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owners of the homes inside the suburb/estate.
OLT (Optical Line Terminal), that will be needed
Services generally offered by a fibre deployment
for the fibre deployment and will also form the
are high-speed broadband, security, TV content,
central point of reticulation and connection to
VoD and IP Telephony. The aim is to ensure that
service providers. The size of this space will be
a rich service portfolio is offered to maximise the
determined by the size of the estate/suburb as
value to the end-user. These additional services
en-connection points and service offerings will
may include:
affect the space. This space can also be owned
• In-buiding and “open” wi-fi services
and managed by a network operator, the HOA or
• Utility meter console
service provider and there is various cost saving
• Amenities booking console
modules to be implemented via an off-site POP.
• Building access management
• Management of utilities
Inside the estate/suburb you can have two types
• Home security
of reticulation, either a loop/ring or in a star
• LAN services between tenants etc.
configuration or a combination of both. This
network reticulation, for connecting premises, is
There are three key areas in which estate
generally divided into three categories.
managers could theoretically benefit from these
Feeder: The name defines this route. It forms the
deployments:
main backbone of the network and as such feeds
Financial: Customers are willing to pay more
the network, and usually consists of a larger
in terms of rent or purchase price in order to
fibre count cable in comparison to the other two
access fibre connected properties. This may also
types. This is also seen as the core feed.
help sell homes faster because of the increased
Distribution: This layer passes each and every
demand.
home, and as such, distributes the fibre across
Customer satisfaction: Tenants and clients are
the estate/suburb. You would typically split the
happier with their homes and the service provided.
fibre between the feeder and the distribution
Building
layer.
Efficiency:
Homeowners
will
see
considerable savings on utility bills for common
Drop: This is the final layer and consists of a
parts
small count fibre (usually only a fibre strand) that
as
well
as
better
security
for
less
degradation and improved monitoring.
will connect to every home.
Customer satisfaction is not just related to
Types of deployment
the direct benefits of broadband fibre but also
There are three major ways of deploying fibre
includes indirect benefits like:
within an estate/suburb.
•Better security
Manual Trenching: This is the most labour
•Lower collective service bills due to more
intensive method as it involves digging trenches
efficient utility management
manually acro ss the estate/suburb. Ducts will
•Lower individual bills when metering/
then be placed within these trenches. After
management is in place.
closing and reinstating the top layer, a fibre will
be installed via blowing/floating the fibre into
Once the above has been finalised, detailed
the duct. This method of installation entails
planning can then be conducted. The process
the creation of an “air bubble” inside the duct
of installing a high-speed real-state development
and then “floating” the cable in this air bubble.
begins with a PoP (Point of Presence)
Friction is then eliminated and the cable can
This area has many names in the industry but all
be pushed through the duct. An advantage of
refer to a single room or container central on the
manual trenching is that it is a safe method of
estate/suburb that is accessible for maintenance,
deploying fibre.
yet secure against third party tampering. This
Micro trenching: Municipal legislature in some
space will house the intelligent devices and the
provinces prohibits the use of micro trenching