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The Year in 12 Stories
December 2012
Point topic: Europe halfway to digital heaven?
O ne of the European Union’s most ambitious targets is to make sure that all its citizens can get access to superfast broadband at home by 2020. A new study by Point Topic shows that Europe is now halfway towards achieving that aim. The study has been produced for DG Connect, the department of the European Commission responsible for its “Digital Agenda” strategy. The purpose of the Digital Agenda is to harness the internet and other digital technologies to drive sustainable economic growth. “This study gives us the best view so far of where action is needed on broadband coverage,” said Neelie Kroes, vice president of the European Commission A s the optical industry approaches the fundamental physical limits of optical transmission, researchers are exploring new ways to increase capacity by using multi-core fibre (MCF). Now NEC Corporation of America and Corning Inc. say they have set a new transmission record by sending data at 1.05 Pbps (1015 bits per second) over a novel optical fibre containing 14 cores. The research was originally F rance Telecom-Orange and Alcatel-Lucent claim to have deployed “the world’s first optical link with a capacity of 400 Gbps per wavelength” on a live fibre-optic link between Paris and Lyon. This connection represents an important milestone for long- distance terrestrial network technology, the companies say. The 400G wavelength increases overall capacity increased by a factor of four compared to the January 2013 February 2013
responsible for the Digital Agenda. “It will help to guide decisions on where EU and private money can be invested to provide the best long-term return for taxpayers and investors such as pension funds.” Entitled Broadband Coverage in Europe in 2011, the study shows that almost 96% of the homes in Europe have access to basic broadband, defined as services offering at least 144kbps. More than half of homes can already get superfast broadband, providing speeds of at least 30Mbps. Basic broadband is fairly widespread now says Point Topic; only three EU countries have less than 90% coverage. But there are huge variations in availability of superfast broadband. Three EU countries (the Netherlands, Belgium
and Malta) have over 98%; three others (Italy, Greece and Cyprus) have less than 11%. All the rest are in the range between 35% and 75%. There are also large variations within countries. For example, rural areas across Europe as a whole are estimated to have only 12% superfast broadband coverage. The study also shows which competing technologies are taking a share of the superfast broadband market. “Despite all the publicity, FTTP [fibre to the premises] doesn’t offer the main route to digital heaven, at least not for the time being,” said Tim Johnson, who led the project as Point Topic’s chief analyst. To date, FTTP covers only 12% of homes. The biggest providers of superfast services are the cable
TV networks which can now reach 37% of EU homes with the up-to- date DOCSIS 3.0 standard. VDSL/ FTTC falls between the other two, reaching 21% of EU homes by the end of 2011. The three technologies together add up to only 50% total superfast coverage because they overlap a great deal, and often compete to serve the richer and more densely populated areas – leaving other areas underserved. The study only considers the current state of play and not how – or even whether – the Digital Agenda goals will be reached. Upgrading the 50% of Europe’s homes still without superfast broadband is likely to present a considerable challenge, especially in rural areas.
NEC, Corning achieve petabit optical transmission
reported at the 2012 Frontiers in Optics/Laser Science XXVIII (FiO/ LS) meeting in Rochester, NY, in October 2012. Designed by Corning researchers, the novel optical fibre has 12 singlemode cores and 2 few mode cores, which enables transmission over a large number of spatial modes. By combining multilevel modulation formatswithwavelength, polarization and spatial mode multiplexing, NEC researchers
achieved a total spectral efficiency of 109 bits/sec/Hz. The aggregate transmission capacity of 1.050 Pbps is the highest capacity over a single optical fiber reported so far, the researchers claim. Dr. Ting Wang, head of optical networking research at NEC Laboratories America, said the company has “opened new frontiers with the highest transmission capacity over any type of optical fibres”. The company is hoping to
develop technologies that will form the foundation of the next generation of optical networking. The NEC/Corning announcement follows news from Japanese electronics giant NTT and partners, who reported “ultra-large capacity transmission” in September 2012 of 1 Pbps over 52.4 km of 12-core optical fibre. The NTT experiment was presented as a post-deadline paper at ECOC 2012 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Alcatel-Lucent activates 400G wavelength for France Telecom
current maximum available. Using 44 wavelengths, the new optical link is capable of transmitting up to 17.6 Tbps of traffic in total. RENATER,thepublicinterestgroup that manages the communications network for education and research institutions in France, and a customer of Orange Business Services, will be the first to test the functionality of this new technology in a real-life situation. Patrick Donath, managing
director of RENATER, explains, “As part of our innovation program, we plan to test this optical fiber link in real conditions by using it to route traffic across one of our main backbone arteries between Paris and Lyon. This link transports the bulk of France’s scientific data that passes through our network. This pilot phase also aims to test the latest switching equipment supplied by major OEMs on a network running at this capacity
and will enable us the anticipate the architecture of RENATER’s network in the coming years. A 400-Gbps network is an important step forward for the networks and research projects of tomorrow.” France Telecom-Orange also pointed out that the single- wavelength technology will help reduce energy consumption on its network, while also optimizing operating and network maintenance costs.
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