Fibra - large network lean operation

The City network of Fibra spans Mälardalen region located about 100km west of Sweden's capital Stockholm. Fibra is the largest regional city network in Sweden with over 90,000 active ports and one of the top city networks of the world.

The history of Fibra dates back already to 1999 when it started in the city of Västerås, but Waystream has been part of the journey for over 15 years.  The network is operated as open access which means that its subscribers a free choice of Internet, Telephony and TV services from many different service providers. Over 110 different service offerings are currently available in the network.

Operating a widely geographically distributed network with hundreds of nodes, thousands of switches and a mix of country-side and city neighborhoods have many challenges. When combined with the need to stay lean and efficient the solution becomes a high level of automation and a reliable and easy to operate solution for the network. That means Waystream.

For Fibra focus on operational costs have been crucial to be EBITDA positive. At the same time delivering services of high quality is necessary to attract subscribers and spark the interest of service providers. Today all Swedish national and several local service providers offer their services in Fibra's network. In addition the operational efficiency and commercial success of the network became apparent for the surrounding cities, which helped them to take the decision to join Fibra, expanding the network to now cover the entire region.

To minimize the operational costs Fibra has deployed a solution that automatically updates the network to reflect each subscribers choice of services as they happen. In addition the network architecture is designed to be reliable, scalable and easy to operate. This means that the solution is routed all the way to the access. The routed architecture enables high availability through redundant connections, minimizing downtime even in rural areas when fiber cuts happen. In addition, by working with routing the menace of VLAN numbering and MAC-address scaling otherwise affecting large networks can be avoided. Troubleshooting the network is much easier, saving time for the network operations team and improving subscriber satisfaction with services.

The network uses Waystream ASR 6000 access switches. Each switch acts as a BNG, controlling services directly in the access. The onboard network processor of the ASR 6000 provides unique capabilities to control traffic and give subscribers the ultimate user experience. At the same time, the network is capable to carry business services including layer 2 connectivity between ports in the network.

Fibra is now operating the network on the third generation of Waystream access switches and Fibra's success has received international attention and awards. Fibra has been the pioneers of what today is a well-established open-access concept throughout Sweden, showing that FTTH deployment can be done cost effectively in urban and rural areas with a small and efficient team that delivers high quality of services to all connected subscribers.