Category: Next-generation broadband service

Articles

Queensland council plans own optical fibre network | The Register

Council goes its own way on NBN, plans cables and telco | Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Queensland)

My Comments

Local government has been instrumental in improving broadband coverage for its citizens by encouraging the installation of the necessary infrastructure. This may be a public effort funded primarily by council taxes or rates that are levied on property owners; or it could be a public-private effort where a company also funds the same effort.

These efforts may be used as a method of providing data infrastructure between the local government’s buildings but they have been used to provide broadband infrastructure to citizens and businesses in that area in a manner that competes with established operators. It can also be about the establishment of a company or co-operative that is focused on providing telecommunications or Internet services to the local community.

But such services have raised the ire of incumbent telecommunications and cable-TV businesses and this has had the powerful incumbent operators in the USA like Comcast and AT&T lobby for state-level legislation to strangle community telecoms and Internet infrastructure projects.

Australia has taken a new stab at this effort with the local government that governs Rockhampton in Queensland putting forward the idea of high-speed fibre-to-the-premises infrastructure to cover the city’s central business district (downtown) area.

Rockhampton Regional Council’s mayor, Margaret Strelow showed dissatisfaction with the National Broadband Network heading down the fibre-copper path which would lead to substandard broadband. Instead the council established their own high-speed fibre-to-the-premises infrastructure in Quay Street alongside other council-owned road and water works. This is a “dig-once” effort to bypass the NBN in order to achieve that “smart-city” goal that Rockhampton wanted.

The council will own the infrastructure but create a local non-profit community telco who leases that infrastructure and sells telephony and Internet service to the local community. It is in a similar manner to how some other cities have provided utilities and telecommunications services to their communities.

A question that will be raised regarding these community-focused deployments will include the ability for the NBN or other next-generation-broadband infrastructure providers to build infrastructure parallel to this infrastructure; a practice that is described as “build-over”. This may allow Rockhampton or similar communities to benefit from infrastructure-level competition.

Another question that I also see raised is whether other retail-level telecommunications or Internet providers will be allowed to lease the council-supplied infrastructure in order to sell their services in to that town. This could allow consumers and businesses to benefit from retail-level communications-service and can also include mobile-telecommunications providers using this infrastructure as a backbone for their base stations.

As communities, ISPs, developers and other entities lay down their own infrastructure for their own next-generation broadband services, it could be a chance to raise the issues of “build-over” infrastructure-level competition for locations along with the ability for retail ISPs to compete with each other on the same infrastructure. If these issues are worked out properly, it could lead to increased value for money when it comes to broadband Internet service.

Cotswolds – part of the big 10000 for Gigaclear

10,000 of these connection pots for the fibre-optic broadband installed

Now Gigaclear has covered 50 small villages around the Oxfordshire and other areas of the UK with their service passing 10,000 properties. From this interview, Matthew had mentioned that 4000 households and businesses had bitten the bullet and taken up the next-generation broadband service that Gigaclear offers.

When this is happening in your village, the broadband service quality becomes better

There have been some benefits across the board with the arrival of these next-generation fibre-based broadband services.

For businesses and other income-generating activities, the next-generation broadband services have been valued as an enabler. One of the benefits that has been noticed was a reduction in traffic levels because of a reduced need to travel to work which has become important for the villages that exist within commuting distance of the large towns. Knowledge workers like accountants, consultants and lawyers also benefited because of their increased bandwidth that is available to them at home so they can run their practice or business more effectively.

Fibre-optic cable laid alongside a lane to a premises in a village

The food, beverage and accommodation industries have valued these rollouts in a few different ways. Initially they saw the increased bandwidth as a way to improve the Wi-Fi-based public Internet service they provide as an amenity and having a consistently-good experience with this service attracts customers. In the interview, Matthew highlighted Oxford Country Cottages who sell this as a significant amenity for their self-catering holiday cottages.  I sent a follow-up email to Oxford Country Cottages regarding their experience with this service and what they identified as a core benefit was the business guests who were returning to these cottages because of the guest-access Wi-Fi that was served by Gigaclear’s fibre-to-the-premises service. This was something that the business guests were finding that was “beyond the norm” for guest-access Wi-Fi networks.

This leads on to the feasibility to use cloud-based business systems which avoids the need to maintain servers on the premises and is considered an essential business tool.

The local communities have benefited from the broadband deployments due to increased cohesion. This was even evident in the initial stages of each project because of the initial curiosity surrounding the projects and that the visibility of the works taking place meant that something good is happening for their village. Some of the townsfolk in each community may want to preserve the status quo but more of them wanted an Internet service better than what the were being provided with.

There have been anecdotal reports of local property values increasing due to the arival of fibre broadband as I have covered before but Gigaclear haven’t seen this as evidence for themselves with any of their rollouts.

But where Gigaclear stands when it comes to providing Internet service is that they will exist as a pureplay broadband provider. That is where their business is about providing an Internet service alone rather than offering a voice telephony or pay-TV service.

Gigaclear are also operating this infrastructure as an infrastructure provider to serve these communities. This is to allow competing retail-level Internet service providers to include the villages in their footprint if they wish to do so.

BT are saying that they are doing the right thing when they are covering Britain’s rural areas but there needs to be a lot more work done to provide a proper level of service for these communities. A lot of these issues aren’t just about adding the necessary equipment but more about making sure that the wiring to the customer’s door is working properly.

What is showing up from the interview is that Gigaclear are putting the pedal to the metal when it comes to deploying infrastructure in to rural communities in order to provide a broadband service that would be considered the norm for big business in the city.

Articles

Google Fiber Hiring Employees for Portland Launch | Broadband News & DSL Reports

Google Fiber Eyes Oklahoma City, Jacksonville, and Tampa | Broadband News & DSL Reports

Google Fiber Announced for Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (Updated: Jacksonville and Tampa Too) | Droid Life

My Comments

Google Fiber have put their foot in the Portland soil by opening some local customer-service jobs in that Oregon City. This is also in addition to liaising with the city’s local government regarding the placement of fibre-optic huts. These are effectively the hubs that can provide the fibre-optic service to neighbourhoods of 40,000 households and businesses.

The Oregon state government are making this easier by working on nearly-complete legislation that provides various state-level tax breaks for Gigabit next-generation broadband deployments. I see this as a state-level proactive step to open up real competition for broadband and allied telecommunications services.

But Google are also eyeing bring real competition to Oklahoma City in Oklahoma along with  Jacksonville and Tampa in Florida. These cities have signed up because they have a strong business and technology-driven economy that will benefit from the Google Fiber service.

Google have placed some requirements on the local governments to make the path clear for deployment of the fibre infrastructure including sharing city-infrastructure details. But they also have to deal with state governments that have passed legislation that prohibits the availability of Internet service that competes with local cable TV and “Baby Bell” interests.

As I have noticed from previous accounts, the arrival of Google Fiber in a US community has caused the local “Baby Bell” or cable-TV company to raise the bar as far as pricing and customer service goes. This is because they fear that customers in their locality will churn to Google Fiber as quickly as possible because of the improved value.

Similarly, Google have also used these deployments as a way o build up computer and Internet literacy in disadvantaged communities in some of the cities they touch like what has happened in Austin, Texas. This is because most business is being transacted online and some users like older people and blue-collar workers may find themselves floundering with this new life.

Keep up the work, Google!

Article

Australia’s nbn preps G.Fast launch | Advanced Television

My Comments

NBN are considering implementing G.Fast technology in to their fibre-copper “multi-technology” mix for Australia’s next-generation broadband network. This is in addition to VDSL2 for “fibre-to-the-node” and “fibre-to-the-building” , fibre-to-the-premises and HFC coaxial deployments for fixed-line setups.

But what is G.Fast?

G.Fast is a DSL-based broadband technology that uses phone wires. Yet it has a faster throughput than VDSL2 that is currently used for fibre-copper setups. Here, the local copper loop between the customer’s premises and the DSLAM can be less than 500 metres for a 100Mbps link speed but can achieve a link speed of 1.3Gbps for a 70-metre loop.

It is capable of symmetrical operation which can please business deployments where a lot of data is uploaded as part of cloud computing and remote storage requirements.

Where would an infrastructure provider deploy this technology?

This would be deployed to a “fibre-to-the-distribution-point” setup where the fibre-copper interface is a distribution box that covers a residential street or block and any cul-de-sacs that run off that street, or a small strip of shops typically this side of 50 premises.

Similarly, most multi-tenancy units like apartment blocks or shopping centres would benefit from this kind of technology for their fibre-copper needs.

But there is a setup that appeals to the infrastructure providers where they could service a single premises by having fibre to the pole or pit outside the premises and using the telephone cabling to provide the copper link. This has a strong appeal when it comes to a “self-provisioned” Gigabit service where the service provider doesn’t have to interact with landlords or schedule installation appointments with householders to get the household on board.

There is the appeal that the technology can allow the DSLAM to be “reverse powered” – powered by the customer’s modem router or a power-injector that the customer installs at their premises.

One major current problem with deploying G.Fast, especially in a self-install setup is that, at the moment, there isn’t much support for this technology as far as customer-premises equipment is concerned. Most likely, this will be rectified as more countries roll out G.Fast deployments and manufacturers offer DSL modem routers that support G.Fast alongside VDSL2 and ADSL2; and this will initially appeal to carriers and service providers who want to provide the equipment rather than have customers buy their own equipment.

NBN’s trial deployment

NBN ran their first trial in a Melbourne office building which was wired up with 20-year-old Category 3 cabling and provided with a VDSL2 “fibre-to-the-node” service. But they nailed a throughput of 600Mbps with the VDSL2 service operating and found that they could achieve 800Mbps in that same development without VDSL2 running.

They realised that they would need to complete more trials in conjunction with the retail ISPs who are using this infrastructure through 2016. This is more to test the waters with different operating environments and to identify whether it is the technology that can be used.

As an infrastructure provider, they were drawn to the G.Fast concept due to the idea of providing Gigabit service to most urban premises on a self-install basis rather than messing with truck rolls, landlords and owners corporations.

The burning question that will come across NBN deploying G.Fast is knowing whether the wiring at the consumer premises is up to the task for transferring high-speed data. It is because of the fact that there are older deployments that may be victims to poor connections including wiring short-cuts that may hamper the throughput needed for today’s needs.

Articles

York is intending to become a battleground for next-generation broadband Internet

Sky first ultrafast broadband connections | Advanced Television

From the horse’s mouth

Sky Broadband

Press Release

My Comments

York in the UK is showing up as a market where there is some intense competition for next-generation broadband Internet service.

This has come about due to fibre-optic infrastructure being laid down by CityFibre in conjunction with Sky and TalkTalk for a fibre-to-the-premises network capable of operating to 940Mbps. Just lately, Sky had connected their first customer to this network.

It brought out a war of words about what qualifies a city as an “ultrafast” or “gigabit” city when it comes to the presence of next-generation broadband Internet service. The European Union and the UK Government qualified a residential Internet service “ultrafast” as being greater than 100Mbps “at the customer’s door”. But CityFibre were using the term “Gigabit City” to qualify where there is an Internet service with a bandwidth capable of close to a Gigabit per second and is an actual revenue-providing service rather than a trial service.

It is feasible to call many of the UK’s cities as being “ultrafast” when it comes to next-generation broadband deployment because there was services of at least 152Mbps bandwidth penetrating 90% of these cities. Then the other qualifier was the presence of fibre-to-the-premises service with Kingston Upon Hull having 30.9% coverage.

Questions were also raised about BT Openreach providing full fibre-to-the-premises service in York with their central-activities district having native FTTP coverage of 12.4% and the rest of that city having 3.25%. As well, Hyperoptic had wired a large number of apartment blocks in York with FTTP broadband,

The competition issue that may need to be resolved is whether there is any “building-over” taking place where competing infrastructure providers are deploying their infrastructure in to each other’s territory. In a similar vein, there is also the issue of the availability of competing retail Internet service across many or all of the different infrastructures that exist. This could come to a point where the UK will need to determine a policy that affects competing next-generation broadband Internet services delivered using competing last-mile infrastructures in urban areas. This will have to encompass competitors “building over” each others’ infrastructure including access to multiple-premises buildings like apartment or office blocks and shopping centres.

What is happening in York could lead to a very interesting road for delivering fibre-based next-generation broadband in the UK’s urban areas. As well, it could lead to next-generation broadband Internet that is increasingly affordable for most households and small businesses in these areas and yields increased value for money for these users.

Article

TPG to offer fibre-to-the-basement Internet to these kind of apartment blocks

TPG Is Still Building Its Own Competitor To The NBN | Gizmodo Australia

My Comments

As some of you may know from a few previous posts, Hyperoptic is an Internet service provider who runs their own fibre-optic infrastructure and services apartment and office buildings and similar developments in an increasing number of UK cities with next-generation broadband. They are standing as viable competition against BT Openreach who are effectively owned by British Telecom and offering increased value by deploying FTTP installations in to these buildings whereas the Openreach setup will be based around fibre-copper setups, either FTTC (fibre to the street cabinet) or FTTB (fibre to the basement) setups with VDSL2 to the customer’s premises.

As well, they even offered customers the option to sign up for this service “by the month” rather than a 12-month or longer contract. This was pitched at people who are on short-term work placements or are living “month-by-month” and may not rent the same apartment for a year or more.

In Australia, iiNet recently started to offer a competitive fibre-to-the-building Internet service for apartment blocks and similar developments to answer the National Broadband Network efforts concerning next-generation broadband and this effort has continued since TPG took over iiNet. Like Hyperoptic’s effort in the UK market, this is based on fibre-optic infrastructure that they own rather than the National Broadband Network who are working in a similar manner to BT’s Openreach, thus allowing them to charge cheaper prices for their Internet service and offer better value.

They are different from Hyperoptic because they implement fibre-to-the-building technology where there is copper cabling between the basement and the customer’s apartment, office or shop. But TPG could be in a position to offer fibre-to-the-premises for these users if they so wished to.

A question that will be raised in conjunction with these competitive deployments is whether NBN and competing next-generation-broadband infrastructure can coexist with each other in the same neigbbourhood or building; including whether a retail operator can sell their service on one or more different infrastructures . This could open up infrastructure-level competition for Australian users who live or run businesses in these developments. Similarly, it could be about lighting up “Gigaclear-style” fibre-optic rollouts to rural, regional and peri-urban areas using infrastructure not under the control of NBN.

Article – French language / Langue française

Freebox Révolution – – ready for VDSL2 when you are closer

Free propose le VDSL2 sur tout son réseau dégroupé | Freenews

My Comments

The competitive environment has paid off in France especially with Free.fr .

They have wanted to head down the VDSL2 path and have equipped their Révolution modem-router for this technology.

But they wanted to have a service ready to go in October 2013 then they wanted to be sure most, if not all of their subscriber base across France can benefit from this technology and needed to test all of the infrastructure to be sure. As well, they didn’t want to publish the number of customers that were ready until they were sure of their facts.

They then went over everything and were able to know that their whole dégroupé (unbundled local-loop / sub-loop) network was ready to go VDSL2 and had the necessary equipment in place to go. The technology has been set up on a “fallback basis” where the customer would have the high bandwidth associated with the VDSL2 technology if they are closer to the exchange or connection point that is suitably equipped but fall back to regular ADSL2 conditions otherwise. The distance to benefit would be around 1500 metres or closer which would typically be places closer to town centres or other dense urban areas.

The unforgettable Freebox Révolution is already to go for VDSL2 as the customer-premises endpoint or can benefit through a software upgrade in the same way it has benefited from other newer features. It can be a proving ground for any fibre-copper deployment or redesigning a community’s telephony infrastructure to raise the issue of higher-throughput VDSL2 service for people closer to connection points but allow for better quality ADSL2 service.