editorialIs zero enough?One of the essential questions in obtaining fiber-optic infrastructure is how much is enough. Some would argue that with technologies such as dense wavelength-division multiplexing, this question may soon become moot—as channel counts go up, the number of fiber strands at your disposal may become largely irrelevant.Yet, in one application area—the local loop—fiber count is extremely important, because in many networks that connect customers to switching facilities, the count is zero. In fact, the only reason I don't say that most local-loop infrastructures fall into this category is that I hesitate to make such a sweeping pronouncement without hard figures in front of me. But if you want to step up to the plate in my place, I won't stop you. Two of the articles in this issue of Fiber Exchange highlight the debate over what near-term role, if any, fiber will play in providing local-loop capacity. This debate focuses principally on two issues: economics and demand. As revealed in this month's "Technology & Profits" article on page 16, the cost of fiber-in-the-loop has begun to reach a level that major carriers can handle. The Full Service Access Network (FSAN) Initiative has established a broad base of support for passive-optical-network technology as the standard-bearer for fiber in this arena. Such support will allow the vendor community to focus less on the development of proprietary local-loop architectures and more on producing less-expensive equipment. As traditional communications carriers battle with cable-television companies for dominance in the broadband services market, they will undoubtedly have to investigate fiber-to-the-curb architectures if they are to compete with the bandwidth-provision of hybrid fiber/coaxial networks. This supposition takes on added weight in areas where the copper infrastructure won't support asymmetrical digital-subscriber-line services. It appears that some traditional carriers are thinking in this direction. BellSouth, for example, will take its experience in the FSAN deliberations to the field via a fiber-to-the-home trial. But other carriers aren't so sure that passive optical networks and fiber-to-the-curb aren't solutions in search of a problem. More importantly for carriers looking to supply capacity to competitive local-exchange carriers, many of their potential clients feel the same way. This month's "Market Intelligence" article on page 8 highlights one company whose vice president of marketing and sales believes that copper-based infrastructure will serve his needs for the foreseeable future—if not his lifetime as well. "Has anybody tried to tell you when they thought they were going to need fiber-to-the-home?" he asked almost incredulously when I prodded him to talk about fiber in the access space. The gentleman suggests that the average fiber strand can now support 40,000 phone calls simultaneously, and that not even your average teenager can talk that much. When fiber-to-the-curb apostles preach about their technology, they frequently invoke the holy trinity of Internet, video on demand, and small-office/home-office applications as driving the requirement for fiber-optic capacity in the local loop. Unfortunately for these optical missionaries, they may be wandering among the unbelievers for a long time to come. Stephen Hardy Editorial Director & Associate Publisher |