E
ven though most of Americas
geographic area is sparsely popu- The Broadband Summit will fea-
lated, very little research has been ture presentations on rural FTTH
done on the best ways of deploying fiber
to the home in rural areas. Serving scat-
technology, policy and develop
ment including a full day of
Preview
tered customers in rural areas challenges
typical methods of deploying FTTH, sessions sponsored by the Rural
such as placing splitters in cabinets or
home running fibers with splitters in
Telecommunications Congress.
the central office (CO). These methods,
which may work well elsewhere, are not cal loss and increases a networks over- is most economical. If, as in rural areas,
cost-effective in rural areas, where they all reliability by eliminating connectors the 32 customers are spread out over
result in long lengths of fiber between and jumpers that can cause problems. In more than 5,000 feet (or 1 mile), the
customers, increased splicing require- addition, fusion splicing the splitter ini- cable cost saving offsets the additional
ments, increased installation time and tially reduces installation time because splitter cost and the 1 x 4/1 x 8 option
reduced reliability. the installer does not have to visit the becomes more economical. The farther
splitter location. Finally, connectorized apart customers are, the more economi-
Distributed Splitting
drops are often infeasible in rural areas cal the 1 x 4/1 x 8 option becomes.
Minimizes Fiber Cable Sizes
because houses are often far from the Another alternative is to use a 1 x 8
In a sparsely populated area, it makes splitter to feed eight 1 x 4 splitters. Al-
road. This method creates no more splic-
sense to move the splitter as close to the though this alternative is slightly more
ing than placing splitters in cabinets or
home as possible to minimize the lengths expensive (between $5 and $10 per cus-
in the CO, as cabinet inputs and outputs
of the 32 output fibers and maximize tomer), it may offer a more attractive al-
must also be spliced initially.
the length of the single input fiber. This ternative by bringing splitters closer to
method, known as distributed splitting, Using Two Levels of Splitters homes, depending on how the popula-
can be accomplished by placing splitters The graph in Figure 1 compares the cost tion of a rural area is distributed.
in splice cases with fiber drops to elimi- of a 1 x 32 splitter and cable with the Using full-spectrum splitters that al-
nate the need for separate housing. cost of a 1 x 4 splitters feeding four 1 x8 low the passage of all available frequen-
Distributed splitters are also better splitters and cable. Although both op- cies in the fiber cable is essential. In
for accommodating unplanned growth, tions provide 32 outputs, they use differ- addition, because fiber has an inherent
because they can be installed in the right ent split techniques to reduce cable size. water-peak problem at certain frequen-
spots to handle growth. Cost models il- If 32 customers live within about 5,000 cies, the fiber deployed in all parts of
lustrating the advantage of distributed feet of one another, the 1 x 32 splitter the feeder and distribution cable should
splitting over other options are available
but beyond the scope of this article.
Distributed splitting has additional About the Author
economic benefits if the splitter is fusion David Stallworth is the design and product manager at OFS, a manufacturer of
spliced into the network at the outset. optical fiber and connectivity solutions. You can reach him at 770-798-2423 or by
Fusion splicing offers several benefits e-mail at dstallworth@ofsoptics.com.
over connectorization: It reduces opti-
Figure 5: Fibers can also be cut and reused when the eight-way splitter is at the first level.
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