Tag: fibre-optic broadband

Article

FTTH the right choice: NZ IT minister | ZDNet

My Comments

Australia, France and a few other countries are implementing fibre-to-the-premises technology as their mainstay next-generation broadband networks. Similarly, some local “real-broadband enablement” deployments in some country towns like Hambleton in the UK have set up for this technology.

Similarly, those countries who have established fibre-copper next-generation broadband services, like the VDSL network in Germany and the fibre-to-the-cabinet deployments in the UK, have shown interest in the FTTP technology in some limited-area or pilot deployments.

Now New Zealand have shown interest in creating a next-generation broadband network. This time, they have headed for the fibre-to-the-premises technology rather than the cheaper fibre-copper technologies. Of course, the rural areas would be serviced with fibre-copper or fixed-wireless setups rather than the all-fibre solution.

The New Zealand Communications Minister, Amy Adams, had gone on record that she stood for the technology. She stood for it because there is better fiscal sense in rolling out this kind of network because of it being future-proof, rather than retrofitting the fibre-copper network to an all-fibre setup at a later stage in the network’s service life. This was raised as part of discussions with the Australian Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy regarding trans-Tasman communications, including capping the cost of mobile-phone roaming between Australia and New Zealand.

The country may also have other requirements that are particular of multi-island nations. Here, it would need to benefit from higher-bandwidth

But, in my honest opinion, that country does need to improve on competitive Internet access. It is because I have heard that the New-Zealand broadband services are more expensive compared to Australia and other main Internet markets. The problem is more so with international access streams ran by other operators so that the retain ISPs there can buy cheaper bandwidth and onsell it to the New-Zealand public.

Article – French language

La fibre optique se déploie en Côte d’Ivoire – DegroupNews.com

My Comments

Most of us would think that it’s a noble effort to help the “poor starving Africans” out, usually by working alongside a charity or church mission that works in various African countries providing health, education and welfare to these communities. This is although most of these communities work in an agricultural economy.

But in the Cote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), there are steps to distribute real next-generation broadband to this country using fibre-optic technology. The main drivers for this effort include education and telemedicine to the various communities.

The main infrastructure would be built around a 1400km fibre-optic backbone between San Pedro, Tabou, Man, Odienné, Korhogo and Ferkessedougou;  and another 549km backbone between Abidjan, Bondoukou and Bouna. There will be a network covering the Cote D’Ivoire which uses 6700km of fibre optic cabling and touching the various medical and educational precincts. It will achieve a 100Mbps bandwidth and support digital television and increased-capacity telephony for the telecommunications providers there.

This will be co-ordinated by the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications of that country, Bruno Koné as part of a nationwide “rural telecommunications project” known as the “Projet National de Téléphonie Rurale (PNTR)”.

Issues that can be raised is whether this could allow the creation of a data axis through Africa and whether efforts could be underway to provide competitive telecommunications through this continent. In some cases, this could allow Cote D’Ivoire to become more than an agricultural country by opening up research and commerce in to that area and neigbouring African countries. Of course, the real issue is to have the government work efforts to enrich the nation for all and yield prosperity and health using this technology.

Article

thinkbroadband :: Full fibre on its way to 9,000 premises in and around Chipping Norton

From the horse’s mouth

Cotswolds Broadband – Web site

My Comments

The action is now in the Cotswolds for a full fibre-optic rollout in the UK. The effort is organised by Cotswolds Broadband to provide and manage this kind of broadband infrastructure to Chipping Norton and its neighbourhood.

It will be done on an infrastructure basis where customers will be dealing with retail internet providers like what is happening with ADSL services in the UK. The technology will be a full fibre-to-the-premises service with the cabling carried overhead rather than buried underground. But one of the main efficiencies that is promoted with the infrastructure project is that the infrastructure company is locally owned, this allowing the money to go back in to the community.

A question that needs to be raised is whether the service will be effectively transparent for the retail customers? This includes quality-of-service for multimedia services as well as the ability to provide IP-based telephony at the necessary standard for useability.

What I would see is that the more country areas that become enabled for next-generation broadband, the better. This is to place these areas on the map not just in an agricultural way but to satisfy newer “tree-change” realities.

Articles – French language

France Télécom va tester le VDSL2 – DegroupNews.com

My comments

Most next-generation broadband deployments in France’s competitive Internet market are either FTTP (fibre-to-the-premises) fibre but Numericable are running with what is called an “FTTLA” fibre-to-the-cabinet setup. This is where the copper run to the customers is a short-run coaxial cable similar to existing cable-modem setups and is based on DOCSIS 3.0 technology.

On the other hand. VDSL2 telephone-line-based technology is successfully used in Germany and the UK for the copper run in fibre-to-the-cabinet setups in those locations. Now France Telecom are intending to try it in the highly-competitive French market for cheaper fibre-copper next-generation setups. This will most likely be used as another method of covering sparsely-populated outer-urban or regional areas where the cost to deploy would be prohibitive for a full-fibre rollout.

The reason they are running with this technology is its ability to provide a “fat pipe” over telephone cable for short runs. For example, as I have seen from the article, an 800m run of telephone cable could yield a download link speed of 25Mb/s on ADSL2 technology, but could yield 100Mb/s for the same distance. Similarly a longer run which could typically achieve a link speed of 1Mbps under ADSL2 could achieve 42Mbps with VDSL2.

As I have already known, these rates are dependent on the line condition between the street cabinet or exchange and the customer’s premises. Of course, this would be delivered under sub-loop unbundling which would be part of the call for a competitive Internet market in France. Similarly, there would have to be competitive access to those street cabinets so that competing Internet providers like Free could run their fibre backbone to the newly-created VDSL2 infrastructure and reach these markets.

Personally, I would like to see any fibre-copper deployment scenarios involving rural properties like farms be looked at so that there is a proof of feasibility for bringing next-generation broadband to the farmhouse door in a reliable manner.

Articles – French language

Le département de l’Oise déploie la fibre optique pour tous ses habitants – DegroupNews.com

From the horse’s mouth

Conseil Général de l’Oise – Local government for the Oise département

Le Très Haut Débit, Une Ambition Forte Pour L’Oise

Web Site

My Comments

In Australia, work is underway in some towns to have the National Broadband Network fibre-optic infrastructure in place. But the local government of Oise in France have put up a goal to have fibre-to-the-premises next generation Internet past every household in that départément.

This départément is located 25km north of Paris and is a mixture of rural and urban living as well as being home to some of France’s classic chateaux. But the main problem here is that a lot of Oise has areas that don’t “cut the mustard” for triple-play broadband. Here, you could just service basic Internet needs but wouldn’t service multimedia, a busy home or small-business network or triple-play Internet to the French competitive standard.

Technically, the network will be based on FTTH/FTTP technology and will be part of a buid-out of the TelOise fibre-optic network that has been already laid out. This places Oise on a par with most of urban France where there is a fibre-to-the-premises setup in place or being rolled out. The project will target areas where theire is substandard bandwidth first before covering the rest of the département.

This project will be supported with €265m worth of local public money, courtesy of the Conseil-Général who is the local government for the département; and will have a timeframe of around 15 years. I have touched on the issue of public money being used towards improving Internet service in this site as there has been a lot of conservative moaning about this practice in Australia with the NBN and in the USA with wireless hotzones set up by local governments.

What I suspect that would be going on would be a further push for some form of competitiveness in the way the service is delivered, as would be expected in France.

Whatever way I see it, France, like the UK, is an interesting country to observe when it comes to how Internet is delivered in a competitive manner and how local public money can be engaged in these projects.

Build out on TelOise network

Article

thinkbroadband :: Openreach in technical trial to test micro-filters with FTTC service

My comments

Previously ADSL required a truck-roll to the customer’s premises to provide the service. Here, the technician installs a DSL line splitter at the line’s entry point and a socket for the ADSL modem. Now installs don’t need a technician to visit unless they are difficult or sophisticated setups like dealing with business phone systems or monitored security systems.

Typically, the customer installs a micro-filter or ADSL line splitter on each phone device and connects the ADSL modem-router to a socket that doesn’t have a micro-filter attached to it or connects the modem to the ADSL or DATA port of the line splitter. In most cases, we tend to use DSL line splitters rather than line filters at each phone socket. This can allow us to move the ADSL modem-router around as needed to suit different living arrangements or simply to relocate the wireless router for best performance.

Most fibre-copper next-generation broadband setups such as FTTC, FTTN or FTTB typically will implement VDSL2 but this is a different kettle of fish when it comes to provision. Here, a technician still visits the premises to put in a VDSL2 central splitter and run Ethernet-grade cable to where the VDSL2 modem-router would be installed.

BT Openreach are trialing the use of selected line filters and splitters as a way of providing self-installation of VDSL2-based fibre-copper setups. They are assessing these for radio and audio interference and degradation of data throughput with the commonly-used line filters attached to existing phone equipment.

Initially, the tests will be based around professionally-installed setups, but they will move towards self-install setups. It could also then give the same level of flexibility that we have enjoyed with ADSL2 equipment.

These tests could be observed by other countries and companies interesting in deploying fibre-copper next-generation broadband that uses VDSL2 technology; but can also be used as a way of justifying these setups over fibre-to-the-premises setups.

Article

Telstra lodges its plan to split | The Australian

Previous Coverage

Telstra split ‘wont fix monopoly’ according to rivals

My Comments

As I have previously mentioned in this site, there needs to be further action taken concerning providing a wireline telecommunications service that is really competitive. The idea of Telstra splitting its telecommunications business between wholesale and retail is still about moving the wireline infrastructure to another entity with monopoly powers. This is compared to France where fibre-optic Internet can be provisioned by competing interests who have their own fibre-optic infrastructure but have access to the same ducts, poles, wiring closets and other physical infrastructure.

Other issues that weren’t raised included the definition and provision of the basic telecommunications service. This includes whether universal-service funds should be set up to competitively provide this service, how the national emergency-contact service is to be provided and how disaster-relief and social-telecommunications needs are to be provided in a competitive world. As I have said before, it would be best to look at what the UK and France are doing as they have moved from a government-run “PTT-style” telecommunications monopoly to a lively competitive telecommunications environment.