FTTH solutions in the Slovenian telecommunications market

Abstract

This invited paper provides an overview of the fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) access solutions that are implemented in the Slovenian telecommunications market. The optical network topology used by Slovenian operators is reviewed and the factors that have an impact on the investment in optical access networks are analyzed, including the competition, the regulatory authority and the Slovenian government. In the years before the economic crisis, an accelerated deployment of optical access networks and a consequent increase in the number of household optical connections were observed. The two main Slovenian operators are building a FTTH architecture in the form of point-to-point (P2P) solution, while some public-private partnership projects and one cable television operator have begun to use point-to-multi-point (P2MP) solutions. Although the P2P solution can provide a larger bandwidth per customer than the P2MP, it has already been noted that a mixture of P2P and P2MP solutions will be the right future-proof option, also because it allows multiple operators to be active on a single network. While P2P will serve for the more-demanding users, P2MP will be employed for residential users, with lower requirements, but this will still be in line with the European Digital Agenda.