Ger Vloothuis

On 24 and 25 February 2010 it is party time for the fibre-to-the-home fraternity in Europe and far around. Followers of the French Fiberevolution, the Dutch Fibre Mafia, the Australian Broadbandits, the Danish Glass Vikings and many other interested parties are all gathering in Lisbon to hear about the latest developments and see the newest must-have products.




And it is becoming abundantly clear that FTTH is the future. But be aware that coax and copper are not dead yet. For example, a small Municipality in the heart of the Netherlands proudly announced an FTTH rollout for their residents, immediately prompting some enterprising ISP to put up big signs offering 'FibreSpeed' internet services. But this 'FibreSpeed' isn't using any fibre. DSL over copper telephone wires is the delivery method at a lower subscription cost than the new fibre network.


And in some different worlds, the cable operators have embraced the new DOCSIS 3.0 standard and are rolling out cablemodems that deliver 100 Mbps Internet over their existing coaxial cable plant.

To make matters more interesting, it is now also possible to run DOCSIS 3.0 Cablemodems over a EPON/GPON compliant fibre plant with RF over Glass (RFoG) technology. This extends the lifetime of headend CMTS equipment and customer billing systems for many more years, whilst rolling out new residential areas with EPON/GPON capable fibre plant. We live in interesting times my friends.



PBN's Mr Gerard Nederlof, Senior Vice President for Global Sales and Marketing, will be in Lisbon to discuss your projects. Ring Gerhard on +31 6 5347 3310 to catch up.


Wishing you all good times in Lisbon!

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