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Plastic Fiber Could Make Optical Networking a DIY Project
An anonymous reader writes "A new European project using plastic fiber and off-the-shelf components could make optical networking so cheap and simple that installation could be a DIY job for even a non-technical person. The object of EU-funded POF-ALL project is to find a technical solution to the rising cost of taking optical fiber right into the home." A mere "few hundred metres" of 100mbps (since plastic is thus far dimmer than glass) would suffice to wire any home I'm likely to occupy.
What's the benefit of 100mbps plasti-fiber over gigabit cat-6?
Honestly, unless it becomes a lot cheaper than Cat-5 UTP, I think it's going to be a non-starter. Now, if it was 100 GBPS, that would be a different story...
Logic is the beginning of reason, not the end of it.
Does TOSLINK optical audio not count as a DIY network? I didn't pay anyone to hook up my AV stuff.
Because my favorite cable is a TOS-LINK cable with a clear sheath, over the fiber optics.
(Yes, I am a nerd with a favorite kind of cable.)
Granted there it is a step up to go from a 6-foot cable to 100 feet, but it isn't that big of a deal. Bi-directional communication is another thing that would be needed to make a real network.
Amazon.com has a bunch of 100-foot fiber optic cables, so I don't think that fiber itself is the issue, getting the network cards cheap enough is more of an issue, I think.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
[quote]100mbps would suffice to wire any home I'm likely to occupy.[/quote]
Yes, and I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
Also, 10 megabytes should be enough for anyone.
Plastic fibre slashes optical network costs
Wed, 01/09/2008 - 19:49 - Wire Services
A new European project using plastic fiber and off-the-shelf components could make optical networking so cheap and simple that installation could be a DIY job for even a non-technical person.
The object of EU-funded POF-ALL project is to find a technical solution to the rising cost of taking optical fiber right into the home.
The project partners decided to focus on the cabling inside buildings, which would typically account for 30% of the cost of laying an optical fibre from the exchange into the home. This last hundred metres or so is known as the 'edge' network.
"We realised that we could lower the cost of this edge installation by using a simpler technology," Alessandro Nocivelli, the founder and CEO of Luceat SpA, one of the partners in the project, said. "If we could employ a technology which is so simple to use that anyone can install it, that would relieve telecom companies of 30% of the cost of the access network, which means up to several billion euro if you consider the European Union as a whole."
Plastic fibres use harmless green or red light that is easily visible to the eye, as opposed to glass fibres which use infrared laser light that could potentially cause eye damage.
"I have a two-year-old child," says Nocivelli, "and I would never install a glass optical fibre in my own home, even though I have been working with glass optical fibers for many years."
Plastic fibres are also much thicker than glass fibres, a millimetre or more, and can be handled without special tools or techniques.
"You don't need to be trained to handle and install it. You just cut it with scissors, plug it in and it works. It's as easy as that," Nocivelli adds.
On the downside, plastic fibres absorb light more than glass, which limits their useful length to a few hundred metres.
They also have a lower data capacity than glass fibres, but that is not an issue for the cable that runs from a conventional glass fibre in the street into a house, or even for laying a network within a block of flats.
The partners have built a system that uses green light to transmit 100 megabits a second over a distance of 300 metres, which is the speed telecom companies hope to offer their customers five to ten years from now, and 50 times as fast as a typical adsl broadband connection.
Their second achievement is to transmit ten times faster still - one gigabit per second - over a 30m fibre, using red light.
By the end of the project in June 2008, they expect to have extended that to 100m.
"Then, of course, we will try to focus on longer distances," says Nocivelli. "We have already demonstrated that plastic fibre would be future-proof not only for the next ten years but for the next 30 years. With that speed in your home you could download a full DVD in thirty seconds."
The POF-ALL members have not had to develop any novel technologies, as they have built their systems using the latest off-the-shelf components and the ingenuity and skill of the ten academic and industrial partners.
Two products are already coming to the market. Luceat is commercialising an optical Ethernet switch (a router) using plastic fiber technology and the Fraunhofer Institute is looking for partners to market an integrated optical transceiver to work at one gigabit a second with plastic fiber.
Home and office networks could be rewired with plastic optical fibre so simply and cheaply it could be a do-it-yourself job.
"It's future-proof," confirms Nocivelli. You run at 100 Mbit/s today, 1 Gbit/s tomorrow and maybe 10 Gbit/s in the future."
A follow-up project, POF-PLUS, is intended to further develop optoelectronic components for plastic fiber and is awaiting a final decision on EU funding.
since about 1985. I designed a system back then, using plastic fiber and off-the-shelf HP transmitter and receiver modules, to pass data between elevator controllers where they are in a coordinated group. Isolation was the main reason, but it's also very convenient. We're still producing the same system today. It's convenient that it uses visible light and termination is very easy since the fibers are relative large. We're using relatively low data rates and the maximum distance I've got to handle is less than 100 feet.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Plastic fibre slashes optical network costs
Wed, 01/09/2008 - 19:49 - Wire Services
A new European project using plastic fiber and off-the-shelf components could make optical networking so cheap and simple that installation could be a DIY job for even a non-technical person.
The object of EU-funded POF-ALL project is to find a technical solution to the rising cost of taking optical fiber right into the home.
The project partners decided to focus on the cabling inside buildings, which would typically account for 30% of the cost of laying an optical fibre from the exchange into the home. This last hundred metres or so is known as the 'edge' network.
"We realised that we could lower the cost of this edge installation by using a simpler technology," Alessandro Nocivelli, the founder and CEO of Luceat SpA, one of the partners in the project, said. "If we could employ a technology which is so simple to use that anyone can install it, that would relieve telecom companies of 30% of the cost of the access network, which means up to several billion euro if you consider the European Union as a whole."
Plastic fibres use harmless green or red light that is easily visible to the eye, as opposed to glass fibres which use infrared laser light that could potentially cause eye damage.
"I have a two-year-old child," says Nocivelli, "and I would never install a glass optical fibre in my own home, even though I have been working with glass optical fibers for many years."
Plastic fibres are also much thicker than glass fibres, a millimetre or more, and can be handled without special tools or techniques.
"You don't need to be trained to handle and install it. You just cut it with scissors, plug it in and it works. It's as easy as that," Nocivelli adds.
On the downside, plastic fibres absorb light more than glass, which limits their useful length to a few hundred metres.
They also have a lower data capacity than glass fibres, but that is not an issue for the cable that runs from a conventional glass fibre in the street into a house, or even for laying a network within a block of flats.
The partners have built a system that uses green light to transmit 100 megabits a second over a distance of 300 metres, which is the speed telecom companies hope to offer their customers five to ten years from now, and 50 times as fast as a typical adsl broadband connection.
Their second achievement is to transmit ten times faster still - one gigabit per second - over a 30m fibre, using red light.
By the end of the project in June 2008, they expect to have extended that to 100m.
"Then, of course, we will try to focus on longer distances," says Nocivelli. "We have already demonstrated that plastic fibre would be future-proof not only for the next ten years but for the next 30 years. With that speed in your home you could download a full DVD in thirty seconds."
The POF-ALL members have not had to develop any novel technologies, as they have built their systems using the latest off-the-shelf components and the ingenuity and skill of the ten academic and industrial partners.
Two products are already coming to the market. Luceat is commercialising an optical Ethernet switch (a router) using plastic fiber technology and the Fraunhofer Institute is looking for partners to market an integrated optical transceiver to work at one gigabit a second with plastic fiber.
Home and office networks could be rewired with plastic optical fibre so simply and cheaply it could be a do-it-yourself job.
"It's future-proof," confirms Nocivelli. You run at 100 Mbit/s today, 1 Gbit/s tomorrow and maybe 10 Gbit/s in the future."
A follow-up project, POF-PLUS, is intended to further develop optoelectronic components for plastic fiber and is awaiting a final decision on EU funding.
well for one, nobody is sitting in there car taking my bandwidth or bypassing my firewall. i prefer wired to wireless and having a non-conducting cable is a positive so for me this is something i would do in a heartbeat.
The simple fact is that Copper is about to become VERY expensive. China is buying it as well as working with all countries that have copper mines to aquire full access to the copper. The simple fact is that there is a limited amount of copper and China is about to use 1000x more than what it currently does. In addition, most societies are about to move to electrical cars which will require a lot of copper.
Finally, copper does not go the long distances that Fiber does. I suspect that we will see a lot of uses for these in running from the green box to the home. In fact, I think that the delivery companies will have multiple cables to the home. Basically, dark fiber. It will enable some interesting services.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I work for a big telco, the one that runs fiber to the home, we don't put ends on the fiber, at least not directly. what we do is use a fusion splicer, and use a connector with a length of fiber already attached, we then splice that to the end of the fiber..
wanted: one clever sig,apply within
My addition to the plastic part is how long does it take to biodegrade ? We should be reducing our use of 10,000 year lifespan plastic not increasing it.
/home/wn/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 172.
> We have already demonstrated that plastic fibre would be future-proof not only for the next ten years but for the next 30 years. With that speed in your home you could download a full DVD in thirty seconds."
He's off his nuts, 30 years ago I was excited about 1Mb RAM replacing my 32k, I can *already* copy a DVD in 30s right now!
Seems like presscue.com isn't so present proof let alone future :
user warning: Got error 122 from storage engine query: SELECT COUNT(*) AS count, d.tid, d.name, d.vid FROM wn_term_data d INNER JOIN wn_term_node n ON d.tid = n.tid WHERE d.vid IN (2) GROUP BY d.tid, d.name, d.vid ORDER BY count DESC LIMIT 0, 12 in
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
That may be true now but currently plastic is a petrochemical product. As oil prices rise so will the prices of plastic fibers. Copper will rise as well but at least in the US copper can be locally mined thus reducing transportation costs.
FalconShould there be a Law?
For some reason, people have it stuck in their heads that plastic fiber is new. It's not. Also, it can carry 10Gb/s just fine. All the 100-300m links are class 1. In fact, I'm looking at a 50Km rated SFP that is Class 1. According to all the safety ratings, you can stare at its laser as long as you like. And wavelength has nothing to do with power. The 50Km SFP that I just mentioned is infrared.
It looks like they're solving problems, badly, that have already been solved. MS Windows and their broken "shortcuts" if anyone remembers? If I didn't think it was just plain ignorance, I would claim this was a well-disguised FUD piece.
our best place to obtain copper may be in the dumps as well as overhead lines that were put in 40 years ago.
I didn't want to say anything about recycling, but you're right, dumps and all the copper cables already laid down may be a better source.
We do have SHITLOADS of coal that can be changed into feedstock for plastics.
A better source of fee stock for plastic may be hemp with bioplastics being renewable. My question then is would bioplastics be good for fiber optics.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Nail-on-the-head! The cost of the medium is NOTHING compared to the current cost of the interfacing.
You plug in a usb or firewire or CAT-x or RS-xxx with no problems at all but there AREN'T any optical interfaces built into any computers yet that _I_ know of. The only consumer-level optics I've seen so far are in audio (and higher-end stuff at that) and if you look at the optical/CAT-x converters you'll have quite a heart attack at the prices.
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)