A modular and hierarchically structured techno-economic model for FTTH deployments Comparison of technology and equipment placement as function of population density and number of flexibility points

Abstract

Telecommunications is a domain that is characterized by a constant and rapid evolution. The available bandwidth keeps on increasing as the amount and quality of the offered services grows almost continuously, and it is generally accepted that upgrades towards Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) are necessary. FTTH comes in a plentitude of variations, mainly differing between Point-to-Point and Point-to-Multipoint solutions. Several techno-economic calculations comparing these options are available in literature today, but they lack a generic structured calculation and never focus on the impact of the size of the area and population density on the cost of deployment and operations of an FTTH network. This paper will present a flexible, generic model for techno-economic evaluation of an FTTH network that compares different solutions considering equipment type and placement for a broad range of population densities. The outcome of the simulations proofs the versatility of the generic techno-economic calculation approach and show the impact of the tradeoff in equipment placement and distance to the central office.