Local Access Network Technologies
This text reviews the major new access technologies that are finding their way into significant use. It defines terms and technologies, and goes on to discuss how those technologies may be deployed.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Local Access Network Technologies
5.3: Broadband trials
5.3 Broadband trials
There are three trials that have significantly influenced BT's thinking on broadband and consequently the evolution of DSL broadband in UK. The trials that took place throughout the 1990s looked at technology effectiveness, service requirements, gathering marketing information, understanding operational issues, and gaining hands-on understanding of the commercial viability of operating a broadband network. Having operated the trials and gained the information BT launched broadband in 2000.
5.3.1 Bishop's Stortford Fibre Trials
The Bishop's Stortford Fibre Trials commenced in the early 1990s with the aim of assessing two alternative approaches to using fibre as the broadband access technology [1]. The two approaches were BIDS (broadband integrated distributed star) and TPON (telephony over a passive optical network). The BIDS system was an active system using a single fibre from the exchange to an active cabinet. From the cabinet each customer was served by a single fibre delivering a choice of 16 TV channels, video on demand, home banking, home shopping, and hi-fi audio. The cabinet provided much of the intelligence of the system, receiving the TV channels from the exchange and providing the required switching based on customer signalling.
The TPON system was a passive system that did not have street electronics. Instead, there was a single fibre from the exchange out into the access network where it was optically split, typically at two locations, using passive optical couplers. The electronics being only at the exchange and customer premises. The advantage of this approach is that it was...
Copyright The Institution of Electrical Engineers 2004 under license agreement with Books24x7
