( This lenghty post is more or less the presentation I was planning to give at Fiberfete before the ashcloud ruined my intinerary. Instead of sheets I have created an essay on the subject. Please read on after the break, the good stuff is over there).
In my view 2010 will be designated as the year where we passed from Megabit per second (Mbps) into the Gigabit per second (Gbps) society. In every major market Gbps access for consumers is tested or delivered to the public. The prices are dropping fast because the hardware for FttH networks has made major jumps in price-performance. For Ethernet ports a 1 Gbps port and a 100 Mbps port nowadays have the same cost.
For some people a Gigabit is unimaginable: what on earth could you possibly want to do with this abundance?
Their problem is that scarcity blocks your imagination, like a nomad in the desert searching for water. For someone living in the desert water is life. You nourish your camel or horse and hope your water supply will last until the next oasis. No other use of water comes to mind, of course not.
For someone living near the Niagara Falls all kinds of new applications of water suddenly become possible:
- energy generation
- cooling
- entertainment (waterskiing, scuba diving, boating, sailing, swimming, waterglides,
fountains, rowing, beach life, surfing etc.)
- irrigation
- transport of goods
Abundance nourishes imagination. Like the dry seed waiting for water, imagination is the seed lying dormant within all of us, waiting for the opportunity to bloom.
It is the same with broadband as with water.
Fortunately more and more people see the potential of abundance in communication to create an improved society, the Gigabit Society.
Like the OECD in their recent report NETWORK DEVELOPMENTS IN SUPPORT OF INNOVATION AND USER NEEDS DSTI/ICCP/CISP(2009)2, december 2009:
High-speed communication networks are a platform supporting innovation throughout the economy today in much the same way electricity and transportation networks spurred innovation in the past. Future innovations in many sectors will be linked to the availability of high-speed, competitive data networks and new applications they support. The emergence of many of these innovative services tied to broadband are visible today in four key sectors: electricity, health, transportation and education.
“A platform supporting innovation like electricity and transportation networks” sounds to me like the description of a utility. After all, a utility has more goals than solely a fat bottom line.
How about providing the lowest possible price (while retaining profitability), as the utility or platform supports the rest of society, provides the input for many value streams? How about the maximizing the usefulness and benefits to society at the same time? Metrics as important as profitability.
When the current broadband networks, even the fiber based Gbps ones are judged with these goals in mind it becomes clear that the ideal platform is not there yet. Broadband as a utility needs a conceptual jump forward.
The traditional “triple play” approach of operators is unimaginative to start with. Maybe the simple “everything over the top = Internet” concept is the source of the slow development of innovative high bandwidth services for these 4 key sectors mentioned by the OECD. And the practical issues of home networks and integrating applications in the home are still a nightmare.
Take for instance smart grids and metering of energy. The bandwidth and latency requirements are so low that you easily could support the transport of bits now over DSL or cable. Yet the utility companies fear the security risk, are very worried about everything that can go wrong in the home network (modem, router, cabling, power, interference with other applications, who has to solve these issue, who will pay for the unnecessary truckrolls etc.). They are willing to pay for the transport, but who has the billing relationship, what happens if the consumer changes ISP or (nightmare) terminates the wired Internet connection ( temporary lack of money, dispute, switch to wireless, etc.).
Or take telepresence for professional purposes, working at home. A good two-way telepresence facility is essential for telework as people value the social interaction of the workplace (and bosses like to keep an eye on everybody). Telepresence is very demanding on the network so a low overbooking ratio is needed while communicating. Relatively expensive but a very good business case for the employer who very well might want to pay for the communication facility. But hey, nobody wants to create a backdoor into corporate systems or pay for a connection that is (ab-)used for private entertainment or unknown activities.
In these and all other cases a daunting task is shifted around like a hot potato: who will configure and maintain the firewall/router/network at the home? Who will solve problems? Professional support is way too expensive, most consumers do not have the skills.
Fortunately there are solutions which will takes us in the right direction. It so happened that my ideas overlapped with work in progress by Genexis in the Netherlands. The following is the result of a recent inspiring discussion with Gerlas van der Hoven, their CEO.
The key conceptual step is to define a “Neutral Termination Unit” (NeTU) in the home. (For the sake of argument we assume a FttH access network). The physical fiber line terminates in the NetU.
The NeTU solves the above issues by allowing multiple independent networks with associated services to be configured in a simple and reliable way, to make it possible that each (virtual) network can be billed separately.
The NeTU is active, needs power but only performs a limited number of functions. It could be described as a minimal fibermodem that is redesigned to act as a platform for a number of physical “apps” (P-apps). It will be cheaper than a modem because it is minimal……
A P-app is a physical device ( a piece of electronics with software) that is designed to be user-pluggable in the NeTU. The NeTU gives the P-app physical support, power and a connection to the broadband network.
The trick is that the NeTU recognizes the P-app and automatically provisions a specific VLAN over the access line to the nearest aggregation point (exchange, central office, cabinet). A VLAN creates a virtual connection to the exchange. Each P-app has its own VLAN, its own IP-space and so on. The P-app has its own connectors to be used by the consumer or the application.
With a Gbps capability in the access line it is no problem to have multiple VLAN’s that do not interfere with each other, as long as the total cumulative allocated capacity to all VLAN’s is below that maximum. Virtualization in the access line. If you stay below the maximum capacity there is no congestion problem in the access line, the congestion problems appear in the backhaul where traffic is aggregated.
In the exchange the VLAN’s are separated and recombined per type of P-app., fed into backhaul specific for each type of P-app. This allows for very diverse qualities and prices per type of P-app. For instance a very “thin” but highly reliable en secure backhaul for smart meters directly to the energy companies, or a “thick” backhaul for telepresence, or an oversubscribed backhaul for Internet access.
In the home a P-app is the gateway for a home network and specific applications. The first P-app will be the “triple play” P-app, providing the traditional voice, TV and Internet access with routing, firewall and wifi.
The consumer buys a P-app, or receives it from their ISP, plugs it in and voila. Do you want to change your ISP? Just unplug the P-app and change it to a different one.
A second P-app could be the smart meter P-app, provided and paid for by the utility company. They require a secure sealed connection to the smart meter in the home.
A third P-app could be the telepresence/work P-app, provided by corporate IT, with a specific connection to your work PC or laptop (maybe even with its own wifi).
The interface between P-app and NeTU is standardized so there is a market for third party P-app developers. And it allows the consumer to plug and play with P-app’s.
Any combination of P-apps can be supported. In theory the smart grid/metering P-app could be the only one, no triple play needed.
One of the most interesting P-app’s is one where the consumer might be paid by the operator for allowing the application to be installed.
It is clear the demand for mobile data communication is outpacing the available capacity. The number of smartphones and 3 G dongles is exploding, as well as the use of the devices. The mobile operators cannot increase the number of cell-towers and/or the capacity per cell-tower fast enough. The fact that this is a laborious and expensive process doesn’t help.
So offloading demand to pico-cells and wifi access points (connected to the fixed residential broadband network) becomes a lifesaver. The pattern is already visible in Japan. Softbank is so desperate that they subsidize access points and fixed lines, if only the consumer will allow them to connect a picocell/accesspoint for roaming mobile data customers.
A Dutch consulting company (Eemvalley) has proposed a P-app that creates a 3G/wifi picocell and access point for the operator at the location of the home of the consumer. Using the 802.1.x protocol a seamless roaming experience can be created for the customers of the operator in the neighbourhood of that home. The backhaul is provided by the VLAN for this P-app over the access line.
So with the roll-out of fiber and NeTU’s an operator creates an cheap and fast method to improve ubiquitous high speed access, for a very low price. A very attractive idea in dense cities with many users.
FttH as the solution for mobile broadband…..
With NeTU’s, VLAN’s and P-app’s we can create the next level of Broadband as a Utility.
The good news is that all technology is available, tried and tested, and affordable. Just the packaging and the tooling needs to be developed and tested in real life.
