Peter Cochrane Fibre To The Home Costs In COCHRANE a s s o c i a t e s

God was a comms engineer… He gave us… Silicon Silica EM Waves EM Waves = Wireless/Radio  Silicon = Transistors  Silica = Whoops we chose copper 

Some pre history s

BT deployed fibre in the long lines network in just 6 years…everything improved & staffing went down from 242,000 to 110,000

The fibre for coax transformation gave so much net improvement that the move into the local loop was an obvious target….and a reduction to only 35,000 staff !

Wavelength routing changes everything later… Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx Tx Rx C 2 3 C 2 2 C 2 1 C 3 1 C 3 2 C 3 3 C 1 1 C 1 2 C optical amplifiers to network node ring feeder residential sector residential sector business sector Changing signal format with time…allocated a carrier per session The trial system advanced to the point where > 6000 local switch sites could be removed from the network Factories were built in Ipswich to manufacture all the devices and plant..

So, how in 1986 did FTTH cost in? Not by simple minded upfront costing! But by whole life costing… by taking advantage of every aspect of fiber!

Costing in for FTTH … 1)Water ingress in copper ~ 50% of faults 2)Employees in network ~ 25% of faults 3)Remote routing of fiber saves ~ 95% work 4)Fibre reach removes electronics 5)Switch nodes/building stock reduced >90% 6)Reduced OSS & BSS systems & costs 7)Energy costs reduced by >50% 8)Staffing reduced by > 80% 9)Lead, copper & plastic recovered = $$ income 10)Year-on-year OPEX fall with new tech

And the projected cost of fibre to every home & office in the UK? Only £15Bn = 3 years profits!! Time to complete ~ 10 years So a spend ~ £1.5Bn/year

So, what went wrong????

How come 21CN has taken 25 years to arrive??? Politics Regulation Libralisation Stock Market Vested interests People Demand

The GOOD News

In < 30 years optical fiber technology has… - revolutionized bit transport - powered the internet - exponentially driven capacity up & cost down - completely changed the networks industry And there is now a screaming need for FTTH & FTTO

But we are now engaged in… …a dive to the bottom… …where everything is a commodity and the commercial environment is predatory!

Interesting, persistent, and… …really dumb questions! How much bandwidth do we need? What will people do with it? What are the killer applications? Can’t we do it all with wireless anyway? Haven’t we invested in too much fiber/re?

Interesting, persistent, and… …really dumb assumptions! Customer use/need is asymmetric! Customers will pay for connectivity! Netcos/Governments can control network use! Content can be controlled! Maximum penetration is 100%! Government/Regulators understand !!!!

The biggest problems we face? Not technology! Not operational? The business model/thinking is wrong People find it hard to change

A world of opportunity & risk… COCHRANE a s s o c i a t e s