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There are few questions guaranteed to elicit heated debate as the quality of your broadband connection. More than any other utility, broadband always seems to draw the widest opinion. Perhaps this is due to the geographical disparity of services or the differing cost-points of providers. However, the topic of broadband connectivity was once again thrust into the media spotlight this week with the publication of Oxford University’s annual broadband report.
Detailing the state of the world’s broadband market, the study found that the UK is not ready for the networking demands of tomorrow. To anyone familiar with the UK’s digital agenda, the study’s findings may come as no surprise. In a recent post, I discussed the challenges currently being faced by the government and the country’s service providers to develop the UK into a networked nation. However, progress here is slow and as the map below highlights, there is a great deal of work to be done to move the country forward, especially if we wish to meet any of the government’s or the European Union’s goals. What’s particularly alarming about this map is the sheer number of regions with 0% likelihood of network investment.
While this is somewhat disappointing, it is encouraging to see that the UK’s Digital Champion, Martha Lane Fox, is once again rallying grass roots support. Earlier this week, the Digital Champion launched Get Online Week; an event designed to encourage the UK’s 9 million adults who have never accessed the web to go online. Throughout the country, businesses, charities and communities are pulling together to organise classes and workshops to educate friends and neighbours who have not yet taken that first cyber step.
I attended one of these sessions and was amazed to see this community-wide approach in action. In some cases, it only took an hour to show users the transformative powers of the Internet, especially as a tool for increased communication and productivity. In many respects, this is the essence of David Cameron’s plan for a Big Society, which will see power decentralised and handed to local authorities.
In addition to the Big Society, it’s also encouraging to see the activities of Rory Stewart MP, who can often be found travelling the country evangelizing the need to improve broadband access for the underserved. Mr Stewart recently held the country’s first Rural Broadband Conference, where a range of parties discussed how to connect the UK’s rural communities. Indeed, this is a key question and one that was raised at this month’s Parliament & Internet conference, where continued concerns over how the government plans to fund next-generation access were discussed.
Currently, there appears to be no clear answer to this question.
What are your thoughts on this topic? How can the UK ready itself to answer tomorrow’s broadband opportunities? Can we rely solely on the Big Society to develop a true networked nation? Should the government be more involved? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
PS, if you need any reassurance that we can develop a networked nation, take a look at Chris Conder’s video. Rural connectivity in action.
Part of the problem as I see it is how does one define “broadband”? The Government says a minimum USC of 2Mbit/s but surely this only gives a minimum level of service given the huge amount of bandwidth hungry apps out there. There is also the question of symmetry (equal amounts of download and upload capacity)and latency (delays in 2-way communication). 21st Century communications surely should cater for the anticipated needs of the next 90 years? 2Mbit/s doesn’t cut it and one gets the feeling 10, 50 or 100Mbit/s will not be enough in time. Basic provision should include a full optical fibre roll-out to the subscriber. Singlemode fibres offer potential umlimited bandwidth and such a connection should be ubiquitous – a 4th utility. As electronics get better and cheaper then one only has to upgrade at the Pop (Digital Village Pump) or exchange. Government has its part to play (notwithstanding its ability to interact with its voters and provide social and healthcare services etc.) and any public monies spent should reflect value for money and a future-proofing mentality. Why support BT in its continuing plans to sweat its copper assets when we should be cabling once with fibre? It will be interesting to see how the next tranche of Government money (BD-UK/BBC etc) is spent in Cumbria, Hereford, North Yorks and Highlands
Thanks for the comment; you raise some critical points. David Cameron’s goal of universal access of 2Mbps by 2015 is simply too low, and as I previously mentioned this represents a significant reduction in pre-election commitments to achieve rates of 100Mbps by 2017.
It’s clear that there is a clear disconnect between Cameron’s ambitions to make the UK into a leading broadband nation, one capable of responding to tomorrow’s networking demands, and his roadmap to achieving it. Even after the Chancellor’s spending review, there are still lots of unanswered questions.
However, yesterday’s spending review does represent a step forward. There is a clear next step and funds available to support it. Do you believe that the Chancellor’s proposal represents a clear direction?
Thanks,
Gareth
New comment from John Judge on the Optical, Ethernet and Transport Networking LinkedIn group: http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=32746473&gid=2473705&commentID=24975978&trk=view_disc
Always, we should be aiming for tomorrow’s bandwidth to exceed anything conceivable today. 10 party POTS lines to concantenated OC-768 evolved because 4 party POTS lines wasn’t enough.
Thanks, John. There can be no question that future-proof solutions are the only way to build sustainable and cost-efficient networks. Have you been following the debate regarding next-generation access technologies? WDM-PON is being widely advocated as one of the key technologies to building an infrastructure that can scale to meet the enormous bandwidth demands of tomorrow.
I’d be interested to hear your views on this.
Thanks,
Gareth
Hi Gareth – allocating funds and providing clear guidance on how that money is best spent are two different topics. From what I see and hear BT, Rutland Telecom and others are still chasing money with a confusing mix of VDSL, LLU, radio, satellite and of course fibre. What we need is clear Government diktat on what technologies are needed to safeguard future-proof NGA. I would agree that radio and satellite have their place in rural roll-out but should be viewed as a means to an end and not an end in itself. Watch out for the “seagulls fighting over a chip” in the coming months as a colleague has so eloquently put it!
Thanks for the comment. You’re quite right that no successful implementation can take place without clear direction and I expect that this is where the difficulty begins. There are a number of competing solutions that can effectively deliver bandwidth to the end user, but which is the most cost effective and future proof. Are you aware of any of the key players who are helping the government to shape its plans?
Thanks,
Gareth
New comment from Guy Jarvis 21st Century for Communications for Britain LinkedIn group: http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=32744922&gid=2042766&commentID=25029289&trk=view_disc
WDM-P2P is the eNdGame
A dedicated glass path to and from every home and business that, in rural areas, aggregate together at the Digital Village Pump (DVP).
The killer app for super-fast broadband/NGA/call it what you will is arguably the elimination of capacity constraints, whether due to technical deficiencies or affordability – google “Digital Penny Post”
The danger with the PON time-share paradigm is that it prevents individual households and businesses from having the choice to switch service providers at the physical layer, whereas P2P (point to point) provides the opportunity for competition throughout the OSI 7 layer stack which is important to ensure that local communities get the best deal future-proofed going forwards.
Thanks, Guy, both for the comment and for introducing me to the Digital Penny Post campaign. This is an interesting idea and one that I could certainly see gathering support.
Do you believe that public sector funds exist to achieve this?
Thanks,
Gareth
New comment from Modesto Morais on the Optical Networking LinkedIn group: http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=44353&type=member&item=32745623&qid=011236d9-b3e3-4761-a45f-12b7b0d78bb8&goback=.gmp_44353
Hi Gareth, I appreciate your questions because they don’t concern to UK only.
A1: The final target (10 years) should be 1Gbps per household/office (for 3ple play services)! But, the average bandwidth connections shouldn’t be larger then 10Mbps (Internet upload and download). Nowadays (EU and USA), if you run an international test you get not much then 5Mbps (average).
A2: Most of big FTTH networks are P2MP. For addressing network reuse, WDM-PON is an interesting way of achieving that.
Thanks, Modesto. I completely agree that many of the issues discussed here are of global concern. I’m currently at Broadband World Forum in Paris and am hearing many frustrations from people in Spain, Italy, France, US and other countries who are concerned that there is no clear roadmap to building a scalable network infrastructure that can accommodate tomorrow’s bandwidth demands. There clearly needs to be greater dialogue between the public and private sectors to ensure that we have the network we need to support potentially life-changing applications.
How do you view the situation in Portugal?
In regards to the figures that you mentioned, do you believe that 10 years is enough time to achieve these? Would you consider these figures to be achievable just in the EU or on a global scale?
Thanks,
Gareth
New reply from Modesto Morais on the Optical Networking LinkedIn group: http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=44353&type=member&item=32745623&commentID=25479066&report.success=8ULbKyXO6NDvmoK7o030UNOYGZKrvdhBhypZ_w8EpQrrQI-BBjkmxwkEOwBjLE28YyDIxcyEO7_TA_giuRN#commentID_25479066
About Portugal, since 2008 the wired communications are extremely competitive. Even the incumbent operator (PTcom) isn’t anymore dominant on 3ple play services. They must share with ZON, Sonaecom, Vodafone and ARTelecom. This is why PTcom, at beginning of 2009, started an aggressive FTTH deployment program. Right now PTcom has 1M houses passed and Vodafone and Sonaecom (an Orange participated company) have 200k houses passed each.
For all of them, the question now is how to innovate on new products/processes and get market share. They are showing they able…
I’m confident that the market conditions are created for catalyzing a real economical change on media, IT, and telecom industry. Even the economical/political crises will be a fundamental changing factor.
Well, about 10 year time for new Internet/bandwidth. Watching back, it seems nothing…but I remember some milestones stories that make’s me thinking that “the reality always surpasses imagination”…
In 1999, me and colleagues from telecom operators, at fiber optics normalization bodies’ meeting, we were guessing if 10Gbps transmission systems it would be a real need for telecom market. At that time, someone from telecom said “there is no such a need because DWDM technologies with 2,6Gbps will solve the backbone’s problem …”
Today, 10 years later, 10Gbps it’s a usual technology in LAN and access PON networks… 10 year it’s a very long time for electronics/optoelectronics industry! 100Gbps will be in place shortly for accomplishing backbone’s market needs…
Please, follow this blog: http://www.ott.co.uk/blog/
Thanks,
Modesto
Thanks, Modesto, both for the comment and the link to the blog. It’s great to hear that Portugal is developing such a competitive and healthy market place with a number of vendors deploying FTTH. As you highlighted, it will be fascinating to watch how this technology impacts upon the residential market. Will telehealth programs develop, distance learning opportunities increase, etc. There are so many real benefits possible here. Are you already seeing new services being introduced?
I couldn’t help but smile when I read your note on bandwidth demand from 1999. It’s true, at that time it was difficult to see the huge amounts of data that would be demanded by today’s bandwidth-intensive applications. I wonder if we will be having a similar conversation in 10 years, smiling at how 100Gbit/s appeared to be future proof.
From an innovation standpoint, I’d like to think so.
Thanks,
Gareth
New reply from Modesto Morais on the Optical Networking LinkedIn group: http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=44353&type=member&item=32745623&commentID=25479066&report.success=8ULbKyXO6NDvmoK7o030UNOYGZKrvdhBhypZ_w8EpQrrQI-BBjkmxwkEOwBjLE28YyDIxcyEO7_TA_giuRN#commentID_25479066
All services you said, and many more, are things we all hope to see in place shortly!
Things like sustainability (economical and environmental), energy costs, people ageing (at lest in EU), continues needs on learning for being useful in a always changing job market, and so on, tell us that faster telecommunications and related services (“tele-many-things”) are a real need just to help us to survive with a reasonable level and quality of life…
For starting, the amazing thing is that, most of all needed tools are already there (software and hardware). They are just literally waiting for “watching the light”… but the things aren’t going to happen so fast and naturally. Take the example of first telephone deployment: Would it be possible to think about telemarketing without the availability of many millions of telephone terminal at every ware? Of course not! So, about large bandwidth services, we have a similar situation. The large capacity infra-structures must be available every ware (at home and offices). But from ware comes the money for that? For me there are tow ways for reaching that level:
More or less slowly, following the entertainment market demands/needs or (grow as you reach sustainable profit);
Much faster, throw cooperation between market agents and national/International (EU in our cases) authorities by injecting money to catalyze all network deployments;
Answering you question about Portugal. Till now, there is nothing really spatial that deserves to be notified as big innovations… There are many e-government improvements (locally and nation wide), e-banking and e-shopping tools are reachable for everybody (even for shops in small stores), there are three rural programs (EU supported) for extending fiber to small country inside cities, etc.
Going back to bigger countries, like Spain or Germany, it seems that the incumbent operators are too big to be excluded from business plan equations of many small operators that have innovating business ideas about fiber deployments. They know that, everything they do, the incumbent operators can do it much better and faster. This is why EUC wants to force everybody to share fiber equally. Right now this new policy is making a lot of noise!
Thanks,
Modesto
Thanks, Modesto. You raise a number of critical questions that need to be addressed before we can even begin to consider developing new applications. In many respects, our networks stand at a crossroads and it’s vital that we take the correct route now to ensure that future generations can benefit from the promise of universal access. As I noted in a previous post (http://blog.advaoptical.com/europe-30-new-age-broadband), it appears that the EU, particularly under the guidance of Neelie Kroes, is becoming more heavily involved in network developments and is intent on building a connected Europe.
However, how the EU can fund this remains to be seen. The UK is currently trying a number of approaches to ensure that funds are available to support the country’s broadband development, but current figures are still far shorter than what is required.
Do you feel confident that the EU will be able to make significant progress here?
Thanks,
Gareth
Fascinating comments which seem to highlight the same form of thinking – that there should be only one solution to the problem. The point is, technology doesn’t work like that.
Our broadband is only going to go a touch faster than what we need, and the more we push it, the faster it will go – eventually. Its exactly the same as the electrical network which initially brought in enough power into a residential building to light a 40w lightbulb – now its 30amp minimum – or about 180 lightbulbs!
The other issue is that of how we get it – the cabling issue is a red herring. Wireless is much more flexible to convert not-spots to hot-spots for the time being. Once everyone has it, then you can speed it up and get everyone a cable over time.
Thanks, Oli. It’s interesting to hear a different approach to achieving universal access. I completely agree that mobile broadband will need to play a key role if the UK is to achieve its goals of building a networked nation by 2015. However, I have significant concerns about the value of investing in mobile technology when the country’s fibre deployments continue to lag behind the rest of Europe.
The economic, environmental, social and educational opportunities presented by a more robust fibre rollout are immense. The promise of a true mobile workforce, telemedicine, remote learning and video conferencing are just some of the areas that fixed-line broadband would enable. Could the same be said of mobile broadband?
What’s more, if the government meets its somewhat underwhelming goal of 2Mbps by 2015, what’s the next target? Could we hope to meet the EU’s goal of 30Mbps by 2020? I have my doubts.
Are you concerned that the UK’s digital agenda is moving too slowly and without direction? Do you believe that we’ll be able to keep pace with the rest of Europe and the world or do we run the risk of becoming an underserved nation?
Thanks,
Gareth
Wireless delivery or mobile is an added bonus, it isn’t the endgame but can be a stopgap solution to up the ante.
We use a mixture of fibre and wireless in our community network, and we are finding fibre is much more reliable and causes us no maintenance issues. FiWiPie can bridge a gap.
We must continue to work towards fibre to the rural areas, the telcos will then deploy more in the towns. Once we all have access to the fat pipes a wifi/mobile cloud will form to give ubiquitous coverage for all, right across the UK. If we lose sight of the bigger picture and don’t aim high then it will be decades before this happens. It simply is too shortsighted not to deploy fibre. We will be left in the digital slow lane as other countries romp ahead.
It isn’t rocket science. Copper can never deliver NGA.
We need it doing now.
chris
I hate the word Never!
I understand that copper Ethernet can do 10GBase-T at 100m using Cat6a so I wouldn’t write it off quite yet!
New comment from Chris Bailey on the Broadband Industry Professionals LinkedIn Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=32746222&gid=1656547&commentID=26276713&trk=view_disc
The legacy drop coaxial network has a huge civils investment consideration…
Oli, it can do it in a lab, over a short distance. It isn’t the future. Its another stab at protecting the copper cabal. Copper is So Yesterday. Forget IT.
Bring on the fibre. Lets do the job right.
chris