The transmission of video and TV programs exploits the full capacity that broadband copper-based technologies can deliver. With the emergence of high-density television, the demand for data rates in the range of 50 up to 100 megabits per second will soon become pressing. The same applies for business applications, where rates of up to 1 gigabit per second will have to be delivered.
To support these kinds of data rates, fiber will have to move very close to subscribers – fiber to the home. The presentation will analyze various fiber architectures to achieve this: point-to-point and point-to-multipoint passive optical networks (PON). Different technologies to support these architectures, like Ethernet or WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing), will be discussed. Application scenarios and detailed business case analysis will also be presented.