Broadband Access Technologies: an Overview

In past decades we witnessed the rapid development of global communication infrastructure and the explosive growth of the Internet, accompanied by ever-increasing user bandwidth demands and emerging multimedia applications. These dramatic changes in technologies and market demands, combined with government deregulation and fierce competition among data, telcom, and CATV operators, have scrambled the conventional communication services and created new social and economic challenges and opportunities in the new millennium. To meet those challenges and competitions, current service providers are striving to build new multimedia networks. The most challenging part of current Internet development is the access network. As an integrated part of global communication infrastructure, broadband access networks connect millions of users to the Internet, providing various services, including integrated voice, data, and video. As bandwidth demands for multimedia applications increase continuously, users require broadband and flexible access with higher bandwidth and lower cost. A variety of broadband access technologies are emerging to meet those challenging demands. While broadband communication over power lines and satellites is being developed to catch the market share, DSL (digital subscriber line) and cable modem continue to evolve, allowing telecom and CATV companies to provide high-speed access over copper wires. In the meantime, FTTx and wireless networks have become a very promising access technologies. The convergence of optical and wireless technologies could be the best solution for broadband and mobile access service in the future. As new technology continues to be developed, the future access technology will be more flexible, faster, and cheaper. In this chapter