Lots of press here today in New Zealand on this project.
I really have to take my hat off to the promoters and backers: all solid and proven business and technical people in this country.
Only having a single undersea data cable to the outside world is like inviting Murphy to the ball.
Without raising the question of monopoly pricing….
It is wonderfully timely and valid project.
The Auckland-California link will pass many Pacific Island countries which may be interested in joining the party. Pacific Fibre have stated that they will offer connectivity to the island countries near the cable path.
I wish the project well, and have offered my cooperative assistance, having worked in IT for years in New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tahiti…. and still maintain contacts there.
Posts Tagged ftth
Pacific Fibre undersea cable connection Mar 11
No CommentsFTTH, emerging from holiday lull Feb 25
No CommentsI’ve been at my Gold Coast (Australia) home for the last month, still watching closely what is happening in the area’s FTTH projects. The brief answer: NOT MUCH! Well at least visibly.
Both Australia and New Zealand are still finding their way with their National Fibre-Optics networks; organising, hiring people, refining their business plans.
During our traditional holiday time, the FTTH Council in Europe has held its annual conference.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting their current President Karel Helsen, who made the following remarks in the last day or so:
The snow and recent freezing weather in northern Europe brought a substantial increase in teleworking – but not everyone enjoyed the same broadband speeds.
In the Netherlands, for example, users accessed speeds typically double those available in the UK, which has gone from being a leader in first-generation broadband, to finding itself in danger of being left behind.
In the Council’s opinion, governments have an important role to play to facilitate the acceleration of deployment of fibre networks. They need to develop clear policies and regulation to encourage the market to invest in new infrastructure, and be prepared to step in when there is a clear market failure.
Telecoms operators recognise that a fibre network is more reliable, easier to manage and cheaper to run than the existing copper-based telephone infrastructure.
US operator Verizon, for example, claims a 60 per cent reduction in operational expenditure thanks to its roll out of FiOS, its bundled communications service which is expected to be profitable this year and now supplies more than 12m homes.
In the FTTH Council’s view, money should not be spent on short-term fixes that will be obsolete in a few years. Fibre-to-the-home is often described as future proof – optical fibre has virtually unlimited capacity both to and from the user, so bandwidth upgrades only require changes to the equipment on the ends of the link.
Build the network once; enjoy it for the next 50 years and beyond – why settle for anything less?
Good thinking Karel, but back to our neck of the woods. Things are really starting to hot up in Australia, particularly between the NBN Co and Telstra. Recent comments:
NBN Co could retail services
The Federal Government has left the door open for the National Broadband Network Company to supply services directly to some users, going against its stated aim that the company would only provide wholesale services.
This is a very interesting twist, and I wonder how New Zealand will continue their policy of simple fibre backbone service, particularly in light of Telecom NZ’s recent dramas with their new XT network outages. Yes mobile 3G networks are not FTTH, but design and implementation competence is so important.
As our new business year kicks in after the holiday break, I think we are in for some very interesting happenings with the national fibre networks in both Australia and New Zealand.
Stay tuned!
FTTH (Fibre to the Home), what’s happening? Feb 09
No CommentsHonestly the last few months have been void of interesting information in both Australia and New Zealand.
Both NBN Co in Australia and Crown Fibre Holdings in NZ have been hiring people, getting themselves organised, but nothing much else to report.
I just read this following interesting article…
Otherwise not much else of note to pass on.
I’m at my Gold Coast home right now, (yes I’m an Aussie by birth), and my ISP has just gunned me down by telling me that “OntheNet ADVISE THAT 100% OF PEAK QUOTA HAS BEEN EXCEEDED, RESULTING IN THIS SERVICE BEING SHAPED. **”
So I’ve been hobbled to dial-up speeds until my next billing cycle, which is? Who knows, I have too many more important things to worry about…
The sooner we get “pay as you use”, the better we will be.
I rotate regularly between countries, and have to maintain ADSL accounts in the three main ones. You pay 12 months a year, even if you are only there for two months.
Enough griping! S.E. Queensland has just received in places over 400 mm of rain in 24 hours. I just had a helicopter run over the Hinze dam which is full and overflowing, boats are being washed away in the overnight flooding.
See here.
Quite an amazing clip…
Light My Room Jan 30
No Comments
I discovered a very interesting twist in transmitting high speed data over short distances. Currently we use WiFi or Bluetooth, both using radio wavelengths which can be subject to interference, hacking etc as they penetrate to some extent walls, doors, windows.
Pennsylvania State University researchers have come up with a light-based system (infra-red) which can deliver beyond 1 Ghz of bandwidth.
Light of course will stay inside a windowless room and systems in adjacent rooms could use the same wavelength without interference.
LED lighting is becoming more and more popular and the researchers believe that this data transmission system could be incorporated into the room’s normal lighting. What it amounts to is pretty much the same as sending high speed data down a fibre optic cable, but spraying the transmissions into the air instead of down the fibre. The distances will be much shorter, but the available bandwidth extremely high.
China and Free Internet Speech Jan 24
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I try to avoid politics here. We live in our own countries and we deserve (dit-on) the government we elect.
But when we discuss the Internet and Next Generation Networks, we also need to discuss what goes over those networks around the world.
One interesting article about the current Google versus China debate can be found at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10439049-265.html?tag=nl.e496
I have visited China, like most of our readers I imagine, a few times in recent years. And of course I had a broadband internet connection in each of my hotel rooms there.
But to my surprise, always so many of my regular web sites were “unavailable”. And I’m not talking about any site that could be considered politically sensitive, or of doubtful morals.
Just so many sites, of different ilk were “unavailable” on the China mainland.
You cross the border into Hong Kong and miraculously these sites are suddenly available again.
There must be an army of “faithful” monitors who run every site through a translation program that highlights any word or phrase that smells potentially of something unwelcome to their regime. And BOOM, the site is gone!
I have many excellent Chinese friends here in New Zealand. Most have good academic qualifications, and some of them in my own field of Electronics Engineering. Technically they are great, but often still adhere to what they have been taught back home.
OK enough of politics. These people are usually great migrants for New Zealand, but I applaud Google in thumbing their nose to the rampant censorship and spying that goes on over there.
Let’s hope that the Chinese Government sees the light and opens up “their ” internet.
PON equipment market to top US$2 billion in 2009 Dec 17
No CommentsMarket research firm Infonetics Research predicts that overall worldwide PON equipment revenue will top US$2 billion in 2009 for the first time. That figure will more than double by 2013, the company adds, when it will reach US$4.2 billion.
Scientists squeeze more out of light Dec 10
No CommentsScientists at the University of Adelaide, Australia, have put the squeeze on light. By discovering that light within optical fibers can be squeezed into much tighter spaces than was previously believed possible, the researchers at the University’s Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS) have claimed a breakthrough that could change the world’s thinking on light’s capabilities, especially when it comes to its use in telecommunications, such as fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), computing and other light sources.
To get light to travel along an optical fiber, it must concentrated, aimed and bounced along the inside walls of the fiber which acts like a pipe for light. But as the size of the fiber shrinks (in our never-ending quest for smaller, faster, better), the light becomes more and more confined too, until it reaches the ultimate limit – the point beyond which it cannot be squeezed any smaller.
This ultimate point occurs when the strand of glass (fiber) is just a few hundred nanometers in diameter, about one thousandth of the size of a human hair. If you go smaller than this, light begins to spread out again.
The Adelaide researchers say they have discovered a way in which they can push beyond that limit by at least a factor of two. They can do this due to new breakthroughs in the theoretical understanding of how light behaves at the nanoscale, and by using a new generation of nanoscale optical fibers being developed at the institute.
This discovery by IPAS Reserach Fellow Dr Shahraam Afshar is expected to lead to more efficient tools for optical data processing in telecommunications networks and optical computing, as well as new light sources. Federation Fellow at the University of Adelaide and Director of IPAS, Prof Tanya Monro, says Dr Afshar’s discovery is “a fundamental breakthrough in the science of light”.
“By being able to use our optical fibers as sensors – rather than just using them as pipes to transmit light – we can develop tools that, for example, could easily detect the presence of a flu virus at an airport; could help IVF (in vitro fertilization) specialists to determine which egg should be chosen for fertilization; could gauge the safety of drinking water; or could alert maintenance crews to corrosion occurring in the structure of an aircraft,” says Professor Monro.
Another IPAS researcher, Dr Yinlan Ruan, also recently created what is thought to be the world’s smallest hole inside an optical fiber – just 25 nanometers in diameter.
“These breakthroughs feed directly into our applied work to develop nanoscale sensors,” Prof Monro says. “They will enable us to study the applications of light at much smaller scales than we’ve ever thought possible. It will help us to better understand and probe our world in ever smaller dimensions.”
FTTH Excitement in Auckland Nov 21
1 Comment
Following the extremely successful FTTH Asia-Pacific Council annual conference in Melbourne last May, the Council opted to hold their General Meeting here in Auckland last week. Some 40 members from all over the region attended, for some their first visit to New Zealand.
After a busy first day’s business, the group was hosted by Vector Communications in a visit to the old Auckland Electricity Board’s building on the city waterfront. Vector has set up in this historic building many demonstrations of renewable energy sources and the potential uses for fibre optics networks to the home (FTTH).
The group was honored to have Simon Mackenzie, Vector’s Group Chief CEO welcome them personally.
The photo shows Simon discussing fibre micro-ducting with Council President Y.K. Loke from Singapore.
Thursday 19th November was “open day” and many people interested in FTTH accepted the invitation to attend. Nick Manning and Ralph Chivers from MED gave an update on progress with the New Zealand Ultra-fast Broadband network project. Dr Julian Elder, CEO of WEL (the Waikato power company) gave an excellent presentation on his company’s stance with FTTH. The regional power companies are certainly positioning themselves to participate actively in the national network program. Following several other presentations, a general Q&A session saw good interactivity between the visitors and the guests.
Council President Y.K Loke wrapped up the day with an invitation to interested New Zealand companies to join the FTTH Council and help in progressing the understanding and adoption of Fibre to the Home. All were also cordially invited to attend the next annual FTTH Council Conference and Expo to be held in Seoul on 24/25/26 May 2010.
Any readers who may be interested in joining the Council or attending the Seoul Conference may contact me for further information (john.nixon@onefibre.com).
Excellent thoughts on Aussie NBN Nov 06
1 CommentTonight Google threw me this article, written only a few hours ago. I found it very logic and sensible. Who is Tom Worthington? Well as I found out, a pretty savvy and successful technical academic in Canberra. According to his website, he looks like this:
I tried to find a contact or email address on his website: nothing! So Tom, if you read this, don’t sue me for not asking authority to reproduce! Only one major criticism, no details on the delivery of TV. Just one vague mention about IPTV. It amazes me that nobody seems to know anything about the “3rd wavelength” for TV Broadcasting. Just pull TV off the data link. It doesn’t need to be there. In any case Foxtel, Austar and Sky TV aren’t at all ready to deliver anything over IPTV. Even if they were, why dump TV on the data link when you don’t have to?
Here we go, otherwise very sensible words to my mind! Particularly about level 1 and 2 services.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Designing the National Broadband Network
The Australian Telecommunications Users Group (ATUG) held a National Broadband Network Reference Model Forum in Sydney this morning (there will be another in Melbourne on 12 November 2009). Based on the morning’s discussion, my view is that a simpler internet model be used in place of the Communications Alliance model. This will be technically simpler to implement and will also avoid many difficult regulatory issues with telephone and broadcast services. In essence the NBN will be “an internet”, which will be part of “the Internet”. The NBN can carry many different services using internet protocols, including services which emulate the plain old telephone service (POTS), cable TV and broadcast TV, without being limited to only providing those services or providers.
Paul Brooks, Lead Consultant, NBN Project of Communications Alliance gave a detailed overview of the Communications Alliance High Level Architecture Options for the NBN in detail. His view is that it is likely that the NBN will use a passive optical network for Fibre to The Home (FTTH). This will provide considerable bandwidth to the home, but it is not clear how far this will extend through the network.
While NBN will own and install the connections to the home, there is no architectural distinction between NBN and non-NBN back end networks. The Communications Alliance model operates at level 2 . It is likely that IPv6 will be used or services such as VoIP at the higher layers of the model. Issues to be resolved include how many points should other providers be able to connect at (options range from 5 to 500).
At the home termination, it is not clear how the consumer will connect. Options range from a socket to which any equipment can be connected to an NBN supplied set top box. One issue which I raised early on the the NBN process was the need for operations in disasters during mains power failure. This seems to have been taken up with discussion of who provides the backup batteries.
Stepping back from the details, Paul Brooks pointed out a principle should be customer choice. Each service may be connected to different devices from different suppliers ad networks. The example given was a smart electricity meter provided by the energy company, which the householder has little control of but still has to have working over the NBN.
It occurs to me that in all this some points have been lost:
1. Its the Internet: The primary purpose for the NBN is to provide access to the Internet. It is likely the system will be implemented using internet protocols. The simplest way to provide Internet access via an internet network is with internet protocols. Therefore the the NBN should be designed as an internet. Much of the Communications Alliance model discussion seems to be about old fashioned connection based network design which is not needed and not relevant for an internet.
2. Layers aren’t real: While there s much discussion of Layer 1 and Layer 2, these are abstractions and so of little use for practical decision making. In the discussion it does not seem to be made clear even which multi-layer model is being discussed (the ISO OS model has seven layers, whereas IP has only five).
Peter Hitchiner, Australian Computer Society – Telecommunications Society of Australia, gave a more general overview as to what the NBN should do (similar to the ACS talk I gave to ATUG in Canberra). He pointed out that the nature of the NBN service is not clear, in particular is “layer 2″ access the preferred industry approach. A major question is will IPTV services be treated equally (a major policy question for the Federal Government).
At this point the forum moved into a discussion to explore some of these issues. This proved very interesting and useful. On the access issue Paul Brooks mentioned that the home access box might have four ports (presumably Ethernet copper cable ports), plus possibly a telephone and a TV port. It seemed that he envisioned each port would provide a distinct “service” from a separate “service provider”. In the subsequent discussion it became clear that the model the Communications Alliance’s proposing is to emulate a point to point service over the NBN, on top of an underlying IP network.
Stephen Wright, from Gibson Quai-AAS – Telecommunications Consultants (GQAAS) then talked about the network resilience required. Telstra provides about 99.90% reliability for telephony services (PSTN). Stephen suggested we should aim for 99.95% or higher for the NBN. My view is that it should be relatively simple and inexpensive to achieve this level of service for the NBN for telephony services. This assumes that the NBN is configured to provide different levels of reliability for different services, with emergency services having priority. As an example, the household is likely to want enough bandwidth to call an ambulance in an emergency, and will accept that this should take priority over being able to watch TV. With the NBN configured to provide enough bandwidth to provide TV most of the time, there should be enough capacity to handle lower bandwidth services, such as telephony almost all the time.
The Communications Alliance proposed model is not a good one, is not in the public interest and should not be adopted. Its complexity comes from trying to reproduce the restrictions of the old telecommunications system in order to support old business models. Instead I suggest accepting that the NBN will provide an Internet service. The model then becomes very much simpler, with an unlimited number of service providers able to provide services to the home over one Internet connection. Where a service provider needs a high level of security for their service, for example a telephone, smart meter or a TV set top box, they would need to ensure that the software or hardware they provide to the home has the needed security built in. There is then no need to worry about how many ports to provide or what types. Only one port is needed which can support all the services required.
This would be similar to the electrical sockets provided in the home. These are all wired in parallel and provide the same service. The householder can purchase their own devices to plug in. The householder can also purchase multiple adaptors to plug in. If the householder wants to plug in a refrigerator from a particular supplier, they do not need a special power point installed which only provides one brand of electricity.
The NBN will likely replace the current telephone, broadcast TV and cable TV services. I suggest replacements for these services be done in a way which does not limit the availability of new services. This would be a change in the previous government practice which has been to protect encumbent providers from competition from new services. As an example, the conversion to digital TV in Australia was designed so that the existing analog TV stations retained their oligopoly, even though the new digital technology did not require this.
There is a case for providing telephony and TV as part of the basic NBN service, but architecturally these can be simply services on top of the Internet. In this way the household will not be locked into a new monopoly unnecessarily. As an example, the householder would be able to pay a service provider to provide an ordinary telephone POTS type service from an Australian telecommunications provider. But the householder should be able to use the same NBN equipment to make free Internet calls and to sign up with several other telephone providers, including companies located anywhere in the world, if they wish.
Similarly, the house holder could use the NBN to watch Australian free to air TV and cable TV. However, the householder should be able to also access any other TV-like service available over the Internet from anywhere in the world. The fact that Foxtel might wish to provide a restricted pay TV service using NBN, should not stop other provision of TV like services for free by others.
The issues of telephony on the NBN are not technically complex, compared to the regulatory and public policy issues. TV type services over the NBN are slightly more complex technically, but are dwarfed by the complexity of the public policy issues. There is not sufficient time to work through all of the sectional interests involved in time to implement the NBN. With the current timetable, Australian will still not have transitioned completely from analogue to digital before it will be time to start replacing the digital TV broadcast service with the NBN.
I suggest the Australian Government take the opportunity to short circuit the process by setting some simple goals for the NBN in delivering services over an internet and then let the NBN company get on with the implementation. The NBN is not building a telephone network, nor a pay TV network, it is building a network which can be used for carrying such services.
Labels: ICT Policy, NBN, Telecommunications
posted by Tom Worthington at 1:11 PM