FIBER CITY

Passive vs. Active

M
ulti Dwelling Unit / Multi tenants? There are two key deciding fac- neighborhood and Polish to another, for
Tennant Unit (MDU/MTU) tors at play here: the services or applica- example.
owners understand that net- tions that are available and the access Video on Demand (4 Mbps) is in-
working a new development from the method over which those services are creasingly popular. High-speed data
start is a relatively inexpensive method to delivered. (2-4 Mbps) is a necessity for today’s
significantly boost property value. Devel- There is no question that fiber pro- Small Office/Home Office (SOHO)
opers can cost-effectively pull fiber optic vides nearly unlimited (for the foresee- worker, gamer and for transfer of large
cable to each residence or office suite, able future) bandwidth, and the cur- (e.g. digital photos and videos) files.
paving the way for high-speed services rent cost of optics makes new builds as Security services for the home and busi-
(video conferencing and voice over IP, economical as copper access networks. ness can alert central alarm-monitoring
centers of fire or intrusion, and, with
high-speed video over IP, remote real-
time video monitoring is now possible
“Stated simply, active access networks contain to homes and businesses. Our next-gen-
eration home and office appliances will
an active electronic element, a switch aggregator, be Ethernet-enabled: imaging printing
documents from home on your office
between the central office or head end switch and printer and turning on the oven from
the office before your trip home. Voice
the customer-premises equipment.” over IP (VoIP) services are currently
available from multiple sources at rates as
low as $39.99 per month for unlimited
for example) that tenants value highly. So with regard to access to services, domestic calls. And have you noticed the
By partnering with service providers, the question is not copper versus fiber steady drop in prices for High Defini-
property developers can share in multiple but whether you build a passive power tion TV (HDTV) sets? The consumer
revenue streams from broadband access splitting or an actively switched Ethernet electronics industry is driving pricing for
networks. optical network. a large HDTV to under $1,000. Some
But will today’s most prevalent fiber- Let’s look at the broadband needs of programming services are offering over
to-the-home/business networking ac- the MDU/MTU and Master Planned 10 HDTV channels.
cess solutions deliver on the vision they Communities (MPC). What applica- Looking at the bandwidth needs for
promise? Real-estate developers and tions are or will be available that can be these applications yields the following:
service providers planning to expand offered as a differentiator to secure ten- standard quality video, 4 Mbps x 4 chan-
content-on-demand offerings are explor- ants and buyers? What are some of the nels (16 Mbps), plus high-speed data (3
ing the differences between passive and drivers of the offers and applications? Mbps), plus VoIP (less than 1 Mbps),
actively switched optical networking, One key driver is the diversity of the equals ~20 Mbps. With HDTV’s cur-
especially in the areas of security, fault population. As the United States contin- rent requirements of over 19 Mbps—
isolation and service isolation. ues to be a melting pot, our new citizens using Motion Picture Experts Group
want more choices in TV and video (MPEG)-2 level encoding—multiple
Content in demand programming. TV services cannot con- HDTV streams with VoIP and data can
How will real broadband (20 Mbps tinue to offer news, sports, shopping and readily approach 100 Mbps required
and higher) availability enable property movies in English only. Service providers per tenant/subscriber. And these appli-
developers and real-estate owners to in- must offer targeted packages to various cations are just an example of what is
crease the value of their buildings so as ethnic communities—Spanish-language possible with the right broadband access
to attract more profitable and long-term programming to one development or network.

| | | MAY 2004
Property manager, content provider needs The passive access network does not
The property manager is looking for contain any electronics between the cen-
an access network that is: tral office/headend switch and the cus-
• Flexible so it can handle multiple tomer-premises equipment. The trade
services from many service providers, off is simply one additional active or
• Scalable so that it cost-effectively powered element for every 48 subscrib-
provides the bandwidth needed today ers (the number of customer-premises
and can economically provision addi- equipment served by each distribution
tional bandwidth with the addition of element) versus a passive power splitter
new applications tomorrow, with an inherently lower failure rate but
• Secure so content can not be di- no ability to isolate faults, switch local
verted, corrupted or split, and traffic or provision narrow or uni-cast
• Serviceable so that faults can be transmissions.
isolated and failure groups minimized. In a passive network the entire down-
The content providers most certainly stream bandwidth is transmitted to the switch coh canh cofh
have many of the same concerns. Their power splitter and delivered to each sub-
business is centered on a high-quality scriber. The customer-premises equip-
user experience and content protection. ment contains optical transc )e r thae
Thus, a guaranteed quality of service
(QoS) level, regardless of video format
(standard or high definition) is impor-
tant in the presentation of their product.
Bandwidth sharing makes extremely
high QoS a challenge, and broadcast and
select schemes expose a content provider
to theft.
Content theft is not limited to video
providers. In the case of a work-at-home
employee receiving proprietary files from
headquarters, the file content is delivered
to every home served by the power split-
ter. Networks must be robust and secure
so as to prevent rogue customer-premises
equipment from stealing content with-
out detection and malicious hackers from
taking down service from an entire group
of tenants (up to 32) by simply transmit-
ting a laser upstream to a passive power
splitter. This is where the optical access
network technology comes to play.

Get active
Today, there are two major architec-
ture types: actively switched and pas-
sively split. Stated simply, active access
networks contain an active electronic
element, a switch aggregator, between
the central office or headend switch and
the customer-premises equipment. This
active element can be located inside the
central office, in the case of a point-to-
point system, or in the outside plant,
in the case of a point-to-multi-point
network.

MAY 2004 | [Link] [Link] | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 29