Home Networks and Internet Appliances Shape Service Provider Access Architectures

Introduction In recent years telecommunications literature has spoken of a coming age of " free " bandwidth. Another common discussion concerns the amount of intelligence that will evolve " within " the network vs. " outside " the network, i.e., in customer-owned equipment. Bandwidth has been increasing in such dramatic fashion in the backbone network that it is becoming negligible in end-to-end network architecture cost models. However, bandwidth has been anything but free in the public access network. This continues to be the case, but now a fundamental shift is finally arriving. Due to the advent of new access technologies and multiple competing service providers, access bandwidth will increase dramatically, by as much as two orders of magnitude. Additionally, this bandwidth will become universally digital in format. Network elements will become increasingly intelligent and software-based, supporting ever more sophisticated services and applications which users can subscribe to with the click of a mouse. Despite this tremendous variety and power of new network-based services, the customer will not be totally dependent on the network. Rather, the customer's premises will also become dramatically more sophisticated to the point where, even in a residence, it will become a stand-alone, intelligent, broadband digital network in its own right. Premises Technology Trends Important to Network Service Providers Simple home networks in some form interconnect the growing base of computers, audio/video equipment and security systems in over 20% of U.S. households. These networks are primarily low speed and analog in their current capabilities. But in the near future the advance of digital technology into consumer electronics will have a major impact on the home, resulting in both sophisticated new consumer devices and the emergence of advanced premises networks to interconnect these devices locally. The advent of local high-speed digital networks along with sophisticated protocols capable of supporting both isochronous and asynchronous data represents a major opportunity, or conversely a competitive threat, to network service providers. As connectivity, bandwidth and processing power become more readily available, the possibilities to create exciting new network-based services expand. Spurred by trends in deregulation and competition, a robust software industry will emerge to create middleware and applications. This model effectively exists today for the Internet, and has led to rapid creation of new and highly successful offerings such as Web browsers, search engines, streaming audio, etc. Additionally, a new generation of " Internet appliances " optimized for specific network-based applications is …