FTTH infrastructure cost breakdown

Written on 2:53 PM by ooe

Detailed cost modelling of FTTH infrastructure has been performed for the town of Ipswich. This area includes five exchanges which serve a total of approximately 70 000 customers. The average cost per customer connected has been estimated by dimensioning a fibre network for an expected level of customer take up. The results of the modelling activity highlight the following cost trends.

Figures 10.9 and 10.10 show simple summary charts indicating the network infrastructure cost breakdowns for PON and point-to-point networks to serve an expected customer penetration of 20% (with no demographics applied). In both cases it can be seen that the distribution side of the network contributes the greatest cost per customer. This is because this network segment is shared between the least number of customers. Optimisation of the distribution network is therefore crucial in order to reduce overall costs. For both PON and dedicated fibre networks, labour costs contribute approximately 50% of the total infrastructure bill. A key part of this process is using NetMod to carry out cost sensitivity analysis and hence start to develop planning rules that ensure cost effective network deployment.

Figure 10.9: PON cost breakdown

Figure 10.10: Dedicated fibre cost breakdown

Detailed cost breakdowns have also been produced to identify those items of the network build that contribute most to the cost per customer connected. These individual items are now being targeted for potential cost reduction. For a PON network the highest cost items are distribution blown fibre and optical splitters. For dedicated fibre the highest cost items are primary cables and distribution blown fibre.