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Welsh Scientists Radically Increase Fiber Broadband Speeds With COTS Parts

Posted by timothy on from the believe-it-when-it-appears-in-your-home dept.

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.'"

20 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. But we won't get it because... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... BT are bloody useless!

    1. Re:But we won't get it because... by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not incompetence in this instance; It is actually malice. BT would much rather hold on to this tech for the next 15 years, squeezing an extra few pounds per month out of you for the next tier of service, right up until you're paying more for your internet connection than you are for your mortgage.

      Consider; The identical fibre with this new tech is all of a sudden 2000x times less efficient than it could be. Do you think you'll be charged 1/2000 of the current rate if it's implemented and you elect not to use it?

      (I realise there is more to this, like switching overhead, backbone speed, contention etc).

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    2. Re:But we won't get it because... by jeffmeden · · Score: 2

      Would you really be that interested in a 1000x increase in last mile speed, even if it meant that NONE of your actual applications (except maybe bittorrent) were going to go any faster at all? I would rather see them invest in the backbone than trying to out-do a 100mbit last mile which is probably pretty freaking hard to saturate as it is.

      Just sayin'

    3. Re:But we won't get it because... by TheMathemagician · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not a perfect market though because one company (British Telecom) inherited all the copper wiring joining people's homes to the network even though it was originally publicly funded through the Post Office before BT existed as a commercial company. Now they charge you a line rental even if you use a different ISP (as if they could rent that specific piece of wire to anyone else). Some areas of the UK are cabled up and you can avoid this nonsense but I was recently informed that my flat (=apartment) could not access cable despite the fact it's on a main road in West London. The cost of physically drilling through concrete and laying cables is way way beyond the budget of small ISPs so you're stuck piggybacking on BT lines.

    4. Re:But we won't get it because... by shaitand · · Score: 2

      Not if you have a monopoly or a de facto monopoly shared with only a handful of large competitors who all share a mutual interest of making massive profits. Then you pass the savings to customers very slowly, reluctantly giving in bit by bit in tiny incremental improvements. By the time you've passed along the full savings you've already made additional advances that garnered you 10 fold more savings than what you've passed on.

      It all comes from the counter-productive mantra that it isn't good enough to maintain healthy stable profits, one must have growing profits.

  2. Where is end-user fiber optics the capacity limit? by shoppa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  3. Great, but will it be useful? by Bearhouse · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not sure ISPs and others would be keen in upgrading their infrastructure to make the theoretical speed really available to home users, sadly...

    1. Re:Great, but will it be useful? by Damastus+the+WizLiz · · Score: 2

      They might consider if it it actually does prove to have power cost reductions.

      --
      I often have trouble remembering which way is out of bed in the morning.
  4. Re:Where is end-user fiber optics the capacity lim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    What is this 'fiber' you speak of? Sounds like an interesting tech.

  5. Re:Where is end-user fiber optics the capacity lim by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    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.

  6. Re:Where is end-user fiber optics the capacity lim by BeanThere · · Score: 2

    I suspect that if the technology is really 'commercially viable', it could also make it cheaper to upgrade backbone links too.

  7. Not DWDM, this is something else. by vlm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  8. Re:Where is end-user fiber optics the capacity lim by jeffmeden · · Score: 2

    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.

  9. Gareth Edwards by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Funny

    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."
  10. Re:Where is end-user fiber optics the capacity lim by LongearedBat · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  11. Doesn't increase speed - increases capacity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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

  12. Yeah but ... by gstoddart · · Score: 2

    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.
    1. Re:Yeah but ... by ccanucs · · Score: 2

      "Sir, what you say is very likely true" is indeed what was meant, and said. :-) Your phonetic approach doesn't work well with Welsh. (Try this page for example: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cymru/gogleddorllewin/papurau_bro/papur_menai/newyddion/rhagfyr05.shtml ) Dd is not "d" ch is not "sh" ll is not "l" gallwn fynd ymlaen ... ;-)

  13. for our Welsh /.'ers by Thud457 · · Score: 2
    Story submission translated to Welsh:

    "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

  14. Re:Where is end-user fiber optics the capacity lim by Degats · · Score: 2

    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.

    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.