Sometimes fiber to the subscriber is the best fit to support broadband services for residential and small and medium businesses. However, existing copper continues to have an amazing ability to be enhanced to meet broadband requirements. Indeed, copper-based technologies such as VDSL2 vectoring, Vplus, and G.fast can support bandwidth rates of 100, 300mbps or even 1gbps.
To decide which areas are ideal candidates for fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) or business, and which can be more than adequately served with copper-based technologies, Bell Labs Consulting suggests that service providers consider:
“To do this, service providers need to conduct a thorough access study, including a detailed market analysis of the service area,” Mohamed El-Sayed, consulting manager of the network strategy and technology evolution practice of Bell Labs, writes in an aptly titled recent TechZine article, Study shows ultra-broadband potential of copper. “With this information, the service provider can determine present and near-future bandwidth demand.”
The average bandwidth required for a fixed network in a residential area can vary significantly based on all of the above. Here are a few of the many related data points mentioned in the blog. A study by Alcatel-Lucent suggests that the current upper bound broadband access rate is about 50mbps and will be 100mbps by 2020. A Bell Labs study for a major operator in Western Europe indicates 40mbps is sufficient for triple play resident services there. And a study by U.K. government regulator Ofcom reports that average fixed residential broadband subscribers get 22.9mbps, and that broadband with a minimum download speed of 30mbps is available to three-fourths of subscribers by only has seen 21 percent penetration.
“For residential and SMB subscribers, high-speed copper technologies can deliver bandwidth in excess of current and anticipated demand,” says El-Sayed.
The bottom line is that extending the life of copper provides two major benefits. First, it is less costly than putting in fiber particularly in residential or rural areas. Second, it enables service providers to offer ultra-broadband services quickly. In a hotly competitive world with a seemingly insatiable appetite for high-speed services now, this point is as if not as important as the first.
]]>From original on Alcatel-Lucent corporate blog
A few months ago our home WiFi slowed to a crawl. At first we thought it was a temporary thing, but after my son ran a diagnostic there was a problem with our high-speed broadband.
While the technician was fixing it, he mentioned that for an extra $10 a month we could get a faster plan. Living in the US we already (in my opinion) pay enough for our monthly broadband package so I immediately said ‘no.’ But I told my kids that IF they wanted to pay for it … we would consider it.
A serious discussion ensued. I have three kids – a 14-year old boy, 12-year old girl and 10-year old boy. Their share of the internet service would be roughly an extra $3.33 a month. Doesn’t sound bad to us as adults – but let me put this in perspective in my kids’ economic reality. My children do receive a weekly allowance, but they are poorly paid -- on average a measly $3 a week. Think about that math: my kids actually entertained paying ¼ of their monthly income to have a better connection speed. That willingness showed how vitally important the broadband connection is to their lives. My older kids have mobile phones, but for my younger son our household wireline is his communications lifeline.
In today’s telecom world we spend a lot of time talking about cloud and wireless. But here is an interesting fact: two-thirds of us connect to our broadband world via DSL. So while this is considered a ‘legacy’ technology, it is still very much a part of the bandwidth boosting fabric of our towns. Sixteen years ago, Alcatel-Lucent was first to launch this technology. It was revolutionary at the time to use your home phone line to connect to the Internet at then blazing speeds like 28 or 56kbps.This was based on ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) technology, meaning the download speed was faster than the upload speed. This kept users happy for a while, but as the Internet continued to evolve as a way to distribute all kinds of content users were soon clamoring for more.
The next big improvement came in 2007 with something aptly named VDSL (very high speed DSL). The way that our engineers got to a higher speed was to use more frequency bands; each frequency can carry bits meaning ultimately more bandwidth. This was able to get 40 Mbps, but the distance the data could travel shortened. The reason is based in simple physics where the higher the frequency goes, the shorter the distance the data can travel. One other problem with VDSL was the way telephone lines are typically installed – in big bundles containing hundreds of tightly packed lines. These lines interfere with each other in something called ‘cross talk’, limiting the amount of bandwidth the solution was able to deliver in the ‘real world.’
Then in October 2011, vectoring made the promise of 100 Mbps possible. Developed by Bell Labs, scientists were able to use a ‘noise cancellation’ technique (similar to the way a noise cancelling headphone works) to cancel out the interference. The concept is simple, but the implementation is more challenging. In a real network you could have competing noise on every line (anywhere from 100, 200 or 400 lines to a bundle) and with usually around 4000 frequencies both upstream and downstream. All of this would have to be done with real time adjustments. It was possible but there was still one small problem. When you moved from the lab into the real world, rolling out vectoring meant updating the entire neighborhood with vectoring software. As you can imagine this slowed down the roll-out of this technology. If you have to upgrade an entire neighborhood before you can start serving even a single customer the technology wasn’t instantly appealing.
In order to address this issue, Alcatel-Lucent came up with a technology called “Zero-Touch Vectoring”, which basically automatically turns every legacy customer premise equipment or CPE into a “vectoring friendly” CPE. This allows operators to offer vectoring friendly equipment. They can roll out updates at their own pace, and the most important point: they can start today.
So, the question here is where does all of this leave more highly praised solutions like fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) or even wireless as a home option? At the end of the day, all are completely viable. There really is no right answer.The best broadband option is going to depend on a combination of existing infrastructure, economic barriers and willingness to wait. As we have seen in the last few years, fiber initially requires a lot of investment and time to add new lines. Wireless also is a possibility, but it may have coverage (or economic) challenges for the end users, especially when you want to match fixed line bandwidths. We know that it is 4 times faster to deploy vectoring than other access solutions. That means more bandwidth to more people – faster.
I don’t think anyone, anywhere would argue this is a bad thing. Definitely not in my household, where our most prized commodity is bandwidth. Why? I think it is pretty simple.Today that wire – whether it is fiber, copper or something else – links us to our friends, to our work, and to our lives. That is a powerful connection. So living without it ... is frankly something we just can’t do without.
You can see a great range of our fixed broadband technology next week (October 21-23) at Broadband World Forum at the RAI Exhibition Center in Amsterdam, Hall 11 booth #B10 or to learn more you can check out some of the more technical details here.
Deployment of the upgrade currently is underway, and Telenor expects to have its 500,000 DSL lines migrated to the new VDSL2 platform by 2015, according to a recent case study, Telenor Achieves Competitive Advantage In Ultra-Broadband, on the rollout.
To efficiently deliver ultra-broadband services, however, Telenor needed a way to determine which of its existing DSL lines could be upgraded to VDSL2 without issue, and which ones needed additional infrastructure changes. Further, according to the case study, the company wanted to be able to provide DSL subscribers with the realistic attainable speed they could expect to receive if they upgraded to VDSL2.
Alcatel-Lucent’s Motive Network Analyzer – Copper has helped Telenor meet those goals.
The Motive Network Analyzer integrates line testing, diagnosis and optimization, helping operators ensure that DSL lines meet quality and stability requirements to successfully deploy high-speed Internet and triple play services.
One of its features is its Upgrade Predictor, which allows the operator to see how well the technology will work on existing infrastructure, and where improvements might be needed. Upgrade Predictor takes snapshot views of each individual DSL line based on values obtained from customer premises equipment (CPE) and the DSL access multiplexer (DSLAM) over a period of weeks. Telenor then could predict what needed to be upgraded and when.
The solution also offers dynamic line management, ensuring the best profile is assigned to the line in combination with its service. Using a real-time and per-line approach, DLM automatically monitors the condition of each of the lines in the network, and uses a variety of factors to optimize speed and preserve stability.
“Before Upgrade Predictor, we used tables that showed the line length from the DSLAM to the customer premises to determine if the customer line was
a good candidate for upgrade,” noted Foyn Johannessen in the case study, director of telephony & broadband at Telenor Norway.
“A the end of the day, the Motive Network Analyzer, together with our total upgrade of infrastructure, has given us a real competitive advantage,” Johannessen said. “We can offer ultra-broadband to more subscribers, know that it’s going to work, and that the customer experience will be excellent. This helps us to reduce churn and really compete and win in the marketplace.”]]>