In practice, a fiber network has no limitations in transmission distance, and therefore, no connection rooms, switches and panels are needed on every floor or every building. Establishing space for node rooms, equipment, cross-connection panels and switches at each level is a significant cost, often up to 70% of the total cost of the network. In the standards, this is known as centralized fiber architecture. The modem connects to a network switch which connects each remote point (rooms, floors, distributed network switches, etc. (FOA) was founded in 1995 to help develop the workforce to build the fiber optic networks to support a rapid expansion in communications and the Internet.
