Cost analyses of emerging broadband fiber loop architectures

Cost analyses and comparisons of active and passive broadband fiber-optic subscriber loop architectures, including all network components from the customer premises interface to the central office switch termination are presented. The analyses focus on specific, demonstrated architectures with projected availabilities in the early to mid-1990s. The installed first costs per subscriber for active and passive architectures are shown to be comparable. The passive loop, however, achieves this cost at a much smaller remote mode size than the active loop, implying cost-effective deployment of the passive loop for smaller groups of subscribers. In addition, key cost elements and tradeoffs for the architectures are identified, and sensitivities of double-star prove-in distances and network costs to laser, wavelength-division-multiplexer (WDM), and fiber costs are examined. Finally, incremental network costs are compared for various business and residential service capabilities, and it is shown that passive loops have lower incremental costs for switched video.