International

UK: Only fiber will meet bandwidth needs

acohill — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 06:10:59 -0800

This article warns that usable bandwidth in the UK will actually decline in the next several years without a major push to get homes and businesses connected with fiber. As more and more business and residential activities rely on broadband delivery (e.g. telepresence, gaming, movie and TV downloads), current copper-based and wireless systems will not be able to meet demand.

GigE broadband in Japan for $60/month

acohill — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:27:53 -0700

A firm in Japan is rolling out gigabit broadband services to residential customers for $60/month. Back in April, FCC Commissioner Deborah Tate gave a talk and noted that the 100 megabit fiber connections in Japan were already showing signs of "congestion." The GigE service ought to improve throughput.

Meanwhile, we still have lots of people in the U.S. talking about DSL (at around 1 megabit) as "broadband."

U.S. Broadband: Almost as good as Nigeria?

acohill — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 08:28:25 -0700

Nigeria is using a high performance network for the national post office (1,500 locations) to jumpstart community broadband connectivity. A new national backbone will be built, using the post office needs as an anchor tenant. But the high performance network will be designed to support other community broadband and service needs.

This could work well in the U.S. at the regional and state level, and in fact, states like New Mexico are already studying just that--using state library, telemedicine, and research network needs to serve as the backbone for an open network available to businesses, residents, and service providers (Disclaimer: Design Nine was hired by the State of New Mexico to do that study).

Private, single use networks are expensive and often limit economic development potential, because a dedicated K12, health, or state agency network usually can't be shared with the private sector. By building a single high performance network like the one planned for Nigeria, several anchor tenants can help offset the cost and not only lower the cost of telecom for their own organization but for the whole community as well. Some places in the U.S. are planning these networks, including the Eastern Shore of Virginia Broadband Authority.

U.S. broadband: Almost as good as Malaysia?

acohill — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:41:02 -0700

Once again, fairly small countries are far ahead of the U.S. in thinking about broadband. Malaysia has announced an ambitious but entirely doable plan to take fiber to major areas of the country, with the Federal government paying about 30% of the cost in a deal with the biggest telecom company in Malaysia. In the U.S., it would be the equivalent of the states making deals to write checks directly to the incumbent providers (which some states already do). The fiber system will have 100 megabit capacity, with a starter package of Internet access at 10 megabits.

The good news is that U.S. communities and regions still have the opportunity to surpass Malaysia. Malaysia's deal with the incumbent telecom will not increase competition and will not be likely to encourage the rollout of innovative new services. Open service networks like those in Europe are beginning to gather momentum here in the U.S., and open networks tend to lower prices and bring lots of new services to businesses and residents. Five or six years from now, Malaysian cities will be behind many broadband community efforts in the United States.

Undersea cables were cut by improper anchoring

acohill — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:49:43 -0700

The undersea fiber cables that were cut a couple of months ago were the subject of numerous conspiracy theories, but satellite photos have revealed the culprits--cargo ships that were anchored in the wrong place. Sometimes Occam's Razor (the simplest explanation is the likeliest one) is exactly right.

The object lesson for communities is to plan for cable outages by making sure local networks have redundant cable paths. Sometimes this is quite expensive to do when just getting started with community telecom investments, so an alternative to a second fiber cable is a high capacity wireless link that can handle local traffic (perhaps with somewhat less throughput) while repairs are made.

Is WiMax the silver bullet?

acohill — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:47:06 -0700

An Australian wireless ISP who has operated a WiMax network for more than a year unleashed a blistering attack on the protocol, calling it a "disaster" and that it "failed miserably." Unfortunately, the article provides little detail on exactly what frequencies were used (WiMax is a catch all term for the protocol, which can use several different chunks of frequency spectrum). The interesting thing about the comments is that the firm is planning to deploy more traditional WiFi as part of their wireless network. This article illustrates that wireless systems are not a panacea, and that they have to designed and engineered carefully to get good performance.

Europe rockets ahead in broadband

acohill — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:41:56 -0700

According to a New York Times article, Europe is pulling far ahead of the United States in high performance broadband deployment. European countries, led by Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and Finland, are adding 50,000 broadband lines a day.

In Europe, most countries have required the incumbent telecom firms to allow other broadband firms to lease their infrastructure, which has led to heavy competition and lower prices. While many of the new connections are still copper-based DSL, many places have gone to citywide fiber deployments. In Paris and Vienna, 100 megabit fiber connections are widely available.

One hour TV show in ten minutes

acohill — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 19:06:06 -0800

If you live in Paris and have the new 100 megabit fiber to the home service, it only takes about ten minutes to download a high quality version of a one hour TV show. Here in the U.S., the FCC has announced that more than 95% of the U.S. has broadband. The FCC defines "broadband" as "anything faster than 256 kilobits, or about 400 times slower than the current Parisian definition of broadband.

Redundant cables, diverse routes

acohill — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:27:43 -0800

Two fiber cables on the floor of the Mediterranean were cut, causing huge disruptions in Internet service to the Mideast and Asia. A fisherman's anchor apparently snapped the two cables, which were the primary and backup links to a major Internet exchange point in Egypt.

The problem highlights an increasingly important economic development issue in the U.S. More and more businesses, as they consider where to relocate business operations, are asking not only if there are two or more fiber cables serving a community. They also want to see diverse routes, or two completely different paths. Unfortunately, in a lot of places, there may be two cables, but they may both share the same right of way, meaning an errant backhoe would cut both of them with one swipe.

If your region wants to attract new businesses, you should be planning to address the need for redundant cables and diverse routes for those cables. It will give your region a key marketing edge if a) you already have that essential telecom infrastructure in place, or b) you can talk knowledgeably about the need and show a specific plan for achieving redundancy and diverse routes.

85% take rate for multi-service open network

acohill — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 06:05:30 -0800

The community of Nuenen, Holland has great news for those interested in multi--service open networks. The community broadband project, which had hoped for a 35% take rate, has seen much, much better results:

"The 'pitch' in Nuenen is not about 'bandwidth' 'fibre' or anything techie. Nuenen has an elderly community, consequently Ons Net aimed to appeal to a 75 year old woman who does not own a computer nor used the internet," he explained.

It is local services supporting security, home care, events on the local TV channel and improving the community that are attracting people.

In order to secure the necessary funds Ons Net was looking for an initial 35% sign-up rate. In fact it got closer to 85% and posted a £1m profit in its first year.

In Nuenen, residents get connected to a 100 megabit capacity fiber network, and buy individual services like Internet access, telephone service, and TV service. This is a fundamentally different business model that creates real competition among service providers and tends to lower service costs. Communities in the U.S. pursuing this approach include Palo Alto, California; Seattle, Washington; Gainesville, Florida; the 15 community MegaPOP project in Mississippi; Danville, Virginia; and The Wired Road project in southwestern Virginia. The last two communities are being assisted by Design Nine.