We’ve all been impressed when watching the 1080p high definition TV standard.
Well hang on to your hats, there is bigger and better coming!
The new 4k standard (some 4.000 vertical lines) has hit the market, as displayed by this photo courtesy of LG.
“Who needs it?” I can hear people ask. Well the way technology is going, we will no doubt end up seeing a whole wall in our lounge or bedroom become a TV screen.
No doubt initial 4k programming will arrive via DVD, however sooner or later people will want to broadcast and/or download programming in this new format.
On top of this, there are other standards in the pipeline, notably 8k or 8 times the definition of current HD programming.
As both Australia and New Zealand move towards a national fibre-optics based network, the transmission of these new formats will create bottlenecks if broadcast as IP packets over the data fibre channel.
Which brings me back to the subject of RF Overlay. This inexpensive but optional system for fibre networks injects a third light wavelength on to the fibre, totally separate from the data up and downlinks. All broadcast TV channels, existing and future, in whatever digital standard are “off-loaded” from the busy data channel and free up tens, possibly hundreds of Mbps of bandwidth.
IP-centric engineers poo-haa RF Overlay as being “old” technology, akin to analogue transmissions and no longer viable in today’s ultra-fast future networks.
This is so wrong! The technology has evolved greatly in the last year or so.
RF bandwidth of up to 5.5 Ghz is now available over the 1550 nm light carrier wavelength. This of course can carry thousands of simultaneously available broadcast TV channels, at whatever current or future definition is available.
It does not replace, in fact it is totally compatible with IPTV, which can still be used for video on demand etc.
Consequently I would sincerely request that any designers of new generation data netorks seriously consider RF Overlay as a fast, cheap, proven adjunct to an IP only system.
Once you have the RF channel, you can easily and cheaply add new programming such as regional and special interest channels.
New Caledonia is an interesting, in fact fascinating place. I had the opportunity to live and work there for many years.
Following the recent construction of two new processing plants, New Caledonia is now the second biggest producer of Nickel metal in the world, after Russia.
The main island lies just two hours flying time North-East of Brisbane, and is approximately the same size and shape as Taiwan. Population is only some 200.000, and in spite of the open-cut nickel mines here and there, the scenery, coral reefs, flora and fauna are unique and attractive. It is a French overseas territory, and French is the main language spoken there.
Telecommunications are handled by the “Office des Postes et Télécommunications”, a wholly-owned local government entity. Internet access is provided by a combination of satellite links and now a submarine cable linking into Australia’s East coast.
Cell phones are extremely popular in the country and a new G3 network has just been enabled. A couple of Apple stores in the capital city, Nouméa are doing brisk trade.
A national FTTH network is planned for New Caledonia and tenders are being prepared.
During my last visit there I was invited to address a group of OPT engineers on progress in Australia and New Zealand with their respective NBN and UFB FTTH projects.
The group was interested in learning how the two projects had been conceived, funded and will be ultimately managed.
The two hour session included a long Q&A.
The meeting was hosted by my old I.T. company “Pacifique Technologie”, now renamed Office Plus. Obviously they hope to bid for the appropriate part of the FTTH tenders once released.
How much data can the world create?
As you send an email, or update your website, do you ever wonder what volume of binary data is actually being created on earth?
This year, the world will generate 1.7 Zettabytes of data.
What the heck is a zettabyte?
Well 1000 Gigabytes of data equals a Terabyte, 1000 Tb = 1 Petabyte, 1000 Pb = 1 Exabyte and 1000 Eb = 1 Zettabyte. The mind boggles!
Australian NBN Equipment Tenders
Just a short word of congratulations to Madison Technologies in Australia for winning a sizeable equipment contract recently from NBN Co.
Madison are also Australian distributors for BKtel GmbH a leading developer and manufacturer of specialised FTTH equipment in Germany. For some years now I have had the pleasure of working with BKtel as their factory representative in Australia and New Zealand.
NASA moves from Radio to Laser Light for data transmission.
We have often heard the argument that FTTH is really not needed now that G3 and G4 wireless technology is available. I’m sure I’ve mentioned previously that any radio (wireless) data transmission system will NEVER HAVE the bandwidth of a fibre network. The reason is simple. The amount of information you can modulate onto a given carrier frequency has finite limitations. The higher the carrier frequency, the more modulation you can impress on the carrier. With fibre, the carrier is of course light, not a radio wave. The frequency (or wavelength) of light is almost unimaginably higher than the highest frequency radio carriers available for use.
Today I picked up this very interesting article “NASA to demonstrate Laser beam communications system“. Although it describes communications in space, the principle remains the same. NASA has just run out of bandwidth using wireless and will now adopt light as the communications carrier.
Communications in Outback Australia
I’ve been fortunate to have travelled to many countries during my life, but I still continue to enjoy exploring the great Australian outback in my trusty Jeep Cherokee.
Not so long ago I drove from my home on the Gold Coast out to the cotton country in West Queensland, down to Bourke, then Broken Hill, and across to the East coast following the Murray River.
There are smallish towns along the way that always have an interesting history. One also always finds an amazing sense of humour amongst the locals.
I found this makeshift telephone booth in the middle of a quite up-market caravan park somewhere way out in Western New South Wales.
I can’t help feeling that the shack may have been a toilet in a past life, something we call a “dunnny” in Australian argot.
But now it hosts a coin-in-the-slot Telstra telephone.
Fibre-to-the-TV
I receive regular news from the three main FTTH Councils: Asia-Pacific, USA and Europe.
Right now, I must say that from my point of view the European Council provides the most interesting and focussed information.
FTTH is an excellent way of distributing television programming, and there are currently two technologies commonly used to deliver TV channels over fibre.
IPTV or Internet Protocol Television takes a television program or channel and converts the audio/video components into IP packets which are then transmitted over the fibre data link. These packets are interspersed with all the other data traffic: browsing, data downloads and uploads, all the usual internet stuff. But the TV signals require quite large amounts of bandwidth, particularly as we move into HD or high definition images. Thus IPTV can cause bottlenecks on the data link. The second technology, called RF Overlay, can allow broadcasting of hundreds of TV channels without affecting the data throughput. This is done by adding a third lambda or light wavelength to the two existing ones. This third light “colour” is only used for transmitting TV channels and consequently does not “hog” the data channels.
If a country has an established collection of TV channels (including terrestrial free-to-air and satellite pay TV) it is extremely simple to distribute these over the third wavelength without any modification or processing. Conversion to IP however does require equipment and cost that has to be considered.
For those interested, further information is available on my website: www.onefibre.com.
A recent white paper describes an invention in the USA which is touted to increase greatly the bandwidth availability of wireless internet access.
DiDo stands for “distributed input, distributed output”. The news was immediately grabbed by the media here in Australia, saying that it made the NBN (National Broadband Network) project redundant and a waste of taxpayer money.
I have always defended the “mainly” fibre optic networks in both Australia and New Zealand, as no other solution provides anywhere near the current and future bandwidth of fibre.
The whitepaper itself can be found at: http://www.rearden.com/DIDO/DIDO_White_Paper_110727.pdf
There is a pretty well-proven theorem of physics called the Shannon-Hartly Theorem. and in my own field of work, the amount of binary data one can impinge in a given available bandwidth is around 6 to 8 bits per Hertz. This gradually improves with the development of modulation techniques, but nobody sees a radical leap possible.
What does emerge is that the system relies on a network of “relay” stations which would process the wireless data requests and responses. I found it a fascinating subject to study, but is it maybe “snake oil” as is suggested?
Australia does have an extensive cable TV network, which has obviously offered fast internet access packaged with the Foxtel Pay TV programs. A good friend of mine lives close by me in a high-rise apartment building. He has been very happy with his service, often seeing download speeds of 20Mbps. It seems almost a shame and a waste of good infrastructure to shut down this service, but as the linked article above explains, it’s all part of the NBN legislation between the Australian Government and the huge local telco Telstra.
Most people think of Australia as a huge vast land of cattle farms and the mining industry. However there is a lot of very unique research going on in the medical and other fields. This development from Sydney University could have major ramifications. Few people know that the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation) invented WiFi. They were originally pretty slack in following through on their patents, but I believe now that they have a steady income from this now quite ubiquitous invention.
Municipal Councils now marketing NBN
As the NBN gradually spreads around Australia, there is a need to encourage people to develop applications and take a closer interest in the new broadband network. I live on the Gold Coast when in Australia and three surrounding Municipal Councils have joined forces to produce and distribute the publication “Broadband Today”. It is a good initiative, since each area of Australia has its unique character and lifestyle.
Crossing the Tasman
I will be back in New Zealand next week, and am always pleased to have any contacts or comments from my readers. The best contact initially is my email:
I sincerely regret missing the FTTH Asia-Pacific Council conference in Delhi and CommunicAsia in Singapore recently due to medical treatment. I’m now looking forward to being able to travel again and meeting our many readers and contacts at these events. The OSP Conference (Outside Plant) in Cincinatti 12-14 September and the FTTH Council USA Conference in Orlando 27-30 September 2011 beckon. Let me know if you plan to attend either.
I have re-joined the U.S. FTTH Council. As a consultant I can enjoy pretty much full benefits for the princely sum of US$250 a year. The cheapest “commercial” membership with the Asia-Pacific Council is still US$3000 a year. I have been very critical of the Asia-Pacific board not opening membership to SMEs, consultants and interested individuals at an affordable price. They have promised action on this.
Those of you who follow Australian politics and affairs know that the present Labour Government is holding on to power thanks to a few independent parliamentarians who have (for the moment) sided with Labour policy.
The NBN (National Broadband Network) was for a long time the major target for attack from the right-wing coalition. The Liberals announced that they would simply kill the project if they got back into power. Lately however the NBN criticism has been largely overshadowed by the Labour-sponsored Carbon Tax project. Yesterday we had a very officious and serious “compulsory viewing” (ie on all TV channels) presentation by both the Prime Minister, then by the opposition shadow Prime Minister as to the good sense (or the wasteful inutility) of the proposed Carbon Tax.
While this is going on, NBN quietly forges ahead and will probably have reached critical mass well before the Government changes.
Installing a country-wide fibre-based network certainly will require lots of human skill and effort. This will apply even more so in New Zealand where so many skilled workers are fleeing to work in Australia where wages are higher.
Here is an interesting short article on the projected costs of bringing fibre to homes. Of course each country has its particularities and these costs could vary in other markets. Still, it’s good to have the cross-section.
As the Kiwi fibre network gets underway, the ISPs are starting to come out with new plans at retail level. Data caps are of course a pain, made perhaps necessary by the lack of competition on overseas data transfer costs: the country only has one marine cable to the outside world. However, for the moment at least, a Terabyte a month should satisfy most data appetites!
Having been involved in lighting fibre for some years now, it was interesting to find myself on the receiving end.
After cancer surgery, I am in the middle of 25 sessions of radiotherapy. Another massive and impressive machine that carefully focuses a strong photon beam on to the affected area from several directions, hopefully destroying the remaining cancer cells.
At each session it is vitally important that your body is exactly in the same position. The very first session sees you receive three small tattoos, one on the chest, and one on each side of the chest. Then at each ensuing session, these small tattoo marks are aligned with the green fibre emitted cross-hairs you can see in the picture. Then the radiation therapy can begin.
I am always curious about new technologies, so I quizzed the medical staff and asked to see the remote control station where all the machine adjustments and images are processed. If you are interested in the physics behind the linear accelerator, there is an excellent and understandable article at:
We still have only a very vague idea of the maximum data transmission speed over fibre. Right now we are playing with speeds of 1 to 10 Gbps in normal FTTH systems. In Germany a few days ago (in collaboration with a British University) the data speed record was broken again.
Bear in mind that this is for a single wavelength over a single fibre and over a distance of 50 Km.
The new record is 26 Tbps (tera bits per second). Just amazing! This just reinforces the fact that once a fibre network is in place, there is no known limit to the bandwidth or data transmission speed that can be sent over it. Add multiple wavelengths, and you have a mind-boggling potential bandwidth!
Once the fibre network is in place, one only needs to swap out the electronics at each end to increase the data transmission rate. This could go on for the foreseeable future!
I apologise to my readers for my absence of several weeks. Landing in hospital for major surgery isn’t much fun, but it is great to be back at work again.
Here are a few fibre-related items that I hope you find interesting:
PON Manufacturers finding it Tough
Some five years ago I completed a one week engineering course with Alloptic Inc at their Livermore, California headquarters. At the end of the course, their very kind CEO Ric Johnson took me for a drive to the Napa Valley and pointed out the area where their main competitor was located. This was a company called Wave 7 and both were competing for the early FTTH business in the USA and beyond.
I subsequently learned that Wave 7 had been bought out by a Canadian company called Enablence. To their credit, Enablence did make their presence known in both Australia and New Zealand. Alloptic had placed their bets on the GEPON standard, which lost favour over time to GPON, at least in our part of the world. Enablence offered both GEPON and GPON solutions and had started making good commercial inroads in several countries outside of the USA and Canada.
Then recently I stumbled over a report “Enablence leaving FTTH Market” . I was quite amazed, as I’d recently had technical and commercial dealings with them. And although I’d had no recent contact with Alloptic, I wondered how they were going. When I checked out “www.alloptic.com” , I got a broken link message. I fear that they also are in trouble, if not closed. No amount of Googling brings any recent news of my old mentor!
Mind you, there are plenty of other PON suppliers out there: Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Ericsson, to name just a few. But it does show that the PON manufacturing business is no gold mine.
Feedback: My good friend Sanjay Gupta from Enablence asked me to confirm that the Trident 7 range of products will still be available and fully supported. Enablence is seeking to divest the division, not shut it down.
I shuttle frequently between Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand has only one marine data cable linking it to the outside world. The owners of this cable are of course in a monopoly situation and data charges reflect that. Nobody seemed to want to invest in a second cable to provide competition and of course, redundancy. Then a few successful business guys here in New Zealand decided to take the risk, as it is a huge investment. They are not, as you would imagine, from the computer or telecommunications world, but just successful businessmen in various fields. This article confirms that the project is progressing. Good fortune to Pacific Fibre!
Those of us who live in Australia know Testra oh so well! Telstra is the old monopoly Telecom company that has never seemingly been able to adapt to competition demanded by both our Government and our current economic style.
Without exaggeration, Telstra is despised by many Australian clients and “ex-clients” who manage to break the bond. Their client support is hideously complex and inefficient, they have farmed out most of their help-desk functions overseas, currently to the Philippines. When you call about a problem, you get this quasi-American accent asking how they can help you, but they are usually ineffective, even clueless. Within my own family and very close friends, we have menaced Testra with formal complaints to the Telco ombudsman after being without services for weeks at a time, without any resolution. You can literally spend hours on the phone getting kicked from one department to another, just totally inept and frustrating.
Telstra has a little brother called TelstraClear here in New Zealand. To get into the Kiwi market, they bought a company called Clear Communications, who owned New Zealand’s only two cable TV/data networks, located in Wellington and Christchurch. To their defense, they have apparently well maintained these small networks, and are updating to DOCSIS3 cable software (which combines fibre within part of the network), and which will extend the useful life of their networks for a few more years.
But honestly, to attack the New Zealand Government (via Crown Fibre Holdings, which is in a way New Zealand’s NBN Co), is very remiss indeed. Please read the article via the header link above. As always your comments and feedback are welcome!
Feedback: I’m told I have over-simplified the description of DOCSIS3, that there are hardware and software distinctions involved concerning return path etc.
IPTV versus RF over fibre
Again and again I encounter a kind of defacto conclusion that TV will naturally be delivered as IP packets over fibre on the downstream data wavelength. IP-centric engineers simply conclude that this is the right way to deliver broadcast TV programming.
The biggest single bandwidth hog is TV broadcasting. Its data bandwidth requirement is massive compared to almost all other applications.
There is a better, easier, cheaper and ITU-standard way of delivering all broadcast TV and Radio channels over fibre, and that is as native RF (Radio Frequency) on a third fibre wavelength of 1550 nm (nanometres).
This offloads the equivalent of several Gbps from the data channel and reduces quite massively the data network infrastructure capacity and cost.
Some people say “RF is old technology, it’s outdated, everything has to be IP today”.
Well this just displays their lack of any real comprehension concerning this excellent alternative to deliver broadcast TV over fibre.
And it’s not surprising that certain well-known PON vendors overtly, often viciously attack RF over Fibre. Why? Because they have no RF product to offer clients, and also by evincing RF, they will sell a lot more equipment to cope with the incredibly increased bandwidth demands over the data link. The data switching capacity of the delivered network must be much more powerful to provide the QOS (quality of service) that streaming HDTV requires.
There is a new “well advanced” super HD standard in the making, it has 4000 lines of horizontal resolution. What a magnificent picture, but what a huge bandwidth this is going to need as IPTV!
RF overlay TV over fibre (not to be confused with RFoG, the cable DOCSIS3 standard), is a brilliant low cost way of delivering broadcast TV on FTTH (be it SD, HD, 3D, “super” HD) without compromising the throughput of the fibre data link.
I have made a number of presentations on this subject during FTTH conferences, I’d be happy to send more information should you be interested.
By all means. Please copy edit them into better English if you like to quote from my e-mail.
For your reference here’s the recent records of the earthquakes near Sendai area;
- 1793.02.17 (8.2 in Richter scale estimated … I don’t know how the experts estimate it)
- 1835.07.20 (7.3 estimated)
- 1861.10.21 (7.4 estimated)
- 1897.02.20 (7.4 estimated)
- 1936.11.03 (7.4)
- 1978.06.12 (7.4)
The big earthquake comes every 37.1 years in average to the area. The earthquake with less than 7 in Richter scale is peanuts for them. However the tunami they had this time was exceptional. Some place had a breakwater with 10m hight, but was useless. In some places the water reached 20m above sea level. It was really exceptional. Also the big shake in Fukushima where Tokyo Electric Power Company has their nuclear power plant was also exceptional.
I was surprised and pleased to receive some comments back today from my FTTH Council friend Katsu-san who is involved with FTTH installations for Sumitomo Electric in Japan. His email is very interesting from several aspects.
I quote:
Dear John,
Thank you for the dispatch regarding the fibre optics and earthquakes.
I had lived in Sendai before and had experienced the earthquake measuring 7.2 Richter scale in 2003. It was a big shake, but luckily we had no damage by Tsunami. Maybe because the epicentre was close to the land. No man died, one house burned by fire. City tube operates without stopping services though they reduced the number of trains and operation speed.
The area is historically very famous for big earthquakes and tsunamis. They have them every 40 years in average for hundreds years. Many records are kept about the damage but this is the biggest one ever for 1,000 years. They are the most experienced citizens against the earthquake even in Japan. I’m sure nearly 100% of the toll will be explained by tsunami, not by the collapse of the buildings by shakes.
By the way allow me to express my comments on your article. Please note that it’s my personal opinion.
1./ Is the BIF strong against the risk of breakage?
I’m not sure about that. ITU-T and IEC specify BIF to be insensitive in terms of the bending induced optical loss (attenuation), however they didn’t specify anything about the strength. For our part (in case of Sumitomo) we apply higher proof stress level than the criteria specified in ITU-T (0.69 GPa), however we do it with our own policy.
2./ Underground or Aerial?
I’m not sure which is more reliable when the earthquake comes. The only damaged cable we had in 2003 in Sendai was underground cable because of the shift.
3./ Battery backup
I remembered you have mentioned about it before. We don’t have any battery backup on ONU in premises in Japan. Do I surprise you? I know it was highly controversial when NTT decided which way they go. Eventually they chose no-battery-back-up policy to make the system simple and cheaper. I couldn’t use the Internet for a couple of hours after the earthquake because of the power outage for a couple of hours. It was inconvenient but was not critical. It has recovered soon. The most serious issue was and still is the lack of capacity in wireless. In the situation of emergency mobile is quite useless.
It’s nearly the time for the annoying “planned power outage” of the day. I’m not sure if they really shut down the supply, but I’d better shut down my PC just in case.
Best regards,
Wataru Katsurashima (Katsu)
Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd
After the terrible events in Christchurch, and now Honshu in Japan, Peter Griffin suggested that I may like to comment on the ability of fibre to withstand such traumas.
The actual glass part of the fibre is quite fragile and delicate. However the fibre “light conductor” core is always sheathed in variety of protective coatings, from simple plastic to modern materials like Kevlar.
Fibre does enjoy the same tensile strength as steel of the same diameter. When covered by a protective jacket or armor, fibre can be treated fairly roughly without damage. Fibre is more resistant to temperature extremes and corrosion than alternative cable systems (copper, coaxial cable etc).
Recent developments have seen “bend insensitive” fibre emerge, which greatly reduces the risk of breakage and signal attenuation when fibre is bent, even to small radiuses.
Fibre rarely exists commercially as a single fibre. Fibre “bundles” contain dozens, often hundreds of single fibres in a cable. Such cables carry an incredible amount of bandwidth, tens of thousands of phone calls, hundreds of Gigabits per second of data. Breakage of this cable due to a natural catastrophe, or human error can create a massive loss of communications. We have seen this a couple of times in New Zealand when main “North-South” fibre trunks were broken, causing important internet and phone outages until the fibre links were repaired.
The fibre terrestrial links can travel either underground in ducts or trenches, or “aerial” attached to existing power or telephone poles. One can easily imagine the comparative survival rates of the two systems in the case of an earthquake or tsunami. It has been shown that aerial deployment costs on average four times less than going underground.
Watching the horrific tsunami damage around Sendai this weekend I’d suggest that any aerial fibre installations would be wiped out in those areas.
Underground fibre runs should have a much higher survival rate as no power nor active electronics are generally used between “headends”, or relay sites. Also the fibre carries no electrical power and can be saturated with water, mud etc without any negative effect. These networks may go down, due to power outages, damaged headend electronics etc, but the underground fibre network itself has a good chance of remaining intact, thus easier to get back online again.
Two undersea fibre cables were damaged in the Sendai area. Not surprising when we read that the Island of Honshu has moved 2.4 metres during the quake.
So we might conclude that fibre offers no major advantages in natural disasters.
I think that what really saves us these days is the development of the Internet Protocol (IP) and other recent data transmission methods. Why? Because these ways of sending data are not reliant on a fixed point-to-point route, but can and will find an alternate route to the destination. The secret of high-availability data communications today is redundancy and alternate network paths. As we increase the number and cover of our high-speed fibre networks, the assurance we gain is to be able to get IP packets through over the cobweb of multiple paths available to the users.
Broken fibre links can be, up to a point, “self-healing” by finding an alternate traffic path. Also the companies operating the networks can also manually re-route traffic around a broken link.
So as new fibre networks are developed and commissioned, the reliability of our World-wide WAN (wide area network) will continue to get better and better.
The views expressed on this blog are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the owners of SciBlogs.co.nz, the Science Media Centre or the Royal Society of New Zealand