Community Broadband: Technologies

The Culture of Broadband: Commentary
The culture of broadband is still emerging, rather than already fully formed. To some degree, distributed peer-to-peer services and pay-per-use services are conflicting with each other. Even after being acquired by Bertelsman, Napster is still off the wires, because the underlying conflict between freedom and control is hard to resolve. Technologies and their applications are still in search of a stable configuration. However, concerted action will be necessary to support the good, avoid the bad and battle the ugly.

Core competency: ISP backbones stand up in gruelling 30-day performance test.
It's time to lay to rest the notion that ISPs can't deliver telephone-company-level reliability. The fact is, some routed IP network backbones now meet or exceed telco-grade performance.

Internet Glossary: Telus
Sometimes it is useful to understand what all the terms mean.

DSL: HIgh Speed Technology of the Future: An Overview Guide ( pdf )

Fiber Optics: The Basics of Fiber Optic Cable: A Tutorial
There are three types of fiber optic cable commonly used: single mode, multimode and plastic optical fiber (POF). Transparent glass or plastic fibers which allow light to be guided from one end to the other with minimal loss.

Austrailian Photonics microstructured polymer optical fibres (MPOF): Sept 3, 2002
allows the manufacture of optical fibres that are much smaller, cheaper, more rugged and easier to make than glass fibres because, in part, they don't need the added weight of protective coatings.

TeraSpan Surface Inlaid Fiber:
At TeraSpan, we've changed the way fiber optic cable is deployed. Our unique, patent-pending "Surface Inlaid Fiber" has raised the bar in fiber installation by significantly reducing the time and costs involved in deployment. TeraSpan provides the fastest, most economical fiber deployment ever.

Community Wireless:
A companion page that provides a wide range of annotated references dealing with wireless broadband.

Natural Gas Pipelines Will Get You to Serve the Net: December 10,2001
In a very interesting development, Sempra Fiber Links, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy announced the first installation of its proprietary technology that allows fibre-optic cable in live natural gas distribution lines. The new fibre line has been installed in a portion of the service territory of Frontier Energy, a natural gas distribution utility in North Carolina.

Sempra Fiber Links:
We've developed a new and exciting process to safely route fiber optic cable and conduit to buildings through existing, live natural gas pipelines. That's right. Active, live natural gas pipelines. So fiber optic networks can easily go places difficult to reach before. Faster. With less excavation and disruption.

VDSL Definition:
Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line transmits data in the 13 Mbps - 55 Mbps range over short distances, usually between 1000 and 4500 feet (300 - 1500 meters), of twisted pair copper wire. The shorter the distance, the faster the connection rate.

Think DSL's fast? Watch VDSL: March 11,2002
The next generation of broadband came closer last week when Californian chip company Ikanos demonstrated Ethernet at 50 megabits per second (mbps) download speeds over a kilometer of copper wire.

Fiber - Copper Access to the Information Highway ( Early Draft ):
One of the enabling technologies for FTTN is Very high rate Digital Subscriber Line, or VDSL. In simple terms, VDSL transmits high speed data over short reaches of twisted-pair copper telephone lines, with a range of speeds depending upon actual line length. The maximum downstream rate under consideration is between 51 and 55 Mbps over lines up to 1000 ft (300 meters) in length. Downstream speeds as low as 13 Mbps over lengths beyond 4000 ft (1500 meters) are also in the picture. Upstream rates in early models will be asymmetric, just like ADSL, at speeds from 1.6 to 2.3 Mbps. Both data channels will be separated in frequency from bands used for POTS and ISDN, enabling service providers to overlay VDSL on existing services. At present the two high speed channels will also be separated in frequency. As needs arise for higher speed upstream channels or symmetric rates, VDSL systems may need to use echo cancellation.

VDSL Alliance:
The VDSL Alliance is composed of a number of companies who are working together to write a specification for VDSL based on the discrete multi-tone (DMT) line code.

FS-VDSL Offical Web Site:
To rapidly specify a low cost, high capability end-to-end multi-service network based on VDSL Frequency Band Plan 998 which can be quickly and economically deployed to enable customers, focusing principally on consumer market, to benefit from competition, under the general framework of FSAN (Full Service Access Network) Consortium.

RainMaker Technolgies:
boldly goes where none has gone before to uniquely unleash the true digital capacity and financial potential of the existing broadband plant at comparable prices to today, without changing the plant and without forklift upgrades. The same chipset, with the same Wavelet Engine, can be utilized for different application spaces such as twisted pair copper, coaxial cable, wireless, power line, etc. It is applicable to multiple applications such as high-speed remote access, high-speed local access, etc. It is also frequency agnostic, applicable to any frequency range.

DSL Reports:
Current News and references regarding DSL

General discussions of all broadband issues in Canada.

PPPoE: Carrick Solutions Limited:
Point to Point Protocol over Ethernet is a proposal specifying how a host personal computer (PC) interacts with a broadband modem (i.e. xDSL, cable, wireless, etc) to achieve access to the growing number of Highspeed data networks. Relying on two widely accepted standards, Ethernet and the point-to-point protocol (PPP), the PPPoE implementation requires virtually no more knowledge on the part of the end user other than that required for standard Dialup Internet access. In addition, PPPoE requires no major changes in the operational model for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and carriers.

The Innovation of Long-Reach Ethernet ( LRE ) December 27,2001
Cisco Long-Reach Ethernet (LRE) broadband networking solution&emdash;the industry's first end-to-end product line for delivering 5-15 Mbps performance over existing Category 1/2/3 wiring. With Ethernet-like performance that reaches up to 5,000 feet, LRE enables simultaneous voice, video and data applications without the need to rewire. Implementation Details

Bell Labs estimates theoretical capacity of fiber at 100 Terabps
Scientists from Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs published a paper in the British journal Nature in which they estimate the theoretical capacity of a standard, commercially available fiber strand is approximately 100 Tbps. Current commercial DWDM systems operate at under 2 Tbps and lab experiments have shown the potential for 10 Tbps systems. Previous estimates for fiber capacity have ranged from 50 &endash; 350 Tbps. The Bell Labs study took a multi-disciplinary approach to calculate the theoretical spectral capacity. [Current peak capacity is 10.9 Tbps at 270 wavelengths at 40 Gbps per wavelength -BSA] Lucent Technologies, ( June 28, 2001 ) , Nature: "Glass ceiling fixed" ( June 2001 )

SAM: Sewer Access Module Company officials say the robot-assisted work is about 60 per cent faster than traditional fibre-optic installations and costs about half as much. And there's a hidden, longterm benefit of avoiding trenched streets.

StarBand: is a two-way, always-on, high-speed satellite Internet service.

FSONA Communications Corp: Wireless at the Speed of light
Reliable, high bandwidth, wireless network access for "the last mile". fSONA Corporation has developed the industry's premiere, laser-based, optical wireless transceiver technology. This technology forms the cornerstone of the SONAbeam™ series of products. Our goal is to become the supplier of choice, when you are looking to implement broadband, short haul, wireless telecommunications facilities - "the last mile"

Cisco Systems: Cisco has created a new IP+Optical architecture for Service Providers which extends high speed IP services to the edge of the network.

PMC- Sierra

Nortel: Optical Ethernet is at once a vision and a reality. With an innovative portfolio of products, Nortel Networks enables the Optical Ethernet within the Metropolitan Area and connects it to an agile optically switched backbone network.

Redback Networks: Optimized for carriers and providers, the Redback SmartEdge multi-service optical platform is a powerful optical networking platform designed to help improve the economics of SONET/SDH transport networks.

Time Domain: Every few decades, a fundamental building block technology is discovered that enables entirely new products and even new industries. Just as the vacuum tube, the transisor and the laser revolutionized the past century, Time Domain®'s PulsON® technology is poised to usher in a new era that creates vast imporvements in wireless comunications, radar and tracking.

Teledesic: Using advanced satellite technology, Teledesic and its partners are creating the world's first network to provide affordable, worldwide, "fiber-like" access to telecommunications services.

Boulevard Capital Inc. BCD.V now Urban Communications Inc. and Urban Networks Inc. UBN.V Is a full spectrum telecommunication infrastructure contractor that offers specialized technical services to the major established and new telephone, cable and wireless telecommunications companies, public utilities and residential housing developers in Canada. These services include the design, engineering and construction of long distance fibre optic networks, distribution systems to facilitate delivery of video, telephone and internet services to multiple unit residential and commercial buildings, service and maintenance of networks and building systems, and installing customer premises equipment to end customers of service providers.

Dixon Networks Dixon Networks Corporation, formerly known as Dixon Cable Laying Co, Ltd., was incorporated in 1966 and has been under its present ownership since 1976. While our early focus was on communications network construction development, for example we introduced the first cable plowing machines to British Columbia, today we provide the highest level of quality and performance in engineering, construction, project management and support services to our clients.

360 Networks Our North American network is one of the largest on the continent, providing seamless connectivity between major cities throughout the United States and Canada. More than 36,000 kilometers (26,000 miles) of the network have been completed, of which approximately 23,000 kilometers (14,000 miles) are lit and ready for service. In addition, 13 metropolitan networks in the United States and Canada are complete.

Cogent Communications The service: 100 Mbps of non-oversubscribed, unlimited Internet access for a flat $1,000 (US) per month ( Seattle ). Cogent takes the best systems, suppliers, technologies, and business processes and blends them in new ways to deliver Internet access at unsurpassed speeds, reliability and value for its end users. We don't pretend to offer everything to everyone. As a new-economy, facilities-based ISP, Cogent offers service only to business customers occupying large multi-tenant buildings. It's a remarkable value. And a tremendous advantage for our customers. Cogent will own a 12,400-mile, fiber-optic network consisting of a national, non-blocking OC-192 backbone and multi OC-48 Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) located in all major U.S. cities.

Cable Modem Resources: a collection of web resources about cable modem systems, including manufacturers, system trials, articles, and papers.