MAY 4, 2009 -- To meet the needs of carriers that choose to deliver fiber to the home or building, rather than stopping at the node, VPIsystems (search Lightwave for VPIsystems) has enhanced its FTTX planning module for the OnePlan suite to now support PON architectures.
OnePlan Access for FTTX v 2.0 is a planning and decision support system for outside plant planning of next-generation access networks. The company says the system helps carriers optimize their fiber cables and address end-to-end tactical issues associated with FTTX network planning. The system leverages existing infrastructure and minimizes the associated engineering, cable, and equipment costs for carriers, claims VPIsystems, as well as capturing market forecast information and existing network topologies to plan for future demand.
According to Mike Devlin, vice president of business development, VPIsystems, v 2.0 of the network design tool provides a wide degree of flexibility, enabling planners to configure the model based on the equipment under consideration. OnePlan Access for FTTX therefore can accommodate EPON and GPON, as well as Active Ethernet approaches.
It also retains the ability to model fiber to the node, curb, and building from v 1.0.
In addition to architecture modeling, the tool also can perform economic analysis based on such parameters as expected service take rates. Network planners can use this capability to plan the speed of their rollouts based on expected return on investment.
"Bringing fiber all the way to the home is crucial for carriers who want to deliver the highest-bandwidth services, and PON is the architecture of choice," says Devlin. "Carriers using the next generation of OnePlan Access for FTTX will not only be able to roll out their fiber networks based on the most efficient and economically optimized design possible but also know that they are supporting market demand when and where it exists so that investments are more directly tied to revenue."
The system also features:
- support for planning both PON and non-PON architectures and the abilityto determine which configuration will be most beneficial
- reduction in the cost, effort, and time required to optimally plan the outside plant (OSP) aspects of FTTX networks
- the ability to plan for phased FTTX deployments and conduct demand-based, multiperiod planning
- standardization on network planning methodology across all service areas
OnePlan is designed to offer communications service providers a single, cross-domain (geography, technology, discipline, and network domain) integrated capacity and network planning capability for transitioning to a next-generation, IP-enabled network. It is scalable to a high-availability system spanning multiple network layers where it automates all network planning, engineering, and decommissioning activities.
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