultra-HD TV” with 4k and 8k lines of video resolution. However, building fiber access networks is a costly endeavor. It requires significant capital in order to cover any significant geographic coverage. Hence many companies are forming partnerships and joint-ventures in order to share the NGA network construction costs. One form of such a partnership involves two companies agreeing to each build to cover a certain geographic area and then “cross-selling” NGA products to each other in order to access customers within their partner’s footprint (NGA coverage area). This is tantamount to a bi-lateral wholesale partnership.The concept of Fixed Access Network Sharing (FANS) is to address the possibility of sharing infrastructure with a high degree of flexibility for all network operators involved. By providing greater configuration control over the NGA network infrastructure, the service provider has a greater ability to define the network and hence to define their product capabilities at the active layer. This gives the service provider partners greater product development autonomy plus the ability to differentiate from each other at the active network layer.