It is widely recognized that the ability to deploy ubiquitous, robust, broadband access services to the majority of U.S. households is vital to the economic prosperity, vibrant civil society, and homeland security of the country. This project will provide the technical foundation to help shrink the gap between the U.S. and some Asian and European countries on delivering broadband access, and help bridge the ‘digital divide’ within the U.S. In particular, increasing the data rate of the existing copper plant and the twisted pair cables can avoid substantial cost when bringing new services to all communities, including rural and less-privileged areas, thus facilitating equity of broadband information access in this country.

Access networks are often the rate-reach-reliability-quality bottleneck of end-to-end connections in wide area networks. Realizing the vision of truly broadband and ubiquitous access to almost everyone in the U.S. is a formidable task, with many significant technical and socio-economic challenges. Although the fiber-to-the-home solutions promise to provide broadband delivery, the labor costs associated with fiber installation need to be divided over the number of customers served by the fiber. Such cost becomes increasingly expensive as the number of customers served decreases, which happens when fiber gets closer and closer to the customer, especially in suburban areas. That last segment labor cost of deployment is the dominant economic limitation in broadband access, especially given the population density in established suburban neighborhoods in U.S.

We propose to leverage the installed copper plant, which is by far the most ubiquitous access network in the U.S. The overall solution is a hybrid fiber/DSL deployment where fiber is pushed into the access network but copper takes over the last mile, thereby utilizing the best of ubiquity, broadband, reliability, and economic viability. Can substantially higher data rate and application throughput be attained over DSL through research innovations? We believe the answer is definitely positive. To achieve data rates significantly higher than the current levels on low-twist unshielded telephone wires demands thinking about transmission on copper wires in a new way. This project combines innovative optimization and signal processing techniques with novel network architectures and protocols, as well as an integrated plane of real-time control, computation, data collection, and auto-configuration, to enable an access infrastructure that is both broadband and ubiquitous.

This proposal has major activities integrating research with education, including the unique contribution of Fraser Research Institute Summer Program. It also facilitates close collaboration with industry in analyzing highly valuable empirical data and validating research results through extensive lab tests and even field trials. Through dissemination activities, transfer of knowledge, and contribution to standardization, this project ensures that the proposed new intellectual foundation of ubiquitous broadband access will make visible impacts to the society.