The metro network plays a key role in enabling residential, business and mobile users to access any broadband service anywhere, while delivering flexibility and efficiency for the network operator.

Metro networks are a crucial part of the Full Service Broadband Architecture – carrying mobile, business and residential services in a wide variety of urban and rural geographic areas.

In order to succeed, metro networks face three primary challenges:  They must be convergent, flexible and have a low cost of ownership.

The metro network should be able to support large numbers of varied services and be flexible enough to handle future fluctuations in usage and traffic – all on a single converged network.  This will significantly reduce capital expenditure compared to service-specific delivery networks.

The same metro architecture must be adaptable for geographic reach, varying usage and the unpredictable adoption of new services and bandwidth. This demands scalability in transport and switching with the optimized location of single, multiple or distributed service nodes.

Despite potential large distances and a varied service mix, the metro network can achieve low cost of ownership by using carrier-grade equipment in a resilient network design with automation and good management tools. The key carrier-grade metro technologies are Ethernet, MPLS and OTN/WDM.

If it is able to meet these three challenges, the metro network is integral in expanding the ability of users of all types to access broadband services anywhere at anytime.  It also allows operators more flexibility and enables new services and customer types to be added more cost-effectively.