Active Ethernet in Residential Broadband Access Networks

Abstract

The most popular technology used by a residential and small business broadband provider is Passive Optical Network (PON). In a PON architecture, the available bandwidth is shared among multiple subscribers via passive optical splitters. During peak usage times, heavy consumption by a few users can lead to network congestion, resulting in significantly slower speeds and performance degradation for all other users on the same shared segment. For a broadband Service Provider (BSP) it is a challenge when there are critical businesses to serve and they expect dedicated bandwidth downstream as well as upstream to carry heavy duty uploads for cloud native applications. The architecture of a network defines the performance a subscriber can expect when they opt for a high throughput service. Active Ethernet (AE) which is also sometimes known as point-to-point Active Fiber, is an access technology where each subscriber gets a dedicated fiber connection to the BSP’s network.