Some things warrant further discussion.
This, then, is a collection of things that don't.
This, then, is a collection of things that don't.
Where's my next generation network?
Posted 22nd September 2008 at 11:10 PM by Ben
Most people reading this will have been introduced to the Internet via dial-up over the copper telephone line.
I certainly was. Not back in the heady 9600bps days, mind you. No, I joined the Internet with the late-to-the-party 28,800bps generation, and was rendered out-of-date in a ping by the mighty 56k.
It all seems like the distant past now ADSL has come and conquered. Indeed, ADSL connections to the Internet are now even cheaper than all but the 'free' dial-up services were. Hell, I used to pay 1p a minute and think I was getting deal of the century. On top of a subscription fee.
We're so incredibly fortunate in the UK to have the infrastructure that we have. Our infrastructure is surely the only thing keeping us from ruin by the Blairites and the Brownites. It must have taken great men over the centuries and decades to have created what we have now, with incredible foresight that I doubt exists in today's world if "I want it now".
And this is the problem. ADSL broadband may be wonderful, but it's still creaking along over the 100-year-old copper network, at least on the last mile between the telephone exchange and our homes and offices. Where's the vision that's creating the new network that will last for the next 100 years to come?
It has been pretty much decided that the future of all fixed line communications will be fibre optics. Light, you see, travels very fast - in fact, it travels at the speed of light, surprisingly - and as such digital signals can be sent much faster down a piece of glass than they can a piece of copper.
So, if you wanted a fibre optic Internet connection now, how much would it cost? About £11k. Eleven grand. A year. For two meg' down, two meg' up - that's slower on the downstream than the majority of ADSL broadband out there at the moment for 100x the cost. And that's cheap!
And where's the guarantee that this zippy light-based medium is going to afford us the longevity of the copper cable and humble electrons? Sure, we're probably not going to have a throw-back to analogue any time soon, but are fibre optics versatile enough to justify the £30bn (thirty billion of her majesty's finest) or so it'd cost to replace every coarse hair of copper?
I want my next generation network. Economies of scale will kick in and make a nationwide rollout of fibre optics to replace our ageing copper cables more practical. And as for where to put the damn things - how about in the ducts currently housing the copper? Given how much more information one can squeeze down a shard of glass than a chunk of coinage it wouldn't surprise me if there's room for Vanessa Feltz down in the BT ducts by the time we're done. But unless either the Government builds our next generation network or the Government constructs a monopoly for BT to do it on their behalf we're all screwed. The foresight that has made Britain great will be nothing more than some corroding green gunk buried half a metre down.
I certainly was. Not back in the heady 9600bps days, mind you. No, I joined the Internet with the late-to-the-party 28,800bps generation, and was rendered out-of-date in a ping by the mighty 56k.
It all seems like the distant past now ADSL has come and conquered. Indeed, ADSL connections to the Internet are now even cheaper than all but the 'free' dial-up services were. Hell, I used to pay 1p a minute and think I was getting deal of the century. On top of a subscription fee.
We're so incredibly fortunate in the UK to have the infrastructure that we have. Our infrastructure is surely the only thing keeping us from ruin by the Blairites and the Brownites. It must have taken great men over the centuries and decades to have created what we have now, with incredible foresight that I doubt exists in today's world if "I want it now".
And this is the problem. ADSL broadband may be wonderful, but it's still creaking along over the 100-year-old copper network, at least on the last mile between the telephone exchange and our homes and offices. Where's the vision that's creating the new network that will last for the next 100 years to come?
It has been pretty much decided that the future of all fixed line communications will be fibre optics. Light, you see, travels very fast - in fact, it travels at the speed of light, surprisingly - and as such digital signals can be sent much faster down a piece of glass than they can a piece of copper.
So, if you wanted a fibre optic Internet connection now, how much would it cost? About £11k. Eleven grand. A year. For two meg' down, two meg' up - that's slower on the downstream than the majority of ADSL broadband out there at the moment for 100x the cost. And that's cheap!
And where's the guarantee that this zippy light-based medium is going to afford us the longevity of the copper cable and humble electrons? Sure, we're probably not going to have a throw-back to analogue any time soon, but are fibre optics versatile enough to justify the £30bn (thirty billion of her majesty's finest) or so it'd cost to replace every coarse hair of copper?
I want my next generation network. Economies of scale will kick in and make a nationwide rollout of fibre optics to replace our ageing copper cables more practical. And as for where to put the damn things - how about in the ducts currently housing the copper? Given how much more information one can squeeze down a shard of glass than a chunk of coinage it wouldn't surprise me if there's room for Vanessa Feltz down in the BT ducts by the time we're done. But unless either the Government builds our next generation network
Total Comments 1
Comments
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Fibre to the home is definitely coming. There are a number of initiatives, but the short-termism that rules in the offices of the Financial Directors of our great industries cannot see beyond three years. There is no way that national infrastructure can be paid back in three years. We should be looking at 25 years or even longer just to break even.
But hope rules eternal - there is competition in getting fibre to the home and that can only be a good thing. BT has nominated a number of "new" towns such as Kent's Ebbsfleet for their trials. Other consortiums are using sewers and waterways to get their infrastructure rolled out. It is all very small beer right now, and it will most likely take a decade or more for us to see very much outside of the larger towns and cities. There will be irrelevancies like WiFi or WiMAX - these will come, and these will go. In the end we have to aim for fibre because there is more than Internet on the cards. Internet access alone will not pay for the infrastructure, it needs to carry everything and fibre will do just that. It will be interesting to see how they intend to light up the fibre. If they use a single wavelength there will be bandwidth limits, albeit extraordinary ones. But as we see fibre used for multimedia such as broadcast TV and Video on Demand even that bandwidth will not be sufficient. Fortunate, then, that we already have that particular problem licked. DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) is a technology in which we actually divide light into discrete frequencies each of which represents a discrete communications channel. And so, if you can drive a single wavelength at, say, 1Gbps then with DWDM you could derive multiple 1Gbps channels along a single fibre. You are limited in channels only be the light-splitting capability of the DWDM kit being used across the fibre. So as the technology advances we can expect to see highly compact DWDM terminal equipment - probably encapsulated in "Set Top Boxes" in peoples homes. Literally, the future is indeed bright 
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| Posted 23rd October 2008 at 09:18 PM by Hands0n |
Recent Blog Entries by Ben
- I bought Vodafone (10th December 2008)
- Getting into the fast lane (5th December 2008)
- Evangelism (15th November 2008)
- We must ask questions (28th October 2008)
- ADSL: Last mile, or last foot? (26th September 2008)
