Cost benefits and business opportunities of high capacity optical broadband access network upgrade technologies

The paper presents a techno-economic assessment of optical access network upgrade technologies for subscribers with high capacity demands. The major contribution is an in-depth analysis of expected cost benefits and business opportunities of optical broadband alternatives in the mixed residential and business market. The study focused on physical layer upgrades, and examined the installed first costs of upgrading the typical one-way point-to-point fibre connection of current large business customers to higher capacity with a two-way connection for protection, as well as introducing broadband passive optical networks for 2 Mbit/s subscribers.