What is the best mobile broadband?

Posted by jack hudson on April 26th, 2021

Optical fiber: low-cost broadband access

The emergence of fiber optic networks opens up interesting prospects in terms of symmetrical bandwidth, no contract broadband, high added value services, and the development of metropolitan networks.

Until recently reserved for high-speed connections by large companies, optical fiber tends to position itself more and more as a technology of access to broadband transmissions for all. Thanks to symmetrical broadband and in theory unlimited, Internet users are no longer penalized for uploading large content.

What are the predominant "native fiber" technologies?

When it comes to transmitting information from an optical fiber, there are two main technologies:

• OEoF (Optical Ethernet over Fiber),
• SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy).

Although these two technologies use optical fiber as the final process for the provision of services, they differ in their technical architecture, their "user costs" and the infrastructure to be deployed by the operator.

Optical Ethernet over Fiber (OEoF)

Ethernet is a protocol that was originally used to interconnect computers, printers, workstations, servers, no contract broadband deals, etc. This protocol now covers nearly 90% of residential and business networks and is well known to ICT managers.

OEoF can be defined as the use of the Ethernet protocol over optical fiber for access to or through a network. Several architectures exist. Two are nevertheless predominant:

• Point-to-Point Ethernet topology (a pair of fibers is dedicated between the client and the point of attachment on the network),

• the Passive Optical Network Ethernet topology (the pair of fibers is used to reach various clients through the same point of attachment on the network).

Ethernet is a technology for local networks. Why would she now be a candidate for access technology? The traffic load from data transfer is supplanting the voice load. Based on this observation, it is already wise to opt for a data infrastructure rather than a TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) infrastructure. Since Ethernet is by far the most widely deployed and mature data transport technology, this protocol is establishing itself as a logical choice in data transmission. In addition, many advances in transmission speed and supported distances offer Ethernet both for large-scale networks (MAN: coverage of a city, a region, etc.: cover of a room, a building).

There are also other arguments in favor of Ethernet within metropolitan networks:

• Ethernet is a simple technology offering better granularity of service as well as fast installation;
• Ethernet is familiar to end-users and appreciated for the ease of use associated with it;
• a wide range of high-performance and low-cost Ethernet products are available! The end-user significantly reduces their Total Cost of Ownership by using Ethernet;
• the constant efforts were undertaken in the search for ease of use and the best price/performance ratio give Ethernet an important new role in packet-switched transport technologies (which allow the sharing of infrastructure), data traffic in general, and in particular IP traffic.

It is also interesting to note that OEoF is also an ideal technology for the deployment of data services to the residential user, now broadband no contract, as long as fiber optic extensions are available there. This last model is called Fiber to the Home.