Category: Next-generation broadband service

National Broadband Network FTTH next-generation broadband – why see it as a waste?

15/09/2010 Next-generation broadband service 1 Comment

This morning, I listened to the ABC 11am news broadcast and read an article in “The Age” about the National Broadband Network being established in Tasmania on time and under budget (which I had written a post about). There was the typical response from the Liberal-Party / National-Party Opposition about it being a waste of money even though there was around a 50% takeup of the service according to these news reports.

The Opposition need to look beyond the perceived waste of money by assessing the value that the infrastructure will bring to that area. One thing I always think of in relation to any improved-broadband technology is that it could increase the area’s attractiveness to business or education / research. Then, whenever there are major employers in that state that support these high-value industries, there is also the likelihood of supporting businesses becoming established in order to serve the employees in these industries.

As I have said in previous posts on this site, it would be worth that the Opposition looks at countries who are deploying FTTH broadband setups like France and observe how many people are taking up these services. They should look at fibre-copper setups like Germany’s VDSL2 services and see whether these are also being set up to be future-proof with FTTH fibre.

First Australian NBN site – a success

14/09/2010 Next-generation broadband service No Comments

News article

NBN rollout in Tasmania a success, Conroy says – Yahoo!7

My comments

From this article that I had read, I was pleased that Australia had moved on to its first “next-generation broadband” deployment successfully. Most people may scoff at this success being due to a small town where there isn’t many subscribers or the town being in a politically-sensitive neighbourhood in Tasmania.

But I always find that the real test is what happens over the coming years as more people take up the next-generation broadband service and as the service gets used. Issues that will be observed will be whether the use will outgrow the available bandwidth and wither the service is likely to fail over the long term.

In most of the situations were a new technology becomes available, the people who are “first off the block” to take it on are the “early-adopters” who are well-educated, have a good income and have a strong interest in new technologies. They tend to make more use of the Internet and at this time, their heavy use will move off the main broadband infrastructure and most people who use the regular ADSL or cable services in that area will then start to notice better quality-of-service.

It will also be interesting to notice what will happen when the next towns get lit up for the National Broadband Network and also whether the householders in the towns will prepare their home networks for this next-generation service. I have written a good article on this site about preparing for next-generation broadband.

Similarly, it will be interesting to know whether subscribers in these towns will have their landline telephony moved to IP technology and will watch regular TV via the National Broadband Network. As well, it would be interesting to know whether the arrival of the National Broadband Network at these small towns will increase economic growth in these towns, whether through creating a business hub or “Silicon Valley” in these areas.

Preparing for next-generation broadband

05/09/2010 Network Management, Next-generation broadband service, Uncategorized No Comments

In most countries, there is interest in setting up most of the densely-populated areas for a form of next-generation broadband Internet service. This will typically provide at least 10Mbps, if not 30Mbps or 100Mbps which will be more than double what your typical ADSL or cable broadband service will provide.

Key features that are being promoted alongside these services include the reliable streaming or downloading of high-definition TV content to many TV sets in the house as well as VoIP telephony, which will include FM-grade telephone conversations or reliable videophone conversations that are beyond the realm of science fiction. The VoIP telephony features will also work alongside remote-terminal setups and other telepresence setups to allow knowledge workers and management workers to work from home, thus eliminating the need to travel in order to commute to work.

One main issue that may affect your home network is making sure it is ready for the next-generation broadband service. This is by preparing the infrastructure for high-bandwidth data throughput and setting up a router that can work with the next-generation broadband technologies like VDSL2 or fibre-to-the-premises.

Upgrading your router to next-generation broadband

The next-generation broadband service will use different connection methods to what you are using now. This will either be fibre-to-the-home or VDSL2 via phone lines and will require a different kind of modem. In some cases, this modem may be provided by your “next-generation” Internet service provider as part of the deal or at extra cost. Some of these service providers may sell a broadhand router that has an integrated modem for the broadband connection as well as router functionality. There is also an increased likelihood for these devices to support VoIP analogue-telephony-adaptor functionality because these services will also be about VoIP telephony.

If you have an ADSL modem router, its ADSL functions will become redundant under this environment unless it has an Ethernet WAN (broadband) connection option. This function may be available in a few recently-issued high-end units either as an Ethernet socket that can be configured to be a LAN socket or WAN (Internet) socket; or as a dedicated Ethernet WAN socket.

When you buy your next Internet router for this technology, the WAN (Internet) side of the router should offer a Gigabit Ethernet connection so you can use it with fibre-to-the-premises setups where you have an “optical-network terminal” modem; fibre-to-the-curb or fibre-to-the-building setups that use Ethernet-to-the-customer copper-cable runs or other connection methods that use a Gigabit Ethernet socket. It may be worth keeping your eyes peeled for “dual-mode” DSL modem routers that work with ADSL setups or VDSL2 “next-generation” setups when you upgrade your ADSL router.

It also may be worth looking towards upgrading to a router which has 802.11n wireless and Gigabit Ethernet for LAN connectivity.  Preferably, the 802.11n wireless network should be a dual-band setup but it doesn’t have to be a dual-radio (simultaneous dual-band) setup, as I will explain later. This will allow for higher bandwidth that the next-generation broadband Internet applications will need.

As well, you may have to pay attention to how the router handles “quality-of-service” with VoIP and multimedia traffic. It is because this kind of traffic will become more prevalent on these high-bandwidth networks and other Internet use like checking on email, viewing Web sites or “download-to-disk” applications doesn’t impair the experience you have during a phone call or when you watch streamed Internet TV.

Your home network

Here, I am talking about upgrading your home or small-business local network to cope with the increased bandwidth that next-generation broadband will provide. This setup is based around the use of a Cat5 wired Ethernet segment that you may have implemented or may want to implement as part of a renovation job; a Wi-Fi wireless segment used primarily for laptops, smartphones and similar portable devices and a HomePlug powerline segment that you may use as a temporary or semi-permanent “no-new-wires” network segment.

The Cat5 Ethernet segment

If you have wired your home for Ethernet and used a regular Ethernet switch as the network’s “central” switch, now is the time to upgrade it to a Gigabit Ethernet switch. This will provide a high-speed path to devices that have Gigabit Ethernet connectivity and can provide “next-generation” speeds in to the home network. The old 10/100 switch can work well as a “spur” switch for a cluster of devices that don’t have Gigabit Ethernet connectivity.

Again, it may be worth looking for a switch that also supports “quality-of’-service” when you upgrade the existing unit. This is even though most of the Ethernet switches that support this are more expensive and require you to visit a Web interface to “fiddle with knobs” to achieve this goal because they are targeted at business users who have their network and Internet managed by dedicated staff or contractors. This may be rectified over the coming years with the implementation of “logo-mandatory” specifications and standards for seamless QoS management.

If you are working on building new premises, considering renovations on your existing premises or are even just planning to rewire your existing premises to current safety expectations, now is the time to consider wiring it for Ethernet. I have written a good article on this topic in the context of new renovations, extensions or rewiring projects. At least make sure you place an Ethernet socket near every TV-antenna (aerial) socket in the house so you can cater for IPTV which will be part of the next-generation broadband environment.

The Wi—Fi wireless segment

As part of the upgrade, a wise step would be to implement 802.11n Wi-Fi in your wireless-network segment. As I have explained in the article “Understanding 802.11n High-Bandwidth Wireless Networking”, there are different varieties of access points and routers for this technology.

One way to go about this while maintaining your regular 802.11g equipment would be to set up another extended-service set with a 5.4GHz single-band access point or a dual-band router set up on 5.4GHz. The existing 802.11g router could be put in to service as an access point running the existing extended-service set. You then focus computer equipment that is equipped with dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi interfaces to the 5.4GHz 802.11n segment while equipment like smartphones, netbooks and Internet radios work on the 2.4GHz 802.11g network. The WPA security key can be the same for both Wi-Fi segments and you could have one SSID being described as <PRIMARY-SSID-54g> for the 5.4GHz segment and <PRIMARY-SSID> for the 2.4GHz 802.11g segment.

As well, the Wi-Fi equipment should support or implement WMM (Wireless Multimedia) quality-of-service “out-of-the-box” but most current equipment doesn’t support it. This is again due to uncoordinated quality-of-service signalling and quality-of-service not becoming a “logo-mandatory” requirement.

The HomePlug powerline segment

This network segment may need to be reviewed if it is going to be the primary wired carrier for all of the multimedia data that next-generation broadband Internet will deliver. This is more so if you are using a HomePlug link to provide content to a DLNA-compliant network-enabled TV set or IPTV set-top box.

Here, you would need to use a HomePlug AV segment for any multimedia applications, a temporary building-building link or as a “no-new-wires” wired backbone between access points in a multi-access-point 802.11n wireless network. This can coexist with your existing HomePlug 1.0 Turbo segment which can be used for applications like connecting Ethernet-enabled network printers to the network or maintaining a backbone for a multi-access-point 802.11g wireless network. As far as any HomePlug AV-Ethernet bridges go, you should prefer those units that have Gigabit Ethernet so as to provide proper throughput to the equipment.

The up-and-coming HomePlug AV2 standard, which allows for higher throughput, MIMO-based operation and each HomePlug AV2 device being a repeater, can allow HomePlug AV devices to become part of that segment.

Purchasing subsequent computer equipment

Any desktop or all-in-one computers or network-attached-storage equipment that you subsequently buy should support a Gigabit Ethernet connection. This issue may not be of concern if you buy relatively-new equipment but can be of concern with older secondhand desktop computers. These can be upgraded through the installation of a Gigabit Ethernet PCI or PCI-Express card in these computers, which requires at the most a small Phillips-head screwdriver to complete.

When you buy Wi-Fi-enabled equipment like laptop computers, you may need to look for equipment that has 802.11n technology. This may be a limitation if you intend to buy a secondary-use laptop or netbook which may not have this functionality or buy smartphones, Internet radios or similar devices that have integrated Wi-Fi functionality because most such devices stick to 802.11g technology to keep costs down or allow longer run-times when run on batteries. This could be worked around through the creation of a “compatibility-mode” 802.11n extended-service-set on the 2.4GHz band or establishment of an 802.11g extended-service-set with its own SSID for these devices to use.

The situation will be likely to change from this year onwards because of work being undertaken to build small-footprint low-power-requirement 802.11g/n chipsets that are optimised for battery-operated devices and manufacturers being interested in implementing the technology in their devices.

Conclusion

Once you know how to have your network ready for next-generation broadband by replacing devices that may slow down the data throughput, you are then able to take advantage of what this new technology offers.

Broadband Internet service now the deal-maker in the Australian Federal Election

24/08/2010 Next-generation broadband service, Rural Broadband Access No Comments

Articles

Regional internet service to fore | The Australian

Broadband the hot issue in Australian election | FierceCable

My comments

I have been following the issue of rural broadband-Internet delivery and next-generation broadband in this site and have observed certain ways that this issue has been tackled. In Europe, especially the UK and France where service-provider competition is enforced by national governments, there has been plenty of locally-driven initiatives to get decent-level broadband in to rural and regional areas. Some of these initiatives have been instigated by independent private companies, sometimes with the help of local or regional governments. I have even cited some examples of Vtesse Broadhand who have instigated action to “wire-up” some UK villages like Birch Green, Broughton and Hatt to decent-standard broadband, even to next-generation setups with FTTC fibre-optic with VDSL2 copper run to the customer’s door. In Hautes-Pyrénées and Finistère, France, there is an example of local government being involved with providing broadband to a community.

In Australia, the Federal election had yielded a hung Parliament and provided room for three independent MPs who are based in rural areas alongside a Greens MP to determine the next Federal Government. The Australian Labor Party wanted to establish a National Broadband Network which would provide fibre-to-the-premises next-generation broadband to most areas and satellite broadband to a few rural and remote areas. On the other hand, the Liberal and National Party coalition wanted to run with a fibre-optic backhaul and a mix of cable-Internet, DSL and wireless technologies as a way of pushing out broadband Internet to more communities. The broadband blueprint will end up as a deal-maker as far as the rural independent MPs are concerned because of country people needing to gain real broadband speed in their areas.

If the low-cost copper-based technology is to be seen as the preferred solution, the deal-makers need to look at a few issues like handling decaying wiring infrastructure, the possibility of sub-loop DSL setups or “cluster-specific” DSL-enabled telephone exchanges and the the use of sub-loop VDSL2 for providing next-generation broadband speeds. As well, the plan will also have to support an environment that can change at any moment, whether due to an increased population density; or due to a high-value centre of employment appearing in the area.

What I hope for is that this election can be a real wake-up call to raising the standard of rural broadband access and the ability to put country areas on an equal footing with urban areas as I have said in this statement article.

Next-generation broadband hits the country in the UK again, this time in Cornwall

21/08/2010 Next-generation broadband service, Rural Broadband Access No Comments

News articles

thinkbroadband :: Faster broadband comes to Hatt and Higher Pill thanks to Vtesse

From the horse’s mouth

Vtesse Broadband

My comments

Vtesse Broadband have done it again by providing two small communities in Cornwall with next-generation broadband.  The two communities, Hatt and Higher Pill, have been provided with a level of Internet service that would be considered woeful by today’s standards but this could be rectified by the use of fibre-to-the-cabinet technology with a VDSL2 copper sub-loop link to the customer’s door.

One reservation I have always had about any DSL-based copper end-link used in a broadband setup in the country is that the telephone lines between the exchange and the customer would also have been playing a contributory role towards poor-quality service. This could be due to ageing copper infrastructure or wiring setups that aren’t particularly efficient especially if there are clusters of buildings.

What I was mainly pleased about is that a small private company had worked with a small community to provide that community with a real broadband Internet service, especially a next-generation service, rather than waiting for the major telcos to provide the service.

The same article had raised the issue of the UK government reneging on subsidising the fibre backhaul to these services and I would concur with this concept because if a government needs to put its resources where its mouth is when it comes to providing rural communities with decent-standard reliable broadband.

These small broadband setups that cover rural towns in the UK are something that needs to be watched by all of the major parties contesting the Australian Federal Election and by the party who wins the election and holds government because they can be an example of how rural communities have “gotten off their backside” to provide city-grade broadband Internet.

A need to avoid “redlining” in broadband-Internet rollouts

13/08/2010 Internet Access And Service, Next-generation broadband service 1 Comment

During the election campaign in Australia, both political parties put up their plans for an improved broadband Internet service, with Labor providing a fibre-to-the-premises plan for most metropolitan, regional and rural areas and satellite for other areas while the Liberal Party put up a plan based on cable-Internet, ADSL and fixed-wireless technologies with a fibre-optic backbone.

One of the issues that I have noticed is that the broadband issue hadn’t touched on the issue of “redlining” when it came to provisioning of infrastructure. “Redlining” is where districts that are capable of receiving infrastructure aren’t provided with the infrastructure due to a perceived economic environment that is in place or the goal of particular parties like developers or investors to “shape” a particular district to a desired usage vision. An example of this was what happened with the way cable-based pay-TV service was provisioned around the cities in Australia. Some neighourhoods had the cables in the streets while other neighbourhoods didn’t have the cables and in those neighbourhoods that didn’t have cables, pay-TV was provisioned by satellite while broadband Internet was provisioned by ADSL. This became the same situation even though some of these suburbs were inhabited by wealthier professionals, “empty-nest” couples or others with more disposable income.

This can easily backfire as the demand for this kind of infrastructure shows up in the areas that are “redlined”. It can be caused by situations such as the subscription price for the services becoming more affordable for most people. As well, it can be exacerbated more by changes like gentrification of former working-class neighbourhoods or “empty-nest” couples moving to neighbourhoods with plenty of small houses.

Whenever anyone decides to roll out next-generation broadband, they need to make sure all areas that can be covered by a particular medium are covered by that medium.

Impact of next-generation broadband on regular broadband service

03/08/2010 Internet Access And Service, Next-generation broadband service, Rural Broadband Access No Comments

 

La montée en débit des réseaux ADSL se précise – DegroupNews.com (France – French language)

My comments on this article

From my understanding of this French-language article, there had been some reports that the performance of “regular” ADSL broadband service (including the triple-play services) in areas where FTTH next-generation broadband service had been rolled out.

But there are some main factors that could lead to this.

One is that the “early-adopter” technology enthusiasts who would make most use of the Internet would have shifted to next-generation broadband as soon as the technology is available. This would apparently “free-up” the load on the regular broadband services for most people who may be doubting the need to shift to next-generation broadband.

Another is that the backbones that bring the data to the broadband-service networks, both the next-generation variety and the regular variety would have to be upscaled to cater for increased data traffic caused by the next-generation networks. This would then lead to increased performance for the Internet services.

But the main reason is due to capital improvements on the existing telephone network that have been taking place in order to increase the possible bandwidth available at the customer’s door. This has mainly been through revising the telephony-system architecture and eliminating aging and derelict infrastructure in order to improve the performance of ADSL-based Internet services

As I have observed with the UK and France, once you have serious commercial and government interest in developing a nation’s telecommunications infrastructure, such as through implementing fibre-optic-based next-generation broadband, there is a strong likelihood that the quality of the nation’s Internet service will improve. This can only happen with real competition in the telecommunications sector and a government that is behind real telecommunications improvement.

Another country hamlet in the UK equipped for next-generation broadband

14/07/2010 Next-generation broadband service, Rural Broadband Access No Comments

News article

thinkbroadband :: Fibre broadband is coming to Broughton, near Huntingdon

From the horse’s mouth

Vtesse web site

My comments

Previously, I have commented on Vtesse setting up a fibre-to-the-cabinet next-generation broadband Internet service servicing two villages in Hertfordshire. This was based on underground deployment of the necessary fibre-optic links to the cabinets and VDSL2 copper links via “sub-loop” unbundling between these cabinets and the customers’ premises.

Now Broughton, a small country hamlet located near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, has moved towards next-generation broadband with the help of the same company. This has been done with two differences – one using FTTH technology which may be known as “fibre-to-the-premises” technology. The other involves the use of overhead poles used for electricity distribution and telephone service in this area to support the fibre-optic cables.

Through the planning stages of this development, issues have been raised about ownership and control of infrastructure like poles or ducts used for providing electricity, telecommunications or other services and whether competing service providers should have access to this infrastructure if an established service provider set it up in the first place. Issues that could be raised include right of access by the competing service-provider’s technicians and whether a competing service provider’s technicians have access to the lead-in wiring on a customer’s private property up to the point of demarcation where the wiring becomes under customer control.

Another issue worth raising is whether an FTTH setup is more likely to suit larger country properties where the main house is set back further from the road and whether it will suit larger country estates that have many individual-customer households yet remain as a cost-effective next-generation broadband-delivery method.

At least what I am pleased about is that there is action being taken to bring rural Internet access out of the back-waters.

Another two villages provided with full broadband service – this time in Hertfordshire

08/07/2010 Next-generation broadband service, Rural Broadband Access No Comments

News articles

thinkbroadband :: Vtesse Broadband bring next-generation broadband to Hertfordshire

From the horse’s mouth

Vtesse Broadband – press releases

My comments

The initiative has been taken again to establish full broadband service in the UK countryside. This time, two villages in Hertfordshire, north of London, are equipped with fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband with sub-loop unbundling. The villages, Birch Green and Hertingfordbury, are located too far from the local telephone exchange for guaranteed high-speed ADSL broadband Internet service, so Vtesse have established a fibre-optic backbone for both of the villages and set up the cabinets there.

Another step that has been taken is to have customer feedback to determine where the demand is and where there is poor coverage. The network has been made future-proof so that they can provide fibre-to-the-premises service when the time comes to provide that level of service.

I had a look at the Vtesse website and was impressed with the network-Internet “edge” router that customers would be supplied with as standard. It is a Comtrend ADSL2/VDSL2 wireless modem router that doesn’t just work with 802.11g like most provider-supplied equipment does. Instead, this unit can work with 802.11n Wi-Fi network segments

Again, what I am so pleased about is that this is an example of small companies in the UK have taken the initiative to provide full-ADSL-quality to “next-generation” broadband to the “backwaters” of that country. This then puts farmers and small businesses in those towns on a competitive level with those that have proper broadband Internet service and with the big business operators.

Not just fibre-to-the-cabinet but fibre-to-the-premises in two rural Lincolnshire villages

02/06/2010 Next-generation broadband service, Rural Broadband Access No Comments

Article

thinkbroadband :: Two rural Lincolnshire villages to get fibre-to-the-home

My Comments

Another step has occurred in the right direction for providing homes and small businesses in two rural England villages with city-grade next-generation Internet service. Again, this initiative has been undertaken by a small operator and has allowed the village to be competitive with the city.

Here, Fibrestream are two-thirds of the way there with gaining interest from the potential users which will open doors to establishing the basic infrastructure and “lighting up” the villages. One of the bonuses that have been offered is that there is the option of helping with the installation to your premises as a way to defray provisioning costs.

They have also provided for a cheaper fixed-wireless-last-mile delivery option if they can’t raise enough money for the full fibre-to-the-premises option. Any monies saved from this option would be reinvested so they can establish the infrastructure for the full fibre-to-the-premises deal. This could still be factored in to villages with farms and similar large properties surrounding them so as to service these properties with high-speed Internet.

Like what has happened with other British villages like Lyddington in Leicestershire, this has become another way of bringing these rural villages in to the online age. Come on everyone who is in the country or underserved outer-urban and regional areas and work together to establish local-broadband initiatives.