Techno-economic study of the value of high stimulated Brillouin scattering threshold single-mode fiber utilization in fiber-to-the-home access networks Mark D. Vaughn, A. Boh Ruffin, Andrey Kobyakov, Andrew Woodfin, Claudio Mazzali, Robert Whitman, Aleksandra Boskovic, and Richard E. Wagner Corning Incorporated, Corning, New York VaughnMD@corning.com David Kozischek and David Meis Corning Cable Systems, Hickory, North Carolina david.kozischek@corning.com RECEIVED 19 J ULY 2005; REVISED 12 NOVEMBER 2005; ACCEPTED 17 NOVEMBER 2005; PUBLISHED 04 JANUARY 2006 Cost modeling reveals that deployment of fibers with a high stimulated Brillouin scattering threshold in fiber-to-the-home access networks can reduce material and labor expenditures by more than 20%. Theory and measurements of the high stimulated Brillouin scattering fiber are presented to demonstrate its employability. © 2006 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 060.0060, 060.4250. 1. Introduction In the wake of (and even during) the Telecom Winter that gripped the world at the dawn of the new millennium, optical network traffic demands have continued to grow. In access, this growth has been primarily due to the growth of broadband. At the end of 2001, 14% of all active users in the United States (13.9 million) accessed the Internet via broadband technol- ogy (cable modem and DSL). (See Ref. [1] to learn how to access the Nielsen’s Netratings database.) By December 2004, the fraction of broadband users had grown to nearly 40% (50.4 million) [1]. As more and more users access the Internet with faster connections, the average U.S. Internet connection speed continues to climb. The average connection speed grew an average of 46% per year between 2001 and 2004. Advancing technology, prof- itable services, and regulation are a few of the key drivers of broadband service provision in access networks [2]. Fiber-based solutions, such as fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband passive optical networks (BPONs) and Ethernet passive optical networks (EPONs) in ac- cess are an attractive means by which to deliver voice service, Internet access, and video distribution together with unprecedented quality of service (QoS) [3]. This paper will focus on the BPON. In addition to delivering reliable, high-quality services, access network solutions must be cost-effective. A number of factors impinge upon the cost and performance of BPONs. These include fiber and component losses, receiver sensitivities, and fiber nonlinearities. A nonlinearity of particular effect is stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). In this paper, we present a discussion of the comparative costs of building a standard BPON and a BPON © 2006 Optical Society of America JON 8212 January 2006 / Vol. 5, No. 1 / JOURNAL OF OPTICAL NETWORKING 40