Fiber-to-Home Module - Company Business and Marketing - Brief Article

Telecommunications, Sept, 2000

While fiber-to-the-home has been hailed as the first mile's golden key to unlimited bandwidth, economics have held it back from widespread adoption. Optimizing a PON (passive optical network) infrastructure, Marconi's Deep Fiber FTH architecture may demonstrate that the technology is economically justifiable.

A single fiber optic cable terminated in the home at a wall-mounted, optical electrical converter can simultaneously transmit a mixture of voice, video and high-speed data over WDM. Voice and data feeds entering the CO are combined on Marconi's DISCHS MX Distribution Shelf (MDS), with support for 672 telephone lines and 896 simultaneous Internet sessions. Cable TV and DBS video signals entering the CO are combined by Marconi's CATV/DBS Transceiver (CDX) into a single optical feed and share the same fiber as the voice and data signals. The Marconi Deep Fiber FTH, which is in trials at Bell Atlantic's Baltimore testing facility, will be available within six months.