Future Broadband Access Networks [Point of View]

Since the development of practical optical fiber, people have been predicting the widespread introduction of broadband access. The original vision was to replace the copper telephone lines with fiber, but that has not happened. Instead, we see a wide variety of fiberdeeper architectures (where the fiber network is taken closer to the end customer), including very high speed digital subscriber line (VDSL)-based fiber to the node, data over cable service interface specification (DOCSIS)-based hybrid fiber coax (HFC), and passive optical network (PON)-based fiber to the premise. Why such a diversity? And why hasn't the best technology won? The answers to these questions may help us to understand why we have gotten to the present situation, and give us clues to what may come next.