Broadband Access Technologies: Evaluation Tool

1 João Paulo Ribeiro Pereira, Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia Apartado 134 5301-857 Bragança – Portugal, [email protected] 2 José Adriano Pires, Escola Superior de Tecnologia e Gestão de Bragança, Campus de Santa Apolónia Apartado 134 5301-857 Bragança – Portugal, [email protected] Abstract ⎯ Broadband technologies have view great growth over the past decade. But, the main part of this development and growth has been in the core networks, and the capacity of the access network to delivery broadband services remains as a challenge ("last mile problem"). The access network remains a bottleneck in terms of the bandwidth and service quality it affords the end user. By other side, the access network is much more spread geographically and covers larger areas. Then, this part of the network is usually the most expensive component in terms of capital investment and OAM cost. Some studies reefer that this networks required 70% of the total investment. Several access technologies can be used in this part of the network, which can be used to resolve the bandwidth bottleneck and the investment problem: xDSL, HFC, FTTx, FWA, WiMAX, PLC, Satellite, etc. This paper presents a methodology and a tool that compare and evaluate broadband access technologies. The paper presents a techno-economic analysis of eight broadband technologies for access networks: digital subscriber line (DSL), hybrid fiber coax (HFC), power line communications (PLC), fiber to the home (FTTH), fiber to the curb (FTTC), fiber to the cabinet (FTTCab), and wireless alternatives such as WiMAX and satellite. Several actors (such operators, service providers, ...) could use this tool to compare different technological solutions, forecast deployment costs, compare different scenarios, etc. Index Terms ⎯ Access networks, Broadband access technologies, Cost model.