Any FTTX gurus here?

ImTheKing

I'm working on a networking paper in one of my BA classes. I need to write about expanding fiber internet to a rural area here. With that, I was thinking of just a basic FTTH setup with a Optical Network Terminal at each house.

Anyway, could anyone expand on what type of cable would actually be running in each street and to each house (multimode/singlemode/thickness)? The map would look something like a main access road with about 30 side roads, with each side road being half a mile each and about 2000 houses. It can be assumed that all services (headend, several Gbit of backhaul, etc) already exist.

Thanks everyone. Hope someone might know this ^^

vinbuck

This is the solution we use where I work for FTTH. Do some research on GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network). Most all of the fiber in this type of deployment will be single mode. Multi-Mode is usually for short reach, data center type stuff.

GPON from the Total Access 5000/5006

Lizano

You may want to look at cities that have implemente similar projects such as Chanute, Kansas. Check out the Chanoogle Project.

Jay Dubbya

ImTheKing wrote: »

I'm working on a networking paper in one of my BA classes. I need to write about expanding fiber internet to a rural area here. With that, I was thinking of just a basic FTTH setup with a Optical Network Terminal at each house.

Anyway, could anyone expand on what type of cable would actually be running in each street and to each house (multimode/singlemode/thickness)? The map would look something like a main access road with about 30 side roads, with each side road being half a mile each and about 2000 houses. It can be assumed that all services (headend, several Gbit of backhaul, etc) already exist.

Thanks everyone. Hope someone might know this ^^

From your description you will most likely have several types of cables in your network. From the headend you will probably have stranded, loose tube cable with singlemode fiber. Based on the number of homes mentioned, you could have fiber counts up to 288 in one sheath. If your network uses aerial cable, the diamater would be between 18 and 18.5 mm. If you have underground cable, the armor adds to the diameter, and you would see cables around 23 mm. Drop cables to the home are smaller, and are usually of a "central tube" design (i.e. only a single buffer tube). These cables would also have singlemode fiber in them. Most of the drop cables with round profiles have an outer diameter around 8 mm. There is also a "flat" drop cable that has a low profile and can be either lashed to a strand or direct buried.

Have you also considered how you will serve the homes from the headend with the fiber? You have a number of options: "home run" the fiber from the headend to each home, or do a point-to-multipoint split. In the second option you can either do a "centralized" split, with a splitter cabinet serving up to 576 homes, or you can do a "distributed" split with cascading 1:8 and 1:4 splitters. There is also a "tapped" fiber architecture that is very suitable for rural deployments, usually with a lower density than you mention above. Hope this information helps.

ImTheKing

This helps a ton.

I should hopefully be able to play off all your information and get somewhere with it now

Thanks.