Customer facing optical plant-a design philosophy

The access network, traditionally defined as the part of the telecommunication network between the local exchange or central office and the customer premises, has to date largely comprised of point to point copper pairs, a technology which has been well established over the past 50 years. The cost of renewing and maintaining this network is high and the level of emerging digital technologies is putting an increasing strain on its ability to support the bandwidth demand. One way of overcoming these dilemmas is to supersede copper technology with an optical fibre based access network and in response to this innovation suitable optical transmission systems have been and are continuing to be developed. It can be seen however, that to provide a cost effective and functionally acceptable end-to-end solution, the optical infrastructure over which such systems will work must be optimised.