Service opportunities for fiber to the home

The deployment of fiber in the local loop in combination with broadband switching facilities will enable a wealth of new services to be offered to the residential customer from an arbitrary large number of competing service providers. Several of the service concepts are outlined, and possible local exchange carrier strategies for addressing the switched broadband opportunity are discussed. Switched broadband is not likely to displace cable television. On the contrary, one scenario for the cable operator would be to deliver the basic cable channels via existing cable directly to cable-ready TVs, and to provide the premium channels via the switched broadband network. This would eliminate the need for scrambling while providing a higher quality signal. Since these premium channels would be switched, they would be totally immune to theft, and could be offered on a pay-per-view basis