Fiber to the Home

Erik Radius, Jan Martijn Metselaar

Colloquium SNE Master
March 3, 2010

Winitu Consulting
Tolnasingel 1
2411 PV Bodegraven
The Netherlands slide
Agenda

1 Introduction

2 Fiber to the Home – technology

3 Broadband networks – Network Architecture

4 Discussion!

slide 2
Agenda
Who are we?
Winitu Consulting is an experienced consultancy company
providing knowledge of data- and telecommunication, IT and
business process management.

Winitu’s customer potfolio ranges from large service

providers to small enterprises in both profit and non-
profit sectors.

Winitu consultants are experienced in design,

implementation, optimisation and management of
complex networks, IT and processes.

slide 3
Introduction Winitu Consulting
What do we do? – Winitu Portfolio
Strategic / Tactical
• Technical business
consultancy
Operational Excellence
• Process consultancy
• Problem solving
Auditing
Business Modelling
Project Management
Proces design and
implementation
IT and network management
Innovation
• New technology
Development
• Hands-on experience
Network design and
implementation
IT design and implementation
Network optimisation
Network and IT testing
Service and business development
slide 4
Introduction Winitu Consulting
Organisation

WinITu Gold BV

100% 100% 100% 40%

Winitu
Winitu
Communications igilde BV Infodation
Consulting BV
BV

About the Winitu Group:

WinITu Gold was founded January 2000
Winitu Communications is a, OPTA registered, (wholesale) unified
communications provider
igilde is a full service IT service provider focused on network technology
Infodation is a software development company using remote sourcing in
Vietnam

slide 5
Introduction Winitu Consulting
Introduction of the speakers of today

Erik Radius

Jan Martijn Metselaar

slide 6
Introduction
Agenda

1 Introduction

2 Fiber to the Home – technology

3 Broadband networks – Network Architecture

4 Discussion!

slide 7
Agenda
FTTH technology: a closer look at optics

Optical fiber is a compact, low-loss carrier for broadband signals

Optical fiber consists of 3 main parts
1: glass core
2: glass cladding
3: plastic buffer coating

slide 8
FTTH technology
Optical fiber inner workings

Optical signal is contained within the fiber

Higher index of refraction in core than in cladding
Total internal reflection at the core/cladding boundary

slide 9
FTTH technology
Multimode versus Singlemode (1)

Multimode
‘Bigger’ core: 50 / 62,5mm
Multiple optical modes
supported/transmitted
Bandwidth*distance
product is limited
Only suitable for shorter
distances (<1km)

slide 10
FTTH technology
Multimode versus Singlemode (2)

Singlemode
Small core: 9mm
1 optical mode is supported/transmitted
Signal may be carried over very large distance

More information online, e.g.

http://www.rp-photonics.com/fibers.html

slide 11
FTTH technology
Transmitter & receiver

Optical fiber is only a passive waveguide

Active components at the end points:

Signal source: laser diode
Receiver: photo diode

(Amplitude)modulation of the data stream

Light signal is the ‘carrier’ wave

Both digital and analog transmission possible

slide 12
FTTH technology
Signal loss in optical fiber is wavelength dependent

slide13
13
Power budget

14
slide14
14
source: http://www.thefoa.org/
Optical power budget

Fiber link design: what is involved

Fiber type (single mode? multi mode?)
Fiber length (km)
Licht source: output power (dBm)
Detector: receiver sensitivity (dBm)
Elements in the link that cause additional signal loss

Fiber link budget or optical power budget

the amount of light available to make a fiber optic connection
Provides the maximum distance with the available optics
Take a minimum of 3dB margin into account

slide 15
power budget
Optical power budget: case #1

Laser power: -7 dBm

Fiber attenuation: 0,4 dB per kilometer
Fiber length: 20 km
Receiver sensitivity: -29 dBm
Splice loss: 0,1 dB (max.)
Connector loss: 0,5 dB (max.)
# of connectors: 2
# of splices: 4
Calculate Link budget: laser power – receiver sensitivity
Calculate Margin: laser power – receiver sensitivity – [link
losses]
slide 16
power budget
Optical power budget: case #2

Laser power: +1 dBm

Fiber attenuation: 0,25 dB per kilometer
Fiber length: 40 km
Receiver sensitivity: -12 dBm
Splice loss: 0,1 dB (max.)
Connector loss: 0,5 dB (max.)
# of connectors: 4
# of splices: 8
Calculate Link Budget: laser power – receiver sensitivity
Calculate Margin: laser power – receiver sensitivity – [link
losses]
slide 17
power budget
Pros and cons of optical fiber

Question for you all... Give me

3 advantages of optical fiber over metallic wiring

... and ...

3 disadvantages

slide 18
FTTH technology
Fiber networks

Transport networks layers

Core (+ international) network
Metro(politan) network
Access network
Access network for telecom/cableTV partial fiber
Telecom
Optical fiber up to central office
Copper connection into the home
Cable TV
Optical fiber up to street cabinet
coax connection into the home

slide 19
FTTH technology
International networks (submarine cable systems)

slide20
20
National networks

source: GIGAport website slide21

21
City networks (metro rings)

source GIGAport website slide22

22
Fiber penetration in the access network

Fiber….
to the Node
Central office, >300m
to the Curb/Cabinet
Straatkast, <300m
to the Building/Basement
Multi-storey buildings
to the Home
into the ‘meterkast’

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/FTTX.png
slide 23
FTTH technology
FTTH cabling concept

Access network branches off multiple times between

central office and the home

Installed: underground or above ground (!)

slide 24
FTTH technology
Fiber installation above ground: example

FTTH in Romenia (Bucharest)

slide 25
FTTH technology
Underground installation

Several underground deployment methods available

1: modular tubes; insert fiber as needed (blown fiber)

2: fiber inside rugged cable (buried fiber)

Blown fiber explained in more depth

slide 26
FTTH technology
Miniduct system for access network

1, 7, 12, 24 thin tubes in a rugged outdoor cable

Branching off one or
multiple tubes is
relatively simple

slide 27
FTTH technologie
Fiber in mini duct

Install thin cable into duct using airflow

slide 28
FTTH technologie
Fiber connection in the home

Example optical fiber

network terminal
Services for end user:
Internet
(Analogue) television
Phone

Most often installed in the

utility cabinet (‘meterkast’)

slide 29
Fiber connection in the home
Fiber, the movie

FTTH installation in a Dutch neighborhood

Blown fiber concept using branching off
of individual tubes for house connections

In the home: miniduct in the utility cabinet

Installation of network terminal
Testing & activation

slide 30
FTTH technologie
Watch the movie

… movie link is on your desktop somewhere

slide 31
Fiber architectures (1): Point-to-point

point-to-point
1 on 1 fiber connection between Central office and
Home

POP

slide 32
FTTH technology
Fiber architectures (2): PON

point-to-multipoint (PON: passive optical network)

optical splitter in the link, to send same signal to
multiple end points

POP

slide 33
FTTH technology
PON: shared medium

slide34
34
Point-to-point versus PON

PON popular with telcos

USA
Japan
Australia
‘closed business/network model’

Point-to-point mostly popular in Europe

Scandinavia
Netherlands, France, etc
‘open network model’

slide 35
FTTH technology
Bidirectional data transmission popular in FTTH

Single fiber bidirectional for data

Different signal wavelengths for up vs down
1500nm downlink
1310nm uplink

Reason?
Less fiber needed in the field
fiber management is expensive
Space in the Central Office is scarce

slide 36
FTTH technology
POP fiber management

slide 37
FTTH technologie
Transport of services

3 services in the access network

Internet
Voice/telephony
Television

Various ways to realise this... e.g.

Internet: via data fiber (IP)
Voice: via data fiber (VoIP)
Television: via CATV fiber (overlay network) or via IP

slide 38
FTTH technology
Agenda

1 Introduction

2 Fiber to the Home – technology

3 Broadband networks – Network Architecture

4 Discussion!

slide 39
Agenda
Quizzz

Dual play, Triple play, Multi play

IP all the way!

But what does the end-user care?

slide 40
Broadband services
Current broadband services over FTTH networks

Internet access
Unicast IP (Duh…)

Television
IP unicast for video-on-demand
IP multicast for broadcast television (the ‘default’
package of 50 channels)

Telephony
SIP signaling, RTP for transport
slide 41
Broadband services
Current broadband services over FTTH networks

Nice those triple play services, but how do

you get the content to the subscribers?

Smart network architecture…

slide 42
Broadband services
Network Architecture – Layered model
Access
Lots of individual connections
Focus on physical aggregation of lines
Security

Distribution
Connection towards access layer
Focus on logical aggregation of connections
Route summarization

Core
Connection towards the distribution layer
Focus on traffic volume
No identification of individual connections
slide 43
Broadband services
Network Architecture – Layered model
Service Service
provider 1 provider 2

Core network core

metro

access

slide44
44
Discussie / Quizzz

The how and why of current broadband

networks
Protocols?
Speeds?
Possibilities?
Restrictions?

slide 45
Broadband services
Network Architecture – Ethernet as uniform transport protocol

Leased line
ATM
Frame Relay
Ethernet
X.25 PPP
Ethernet
Packet over Sonet (POS)
SONET
STM-1, 4, 16
SDH

slide 46
Broadband services
Network structure – Domain separation

Access Distribution / Core Core

ISP 1
NT
WWW
backbone ISP 2

ISP 3 PSTN/ISDN

subscriber Operator service provider

domain domain domain

“Wholesale” model: operator delivers network facilities to different content

and service providers.

slide47
47
Network Architecture – Access: connection model

How is the connection between subscriber and network

realized?

Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) Ethernet Bridging “DHCP model”

IP over PPP over Ethernet IP over Ethernet
PPP session from the modem
IP address assigment through
into the distribution layer
DHCP
IP address assignment in PPP
‘connection less’
session setup via RADIUS
QoS via Ethernet Class of
‘connection oriented’
Multiple PPP sessions for QoS service
guarantees

slide 48
Broadband services
Network Architecture – Core: MPLS VPN

Ethernet Bridging MPLS VPN

VPN ISP
VPN SP 11
Distributie / Core ISP 1
NT apparatuur
VPN ISP
SP 22 ISP 2
backbone
ISP 3
VPN ISP
SP 33
City PoP

subscriber Operator service provider

domain domain domain

slide49
49
Network Architecture – Core Network

MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching)

Support for VPNs
Traffic Engineering (used for fast reroute and ip multicast
traffic)
Ethernet transport over MPLS

IP Routing
IGP
For distributing ‘next-hop’ routing information
OSPF or IS-IS
M-BGP
For distributing IPv4 prefixes

slide 50
Broadband services
Network Architecture – MPLS primer: labels

IP packet IP packet
L1

L2 IP packet
L3 IP packet

IP packet

• Label Switched Router (LSR) MPLS enabled router

• Forwarding based on Labels, forwarding control separated from
forwarding plane
• Labels are distributed via Label Distributie Protocol (LDP)
• LDP hello packets are UDP and transported via broadcast of multicast
• Multiple labels (stack) per packet possible (note that MTU must be large
enough!)

slide51
51
Network Architecture – MPLS primer: forwarding

Routing information exchange with

Control plane inside a node other routers
IP routing protocols

IP routing table

Label information Base MPLS IP routing control

(LIB)
Label binding exchange with
different routers

Data plane inside a node Forwarding Information

Base (FIB)

Label Forwarding
information Base (LFIB)

slide52
52
Network Architecture – Increasing complexity

Complexity

Triple play

Dual play
Single play

Multiplay

slide 53
Broadband services
Quizzz

What about Quality of Service?

What about Security?

slide 54
Broadband services
Network Architecture – Quality of Service

Core network
QoS only relevant if congestion can occur
Used to be irrelevant in broadband networks as bandwidth was
plenty. FTTH and Docsis3 has changed this.
QoS policy of most providers was: “upgrade capacity”.
Currently large providers are running into technological limits:
10GE is not fast enough and 100GE is not yet there!
Cost for service providers is increasing rapidly
Traffic is becoming more symmetrical

slide 55
Broadband services
Network Architecture – Quality of Service

Access networks
Multi-play services all use the same connection
Voice traffic needs to be protected
Video needs to get enough bandwidth (otherwise you’ll see
blocks)
Video and voice need protection from general internet
traffic(especially P2P and news traffic)

slide 56
Broadband services
Network Architecture – Quality of Service

QoS enforcement QoS parameters

downstream traffic On incoming traffic

NT
backbone ISP 2

QoS transparent

QoS parameters upstream

traffic

IP QoS: precedence bits, diffserv

Ethernet QoS: Class of Service (priority bit in vlan header)
MPLS QoS: Exp. bits
slide57
57
Network Architecture – Security

slide 58
Security
Network Architecture – Security
Network
Access to network elements
Access to network management systems
Protocols
“Security by obscurity”
Control plane protection

Services platform
Policy: every service is responsible for it’s own platform
Where possible network security can provide additional protection

Separate users
Spoofing filters
User isolation
Protocol filters (note that new OS like Windows Vista and 7 bring new
challenges, like IPv6 default enabled). slide 59
Security
Network Architecture – Security Attack Vectors
ARP flood attack, plus spoofing
DHCP flood attack
MAC flood attack, plus spoofing
IGMP flood attack
IPv4 broadcast flood attacks
IPv4 unicast flood attack
TTL=1 attack
IP options attack
IPv6 MLD
… some others.

Focused on the control plane of the routers and switches in

the network. Most are denial of service attacks, but some can
be used for a ‘man-in-the-middle’ attack.

slide 60
Security
Network Architecture – Security

(DHCP) Spoofing filters

Arp filtering
Security by obscurity
(that which is not reachable is secure)

NT
backbone ISP 2

Reverse path check

Private vlan’s
NT configuration
vlan filtering
Security  force configuration
from a central server

slide61
61
Network Architecture – FTTH networks Security toolbox

DHCP snooping VACL Layer-2 filtering:

PFC based special case
Dynamic Arp Inspection - Allow ethertypes 0x800 and 0x806
Hardware limiters
Private VLAN - Broadcast ARP filtering
- Multicast filtering
- Broadcast redirection

NT

Multicast route limit

Control plane policing

uRPF
STP filtering Ethertype filtering: Ip local proxy-arp
ARP rate-limiting - 0x800 0x806 (IP & ARP) PIM neighbor filtering
DHCP rate-limiting
IGMP group filtering
IGMP group limiting
UUFB
UMFB
Port-security
IPSG
Storm-control

slide62
62
Quizzz

Network management?
Why does that seem to be so difficult
for most Service Providers?

slide 63
Broadband services
Network IT - Network Management tools

MRTG

NAGIOS

HP Openview

slide 64
Broadband services
Network IT - Provisioning

We like “zero touch” , “flow through”

provisioning. Service providers would like to
focus on “exception management” only…

Bullshit or …?

slide 65
Broadband services
Network IT – Provisioning

The success of network provisioning and

order management is correct and complete
information:
Orders
Connections

Automation is the key, every manual action

increases the chance of mistakes
slide 66
Broadband services
Network and IT – Systems

Service Providers Bouw

Exploitanten &
Field Operations
Beschikbaarheid
Customer Incident
Locatie,
Services Na-aansluiting apparatuur & Uitbreidingen
verbindingen

Incident
Management
Back-office Systeem Network
Order systeem Inventory

Communicatie bus Looking glass

Master
Provisioning System

BECS BECS Provisioning

Packetfront Packetfront Leverancier

Packetfront Packetfront LeverancierXYZ
XYZ
FTTH
FTTHNetwerk
Netwerk FTTH
FTTHNetwerk
Netwerk FTTH
FTTHNetwerk
Netwerk

slide67
67
Agenda

1 Introduction

2 Fiber to the Home – technology

3 Broadband networks – Network Architecture

4 Discussion!

slide 68
Agenda
That’s all for now!

Questions?

Don’t hesitate to send us an email:

erik @ winitu.com
janmartijn @ winitu.com

slide 69
questions