Abstract

Fiber in the loop (FITL)—meaning the telephone residential loop plant—has been viewed as being important principally for a broadband network. Surprisingly, however, FITL is becoming less expensive than copper even for today's ordinary telephone services in new installations. Beyond first-cost parity, FITL has the potential for additional life-cycle savings arising from new or improved network capabilities (e.g., dynamic bandwidth allocation, automated service provisioning, and enhanced in-service performance monitoring), along with reduced fiber maintenance compared with copper. Equally important, FITL establishes a new loop network that is easily upgraded to broadband as needed.¹

© 1991 Optical Society of America