Broadband business access: a services perspective on network termination unit port requirements

An access architecture for broadband services is given which incorporates a network termination unit (NTU) with a number of ports to support a variety of services. The customer premises networks (CPNs) and the services which they carry are described from a user perspective and lead to a categorization of users into three occupational groups. The service demands of these groups are related to functional requirements for the different NTU ports in terms of bandwidth, symmetry, and interconnectivity. Most ports are shown to be symmetrical and to require interconnection with another port on the same NTU. The North American market for such ports during the latter half of the 1990s is investigated in the form of a case analysis of a typical city center: the urban core of Toronto. The analysis focuses on organizational sites with more than 100 employees as being large enough to justify broadband telecommunications access. The mix of ports is derived from the occupational mix. The results indicated a clear market for broadband NTU ports by the latter half of the 1990s. The number of 1.5-Mb/s ports exceeds the number of 45-Mb/s ports. Among the 45-Mb/s ports, video outnumber data, and among the 1.5 Mb/s ports, voice dominate.<>