Nowadays, the broadband residential access infrastructure remains one of the major research areas for NGN (next generation network). Apart from popular ADSL (asymmetrical digital subscriber loop), HFC (hybrid fiber-coax) and APON (ATM passive optical network), academic communities and industry are increasingly showing great concern about Ethernet technique in the subscriber access network. This paper investigates the substantial differences among the generic broadband residential access techniques and allows a comprehensive understanding of them. The authors survey the generic broadband residential access techniques and present a comparative study on the emerging residential Ethernet-based access solutions with the ADSL, HFC, and APON techniques based on multiplex methods and transport technologies in terms of network architecture, service and traffic models, and QoS (quality of service) provisioning. The comparative study is of benefit to research and implementation of the future broadband residential access infrastructure.