Category: Internet Access And Service

"Triple Play Social" now in full deployment in Paris

News Links (French-language sites)

http://www.degroupnews.com/actualite/n3071-hlm-paris-sfr-fibre_optique-haut_debit.html DegroupNews (France)

My commets

Since my earlier article wbich I had moved from my older blog, SFR had taken over Neuf Cegetel. But this universal-acces “single-pipe triple-play” service has continued on and the trucks are now rolling a the HLM estates as this is being written.

Because of the high-throughput technology, companies like SFR are able to provide this kind of acess to the people.  As I mentioned earlier, it is underpinned by the European business culture which is primarily “for the people” rather than for the executives of the big companes which is the primary business culture in the USA.

"Triple Play Social" in Paris – an example for providing a universal bare-bones "triple-play" service

News Links (French-language news sites)

http://www.pcinpact.com/actu/news/41764-neuf-cegetel-opac-triple-play-social.htm PC Impact

http://www.vnunet.fr/news/neuf_cegetel_introduit_sa_fibre_optique_dans_les_hlm_de_paris-2026564 VNUNet 

My comments

)In February 2008, Neuf Cegetel (a French telecommunications provider) along with Office HLM de Paris (the public housing authority in Paris, similar to the Ministry of Housing in Victoria, Australia) have established a universal-access “single-pipe triple-play” service for deployment in areas of Paris that have fibre-optic telecommunications.

This service, which is offered for EUR1 / month tax-exclusive has the provision of:

  • 18 channels of regular “free-to-air” digital television programming including high-definition broadcasts provided by the “free-to-air” broadcasters
  • 512kbps broadband which is effectively the same standard as most mid-tier ADSL plans currently available in Australia and;
  •  a landline telephony service of similar standard to Telstra’s InContact service — can receive incoming calls but cannot make outgoing calls except to emergency and special numbers

delivered over the fibre-optic pipe.

Comments on this service in relevance to the Australian market

From what I see, the 512kbps ADSL service is being considered the bare minimum standard of Internet access in Europe where people in Australia have to call this standard of service a luxury and have to consider 256kbps “fraud-band” Internet service as the “way in” when thinking of broadband. Often this has meant that sole parents and others on very limited income are having to stick to this speed if they want to think of broadband at all; or just simply work with a dial-up Internet connection.

As well, Australian pay-TV providers don’t offer a “FTA-only” deal where you only receive the free-to-air digital TV channels. This may be because of the prevalence of cheap standard-definition DVB-T boxes flooding the market and the DTV service comprising primarily of the FTA channels receivable on regular TV and a handful of supplementary channels that are “spin-offs” of the regular broadcast output. The only areas where such a service may take hold would be customers who live in areas with marginal TV reception and / or customers who rent premises where there is an underperforming TV aerial or simply no TV aerial and may find it hard to get proper digital TV reception.

The kind of landline telephony service that is offered may appeal not just to people on a low income but to share houses where a common telephone may be required just for receiving calls and “emergency fallback”. Typically, the tenants would then maintain prepaid mobile phones for their outgoing calls and for receiving personal calls.

This kind of service provisioning may catch on in Continental Europe where most of the culture is centred around being “for the people” but won’t easily be accepted in cultures like the USA where corporate profits are more important than the needs of the people.

Housewives hooked on the internet as they log on more than anyone else | Daily Mail (UK)

Articles

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1093047/Housewives-hooked-internet-log-else.html

Articles posted during New Year’s Day

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7789494.stm 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/31/internet-housewives

My Comments

Affordability of Internet service and computer equipment

Nowadays, a decent-standard broadband Internet plan is at a price that is affordable for most people no matter the financial situation. Increasingly, these plans are becoming bundled with other personal telephony or pay-TV deals so they end up being a no-brainer to consider for the home.  This also includes the arrival of “n-play” deals that encompass personal (landline and / or mobile) telephony, Internet access and multi-channel pay-TV services.

As well, computer equipment of a standard good enough for working on the Web and doing other basic tasks can be purchased for a reasonable sum of money. Similarly, I had talked on the blog about a) repurposing an old business laptop as a general-purpose “kitchen PC” and b) the concept of “netbook” computers like the Asus Eee PC as general-purpose computers. This covers cost-effective laptop computers being able to earn their keep in this kind of situation.

The new computing experience

I have mentioned a lot in my blog of a “new computing experience” that is becoming the norm in most households. The Internet “edge” for this setup is typically an affordable wireless router that provides a WiFi local network segment as well as an Ethernet local network segment. The computer that is typically used in this setup is typically a notebook (laptop) computer that has a built-in WiFi network interface. The printer will typically be an inkjet-based “all-in-one” that is hooked up to the computer as need for printing or scanning arises. Some setups may use a network-enabled “all-in-one” printer that connects directly to the Ethernet or WiFi network segment and uses standard network protocols for handling print jobs.

This experience has been brought about through Intel’s heavily-promoted “Centrino” concept which promotes the WiFi wireless network as part and parcel of laptop use. One main concept that was promoted in the “Centrino” concept was the idea of portability where you can go anywhere in the house in a moment’s notice yet still be within reach of the Internet.

What is this leading to?

The main activities cited in the article include general Web browsing and banking / paying bills online.  It had said that the short amount of time needed to do the business online can lead to more leisure time. In the context of the housewife, this would encompass more quality time with the children.

Other articles that I have read talked about housewives with young children visiting the casual gaming sites like MSN Games and MiniClip so they can play a few rounds of a casual game while their child is having a nap.

Social-networking sites; which are often demonised as huge “time wasters”, a threat to privacy and a hangout for unsavoury types of people, can appeal to this kind of user. The same can hold true of online forums, instant messaging and similar sites.

But primarily, the housewife using the Internet as part of her life means that there is another tool for her association with th organisations that she deals with. Think of being able to view “parent-teacher” information sent by the school that the children go to or putting up online notes for the pressure-group organisation that she and her neighbours are part of.

Conclusion

The remarks made in the Daily Mail article and in this blog commentary certainly show that the “connected” lifestyle certainly appeals to those who spend some of their time alone in the house.

Understanding Fibre-Optic Broadband

There has been recent talk about the idea of providing the National Broadband Network, a super-fast broadband Internet service, either with Telstra or Terria (an Optus-led consortium) providing the infrastructure. One idea, proposed by Terria (who was OPEL) was to provide a fibre-optic service to urban locations and use a WiMAX radio link for rural and regional locations and the other idea, proposed by Telstra was to use fibre-optic in all towns and a DSL service optimised for long distance for rural areas. This issue even ended up being one of the platform issues for the Australian Labor Party during their campaign for Election 2007.

There are some “greenfield” (newly-released land) housing developments in Australia where this kind of fibre-optic broadband service is being deployed. This has been made easier due to the development not having telecommunications or other infrastructure and is used as a promotion tool by the developers in showing how “switched on” the location is.

Some other population-dense countries such as France and the USA are deploying a commercial fibre-optic broadband service into various neighbourhoods.

 

Infrastructure Types

FTTN (Fibre To The Node) – fibre optic link to a cabinet deployed in the neighbourhood with intentions to cover a number of streets

FTTC (Fibre To The Curb / Kerb) – fibre optic link to a cabinet deployed in a street with intentions to cover that street and perhaps “courts” and other cul-de-sacs running off that street.

FTTB (Fibre To The Building) – fibre-optic link deployed to the wiring closets of multiple-tenancy buildings (blocks of flats, office blocks, etc). Single-occupancy buildings may be served in a manner similar to fibre to the curb or may be served using fibre to the premises.

FTTP (Fibre To The Premises) / FTTH (Fibre To The Home) – fibre optic link deployed to the customer’s premises. A strict interpretation would require that multiple-tenancy buildings have optical fibre running to each unit (flat, office, shop) in the building.

Setup at the customer’s location

Systems other than FTTP / FTTH will have a copper-wire link running from the system cabinet or wiring closet to the customer’s door. This will be deployment-dependent and may be a high-speed variant of DSL piggybacked on the telephone lines; a coaxial link similar to cable TV and cable Internet; or simply a twisted-pair Ethernet cable run similar to what is implemented for wired networks in the home or workplace.

In the case of an FTTP / FTTH service, there will be an “optical network terminal” device that is deployed at the customer’s premises. It is simply a fibre-optic – Ethernet bridge that links the fibre-optic cable to the home network. The device would either be fixed outside the house with an Ethernet cable run to a room nominated by the customer; or be a box the same size as a typical cable modem and is installed in a similar manner to cable-based broadband Internet.

Typical standard of service

The typical fibre-optic service that is being provided would be a “single-pipe triple-play” service with broadband “hot and cold running” Internet, multi-channel pay-TV and landline telephony provided over the same “pipe”. Due to the “fat pipe” provided by the fibre-optic infrastructure, the level of service would be beyond the average telephony, pay-TV and broadband Internet service.

This would usually be represented by the TV service carrying a large number of high-definition channels, the IP-based landline telephony service being capable of handling “high-band” telephony services like FM-grade or better audio and / or videophone services with smooth pictures The Internet service would be able to offer a level of service that is beyond what the typical broadband Internet service can provide, which would be a high throughput service with a very low latency.

This kind of service would typically be provisioned using an Internet gateway device equipped with an “analogue telephony adaptor” interface so the customer can continue to use existing telephony devices. If the customer subscribes to pay-TV service, they would be supplied with an IP-TV set-top box that is connected to the Internet gateway device via a high-speed network connection like HomePlug AV, Ethernet or 802.11n WPA wireless.

Some installations have used a “single-box” solution for the network-Internet “edge” with the Internet gateway, analogue telephony interface and IP-TV set-top box function built in to the one box but such installations are unpopular because of the desire by most households to keep TV viewing and computer use in appropriately-comfortable areas.

Competitive Delivery

Issues that are currently being raised mainly in France are the provisioning of fibre-optic broadband on a competitive footing where competing service providers have access to the same customer base.

One of them is a competitive delivery scenario where one or mor competing service providers use their own infrastructure to provide their own service. The issues that are raised are primarily focused on multi-occupancy buildings like blocks of flats, office blocks or shopping centres which France has many of. It concerns whether multple operators should or shouldn’t share the same wiring closet and infrastructure for the cabling to the occupant’s premises and what happens when an occupant changes service providers.

Ultimately, the issue of competitive delivery in all kinds of locations will need to be worked out, especially for the good of the customers.