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Welsh Scientists Radically Increase Fiber Broadband Speeds With COTS Parts
Mark.JUK writes "Scientists working under an EU funded (3 Million Euros) project out of Bangor University in Wales (United Kingdom) have developed a commercially-exploitable way of boosting broadband speeds over end-user fibre optic lines by using Optical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OOFDM) technology, which splits a laser down to multiple different optical frequencies (each of which can be used to carry data), and low-cost off-the-shelf components. The scientists claim that their solution has the ability to 'increase broadband transmission by up to two thousand times the current speed and capacity' (most UK Fibre-to-the-Home or similar services currently offer less than 100 Megabits per second) and it can do this alongside a 'significant reduction in electrical power consumption.'"
... BT are bloody useless!
I don't know if things are better in the UK, but here in the US the bottleneck for fiber-to-end-user is rarely the link from CO to end-user. The bottleneck is aggregate traffic capacity from CO to the backbones, an amount that has to be shared among all users. Giving individual end users more capacity to the CO sounds like it would make the current bottleneck even more apparent.
First Post!
Not sure ISPs and others would be keen in upgrading their infrastructure to make the theoretical speed really available to home users, sadly...
What is this 'fiber' you speak of? Sounds like an interesting tech.
TFA is pretty useless and doesn't indicate what sorts of fiber this works on, or why it is different from other OOFDM-related work; but is there any reason to suspect that a technology that improves fiber transmit rates wouldn't help the CO backbone link speed as well?
Given the, um, vigorous state of competition in the broadband market, it isn't clear that that will matter much; but if they have some new secret sauce that makes transmissions over fiber faster it would, naively, seem to be something that could be added to any part of the network carried over fiber.
I suspect that if the technology is really 'commercially viable', it could also make it cheaper to upgrade backbone links too.
This technology should actual cut the cost of bandwidth, squeezing much more data into the same lines at the same power usage, at every stage where you use fibre-optic cables.
as above
which splits a laser down to multiple different optical frequencies
No no no thats just WDM for DWDM. Imagine a piece of glass fiber with prisms on each end and separate red, green, blue, etc lasers and detectors. They (can) operate completely independently. You can do the same thing with RF and NTSC signals... its call old fashioned analog cable TV.
OOFDM is like hyper close packed DWDM and usually made out of different tech. Some games are played to eliminate ISI and crosstalk, assuming the gear is working properly, perfectly linear, etc. Maybe a cruddy analogy would be kinda like two voice signals in one DSB carrier, or another cruddy analogy is its plain ole DSL FDM except coordinated so the FDM slices don't/can't interfere with each other and the leading O means its optical.
For RF this is "old" stuff like from the 90s. For optical this is pretty impressive and new. Same concept just a couple orders of magnitude higher frequency.
The wikipedia article is not so bad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_multiplexing
low-cost off-the-shelf components
HA HA yeah maybe thats in the grant proposal as a goal, or its low cost compared to installing another length of fiber... Its not gonna be low cost as in I could do it in my basement using parts from an old laser printer, or you'll be buying a fiber "ethernet switch" using it for $9.95. It is probably going to be lower-cost compared to any previous design, which IS cool.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
TFA is pretty useless and doesn't indicate what sorts of fiber this works on, or why it is different from other OOFDM-related work; but is there any reason to suspect that a technology that improves fiber transmit rates wouldn't help the CO backbone link speed as well?
Given the, um, vigorous state of competition in the broadband market, it isn't clear that that will matter much; but if they have some new secret sauce that makes transmissions over fiber faster it would, naively, seem to be something that could be added to any part of the network carried over fiber.
Maybe it won't because tossing in a router that is capable of processing 1000x more packets is NOT going to happen with "COTS" parts? Fiber is only as fast as the hardware on either end. These are little strands of glass barely wide enough to feel, if doubling/tripling/1000x'ing bandwidth were as simple as tossing a few more in the trench don't you think they would have done that already? Gracefully processing the light at either end is the hard part.
Unfortunately Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch exceeds the maximum packet size and causes the router to c*@
! n o
c a r r i e r
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Can you play Crysis over it?
Fiber helps computer systems digest data better. This is done by helping information travel towards the end point instead of getting stuck and clogging up the system.
The speed of light is the speed of light. :)
Would love to know how they made it faster
Yes the effect is improved throughput - ie transfer rates or download/upload speeds, but the packet speed isn't improved at all.
When we can introduce a photon into one end of a piece of fiber and have it instantaneously come out the other end, we'll have *speed* improvements.
Until then, we're only increasing capacity.
That is all. EOL
But since this was done by a Welshman, nobody will be able to decipher the packets.
I kid, I kid.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"Scntsts wrkng ndr n fndd (3 Mlln rs) prjct t f Bngr nvrsty n Wls (ntd Kngdm) hv dvlpd cmmrclly-xpltbl wy f bstng brdbnd spds vr nd-sr fbr ptc lns by sng ptcl rthgnl Frqncy Dvsn Mltplxng (FDM) tchnlgy, whch splts lsr dwn t mltpl dffrnt ptcl frqncs (ch f whch cn b sd t crry dt), nd lw-cst ff-th-shlf cmpnnts. Th scntsts clm tht thr sltn hs th blty t 'ncrs brdbnd trnsmssn by p t tw thsnd tms th crrnt spd nd cpcty' (mst K Fbr-t-th-Hm r smlr srvcs crrntly ffr lss thn 100 Mgbts pr scnd) nd t cn d ths lngsd 'sgnfcnt rdctn n lctrcl pwr cnsmptn.'"
I keed, I keed!
Here's the actual Welsh translation via google:
Prifysgol Bangor yng Nghymru (United Kingdom) wedi datblygu ffordd fasnachol-ecsploetio'n o roi hwb cyflymder band eang dros linellau ffibr diwedd-ddefnyddiwr optig drwy ddefnyddio Is-adran Optegol Amlder orthogonol Multiplexing (OOFDM) technoleg, sy'n rhannu'r laser i lawr i amleddau optegol lluosog gwahanol (yr un gellir ohonynt yn cael eu defnyddio i gario data), ac isel-cost oddi ar y silff cydrannau. Mae gwyddonwyr yn honni bod eu datrysiad y gallu i 'gynyddu trosglwyddo band eang o hyd at ddwy fil o weithiau y cyflymder presennol a'r gallu' (y rhan fwyaf DU Ffibr-i'r-Home-neu wasanaethau tebyg ar hyn o bryd yn cynnig llai na 100 megabit yr eiliad) ac mae'n gall wneud hyn ochr yn ochr à 'gostyngiad sylweddol yn y defnydd o bÅer trydanol.' "
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
First of all, here in the Netherlands the roll-out of fiber to the home seems to be moving at a snail's pace. My impression is that our local telco giant, KPN, who work together with Reggefiber to install fiber optic cabling, is only interested in doing this for new neighborhoods. I once asked what it might take to change their minds and was told that, if I was to survey my neighborhood (around 1,000 homes) and gather signatures from at least 40% who would be interested in such a connection, then they would consider it (but not guarantee). Therefore, none of this wonderful news about cutting-edge optical network technology is going to do me any good anyway, even if the cost of the particular technology itself is zero.
Second, even if we all had the option to use a fiber optic connection at home, why on Earth would a telco suddenly decide to give all of its clients a 200,000% speed upgrade? From a business point of view, that makes no sense. First of all, since making any changes to a big network costs lots of money, a telco would never do that unless it was forced to increase its speeds due to the competition. Also, the end users would probably start to use more of that bandwidth -- something that the ISPs have to pay for. So, unless the international carriers start to offer significantly higher speeds for lower prices as well, I don't see this happening.
Third, there's DPI and government spying equipment to consider. The equipment necessary to do that at the speeds we have today is likely quite expensive already, and higher speeds may make it a real bottleneck. Therefore, we may see our average network speeds grow only as quickly as our ISPs are willing to increase the speed of these wretched machines.
Personally, unless I move to a different neighborhood I expect that my own bandwidth will take at least 10 years to get to 100/100Mbps and perhaps 25 before I have a 1/1 Gbps connection at my disposal.
Well, it means they can charge you the same for using less fiber and power.
So what they'll do is all new laid fiber to the endpoint will use this technology, inorder to save money, charge you the same, but they'll leave their 100kbps backbone, so that they can claim it's the pirates clogging the pipes.
It would certainly help if the tale I was spun about my slow broadband was true. According to the droid I spoke to. there was no point in installing more equipment into my local exchange because they were bandwidth limited on the link from that relatively local exchange to the main backbone, and it would mean laying new fibre, which would take a long time and be very expensive. If they can suddenly speed up that link by 10x, let alone 2000x, then the cluster of villages served by that exchange will, in an internet sense, breathe a lot more easily.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
As delicious as they are ground breaking
Why fancy doing some research do you?
How finely can taffy be stretched ?
throw something up on ehow at least, eh? I've got a private fiber to try this out on.
poor little me doesn't have a copy of Nature Photonics from May 2011.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
They shifted the bottle-neck. A positive multi-magnitude change in any bottle-neck is warmly welcomed.
I thought Wales wasn't going to get the Internet until 2020: http://www.flickr.com/photos/samsmith/3619752897/ (Text version here if that is easier for you: http://www.morningstarr.co.uk/forum/underworld/25573-internet-reach-wales-2020-a.html)
Currently, for most places in the UK, the bottleneck for fibre-to-end-user is the copper cable between the end-user's house and the cabinet down the street where the fibre terminates.
There is a university in Wales.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
fiber glass cable. uses light through cable to transfer data.