Session 1: FTTH Introduction

• What are the common FTTx architectures and how they compare?
• Infrastructure components: Cables, tubes, trenches, hatches, distribution frames
• What are the available technologies for FTTH and how they compare?

Session 2: Designing a FTTx network

• How to optimally design and dimension your network?
• What are the major considerations when designing an FTTH network?
• Why network hierarchy is important?
• When to choose which topology?
• Case study: Designing an FTTH network

Session 3: FTTH deployment & construction

• What are the popular installation methods and how they compare?
• What are the major considerations when deploying FTTH?
• How to start, and what to be cautious about?
• What factors influence deployment costs, and how badly?
• The ideal (design) and the real (deployment)
• How to save on costs during rollout?

Session 4: Business challenges and regulatory implications of FTTx

• Choosing your market and your services
• Typical business setups for FTTH
• Main business practices for FTTH
• How to set the price of a service?
• What makes or breaks the business case of an FTTH network?
• Verifying the business case of an FTTH network
• How regulation may affect FTTH endeavours?

Who should attend?

The workshop is designed to bring to the fore the main issues surrounding the development of an FTTH network from its inception to its commercialization. As such, professionals with a commercial, strategic or planning capacity in an existing or planned FTTH project will benefit from it. Also, public authorities that wish to connect their communities to the digital economy as well as public utilities that aim at expanding their product portfolio to broadband access will benefit from the information and insight provided in this workshop.

Workshop objectives

The workshop will provide a complete overview of the aspects that relate to designing, building and marketing an FTTH network. It will provide more detailed information on major considerations of constructing and managing an FTTH network. The workshop will have a balanced focus between the technical and the business issues of making the case of FTTH.

While the FTTH design follows standard practices, the rollout circumstances are hard to predict since they are greatly dependent to local conditions. Participants of the workshop will learn how to assess and evaluate the major factors affecting the costs and consecutively profits that could make or break the business case of an FTTH network.

The workshop will engage participants with Q&A and actual figures and will address the issues at hand by linking the discussions to examples from real and modeled situations. It will also discuss best practices that are followed by FTTH providers internationally.

Trainer profile

Costas Troulos has been directly involved in the first open access FTTx deployment in Greece where he designed and oversaw constructions of several municipal open access networks across the country. His research focuses on NGA networks and electronic services delivery, contributing to the international debates surrounding (a) the challenges of traditional electronic services business models, and (b) the role of the public sector in supporting broadband infrastructures development, a topic highly visible in contemporary broadband development agendas.

Before joining Diffraction Analysis, Troulos worked as an independent business and strategy consultant for public institutions and private enterprises in IT and telecoms. Prior to that he was the Technical Director of Vivodi Telecommunications, a pioneer Greek broadband provider with a series of significant firsts, such as first full-unbundled DSL and first IP telephony service. Under this capacity he oversaw both the Technology and Information Offices of the company. Troulos started his career and a network engineer and for years he carried out complex and demanding network implementation projects, from small businesses to large organizations.

He is an Electrical and Computer engineer with an MBA in entrepreneurship from the Louisville University. He is also completing a PhD on public strategies for broadband development.

Troulos lives in Greece, blogs at Broadbandprime and tracks NGA developments with a particular interest in public intervention, telecoms regulation and socio-economic impacts of NGANs. He also tweets under the handle @ktroulos.