Telecommunication companies today are responding to the demands of their customers for more services and bandwidth by adding fiber optic connections to their networks either directly to customers or nearby access points. Network architectures include Fiber to the Home, Building, Node and Curb – generally referred to as FTTx.

The economics of installing the fiber network is highly dependent upon the extent to which existing infrastructure can be used, for example by blowing the fiber through empty ducts. Conventional planning methods have proven to be extremely laborious in this context. The manual planning of a relatively simple network covering just a few thousand connection points often takes several weeks.

Development decisions cannot be based on reliable analysis since the work cannot be carried out in the time available. Detailed planning entails significant effort and cost.

All of these factors mean that developing an FTTx infrastructure using the current personnel resources and manual tools is very time consuming resulting in the loss of valuable time getting to market.

The SolutionUbisense Fiber Planning automatically generates a cost-optimised detailed network configuration suitable for use as input to the detailed implementation planning task. The system takes as input desired connection points, existing infrastructure (cable trays, ductwork, and locations) as well as material and installation costs.

The BenefitsUbisense Fiber Planning enables customers to realise the following benefits:

• Significantly reduced time-to-market across all large scale FTTx roll-out projects;
• More efficient use of existing planning resources;
• Improved quality of planning decisions based on objective and comprehensive analysis;
• Cost-optimised, needs-oriented planning using existing ductwork infrastructure;
• More reliable and predictable quality of the resulting network;
• Ability to generate planning alternatives and variants based on varying input criteria;
• End-to-end solution for the FTTx planning process, detailed implementation planning all the way through to construction.