Is 1 Tbps The Next Optical Network Standard?

For residential and corporate users just getting comfortable with 100 Mbps broadband, the need for bandwidths in the Terabit per second range seem very far in the future. Not so for network operators. The discussion is getting lively right now as to whether the next optical networking standard speed will be 400 Gbps or 1 Tbps.

What’s driving the need for new higher standards? It’s the inevitable march of technology from Kbps to Mbps to Gbps and soon to Tbps. The last lively discussion was whether to move up from 10 Gbps to 40 Gbps or go all the way to 100 Gbps. You’ll notice that the new proposed standards are 10x or one order of magnitude above those levels.

That makes sense because there is something of a “Moore’s Law” that applies to bandwidth as well as computer processing. Moore’s Law, formulated by Gordon Moore of Intel, proposed that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every year. Despite the fact that no one knew exactly how to do this more than a increment or two into the future, technology advancements have come along on schedule to keep Moore’s law viable for decades. The latest announcement of 3D transistors looks to keep the processing improvements going for the foreseeable future.

What about bandwidth? There is a prediction called Butter’s Law formulated by Gerald Butters of Bell Labs that says the amount of data coming from an optical fiber doubles every nine months. This is complemented by Nielsen’s Law, from consultant Jakob Nielsen, that says that bandwidth available to users increases 50% per year.

Based on this, getting standards in place for faster optical networks needs to proceed quickly. There’s little time to waste before we start talking about 10 and 100 Tbps networks and thinking ahead to Petabit per second networks.

What on Earth is driving these requirements? Is it simply technology gone wild on its own development cycle or is there a real need for such bandwidths. If there isn’t now, there soon will be. It can be summed up in one word: Video.

Video traffic now dominates the Internet. It’s said the Netflix alone may be the largest single application. Netflix might have been first out of the chute when it comes to streaming video content on a massive scale, but it won’t be in that position alone for long. Most new televisions and set top boxes have Internet connectivity built-in. The same is true for gaming consoles, which also make nice video set top boxes.

But don’t most people get their video programming over the air, through cable or satellite dishes? They do for now because those are the mature technologies. The bit switch from analog to digital OTA broadcasting has had a unexpected side effect. Having to buy new sets and make tricky antenna adjustments to receive the digital broadcasts has caused some TV viewers to rethink their options. The latest trend is to forego over the air broadcasts in favor of Netflix and video downloads directly from the Internet.

Far from being horrified, the FCC is considering auctioning off more of the TV spectrum to wireless broadband services. Smartphones and now tablet computers, particularly the iPad, are creating an almost insatiable demand for 3G and 4G bandwidth to support high definition video. There’s a proposal being floated to allow broadcasters to share frequencies taking advantage of the multiple program capability of each channel.

Likewise, Ethernet over Copper and DOCSIS Cable are easily capable of 100 Mbps broadband but start to strain above that. Further technical advances may push the upper limit on copper delivery but it’s just a matter of time before we have fiber to every premises. Verizon is leading the way with its FiOS passive optical service to the home and most medium and large business that don’t have fiber yet are taking a hard look at the lower cost of Gigabit Ethernet, where available.

How about your business? Are you feeling pinched by bandwidth services that are no longer as capable as they were when you installed them? You should know that business bandwidth prices have dropped significantly in the last few years, fueled by new technology developments and high levels of competition in metro areas. You may be able to get a lot more for your bandwidth dollar than you think. If you haven’t checked in awhile, this is a good time to get prices and availability on fiber optic bandwidth services. You may be surprised about what is available today.

Fiber Optic ISP

Not so long ago, Internet service came through the telephone as a collection of audible beeps and squeaks. That evolved into dedicated landline and wireless broadband. The next step has already been taken by the largest companies. Now, medium size businesses are also looking for a fiber optic Internet service provider.

Fiber optic Internet service for residential users is the domain of Verizon’s FiOS. Google will soon enter the market on a test basis with a new benchmark of performance: 1 Gbps. But business broadband connections have moved past the Gbps upper limit, with 10 Gbps service becoming more common for major organizations. The technology is proven. The question is how much bandwidth do you need and where do you need it?

The key to fiber optic levels of telecom service is the “lit” building. That’s a location where fiber optic cable has been pulled into the facility and connected to terminal equipment. Once the fiber is lit by a service provider, the building is considered to be “on net” and able to select from a wide variety of service options. This facility can also be a jumping off point to provide fiber optic service to other nearby buildings. The most expensive and time consuming aspect of fiber optic service is the initial fiber construction.

What types of fiber optic bandwidth services are available? They typically fall into two categories. The first is traditional SONET / SDH telecom services. These are the original telco standards for voice and data over fiber optic strands. The most basic service is OC-3 or Optical Carrier, level 3. This is a 155 Mbps bandwidth service based on the same TDM or Time Division Multiplexing technology as copper based T1 and T3 lines. In fact, DS3 bandwidth at 45 Mbps is most often delivered as part of an OC-3 signal that can transport 3 of these DS3 services.

The SONET standard fiber optic services include OC-12 at 622 Mbps, OC-48 at 2.5 Gbps, OC-192 at 10 Gbps and OC-768 at 40 Gbps. This highest levels are most often used by carriers, themselves, as their backbone networks.

The other category of fiber optic service is Carrier Ethernet or Metro Ethernet. Ethernet services are standardized at the same levels seen in LAN networks. These are 10 Mbps standard Ethernet, 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1000 Mbps GigE, and 10 Gbps or 10 GigE service. Intermediate service levels are generally available, as Ethernet is readily scalable.

How do you decide between SONET and Ethernet Internet connections? Both are reliable, proven technologies that can deliver the bandwidth you desire. What often differs is availability and price. The best approach is to get a complete selection of fiber optic service quotes from a telecom broker and compare pricing on the services available for your business location. You may be surprised at how affordable the higher bandwidths have become.

The Fiber Gold Rush Is On

We’ve known for some time that ultimately we’d need to move from copper wires to fiber optic strands to get the bandwidth we’ll need as technology advances. Internet service providers, Cable TV companies, medical centers, telephone switching offices and major corporations have gradually embraced this move over the last couple of decades. New services, such as Metro Ethernet, have made fiber optic connections affordable for even mid-size companies. Small businesses and consumers are now getting their turn.

Indeed, there has been one company that saw the light, so to speak, on fiber to the home and made the commitment to build out the infrastructure. That’s Verizon. Their FiOS passive optical fiber service has been moving into one community after another as a replacement for DSL, Satellite, and Cable. You can get bundles of phone, Internet and TV. Or, you can just get really fast Internet service at up to 50 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload.

Did I say really fast internet service? Most people are getting somewhere between 3 and 10 Mbps broadband via DSL, Cable or wireless. But DOCSIS 3.0 is being rolled out on Comcast and other cable systems with 50 Mbps service offerings to rival fiber. The next tier will be 100 Mbps for those who can and will pay for it. DSL over copper telephone wire is going to struggle as the bandwidth wars speed past 100 Mbps. But there’s a new service on the horizon that will blow right past all of these broadband choices. It’s a 1 Gbps fiber optic service about to be launched as a pilot program by none other than Google.

Yes, some lucky consumers in the test markets are going to get their hands on the kind of bandwidth that makes IT managers green with envy. A Gigabit per second. That’s 1000 Mbps. There’s nothing over coaxial or twisted pair copper and certainly nothing wireless that can even come close to delivering that kind of consumer bandwidth. Even Verizon may have to change out a lot of terminal equipment to pump a Gbps into home networks.

Google swears that they are not planning to become a nationwide ISP. Their intention is to create an environment that can showcase the next developments in technology. What sort of cloud computing, virtual reality, telepresence, or HD 3D video applications need that kind of bandwidth? They’re yet to appear. But this does get past the chicken and egg conundrum, where application development stagnates because of bandwidth limitations and only cutting edge aficionados pony up for the top tiers in broadband service. Google plans to make their service cheap and plentiful so that even the common user can have a crack at this massive bandwidth connectivity.

ISP or not, it’s almost a sure bet that Google will prime the pump with some of their own cutting edge experimental apps. There’s probably all sorts of cool things brewing in the lab that just aren’t practical to launch on today’s broadband networks. Once the bottle’s open and the genies start flying out, you can bet that the development communities will fall all over themselves to get their own offerings out for evaluation.

This pitiful era of a bandwidth starved United States is about to end. That’s exceptionally good news for anyone living out in the boonies who’s stuck with dial-up, or paying a goodly price for satellite broadband and swearing at the latency. Google is, perhaps, the last straw in forcing universal fiber optic connections to the premises. Right now, smart telephone and cable companies are grabbing federal stimulus financing to trench fiber everywhere it isn’t already. It’s more than just serving the populations in low density areas who need and deserve better broadband. Another driving factor is the burgeoning wireless bandwidth demand to support smartphones, such as the iPhone and Droid. The cellular sites are bandwidth limited by the copper lines they have for backhaul. They are going to need fiber to support LTE and speed-ups in WiMAX.

How will wireless fare in the long run? It’s hard to tell how fast will be fast enough for wireless broadband. We’re not there yet. Right now, the relatively small size of cellphone screens takes some pressure off the need for massive bandwidth, even for HD video. But what about that iPad? It’s surely just the first in a whole class of tablet size products with bigger screens and more processing power. That’s going to lead to higher bandwidth demands to support content to feed the tablets. The FCC is already eyeing underutilized TV channels and other portions of the spectrum to press into service for wireless broadband. There will likely be some technology advances needed in the wireless arena to satisfy the ultimate need. After all, you can put more fiber bandwidth in the ground that there are Gbps in the entire regulated electromagnetic spectrum.

Broadband For The Home Office

With bandwidth choices multiplying, home office users are wondering what's the best deal for them. Should they go with garden variety residential DSL or Cable Internet service, the new FIOS service from Verizon, or something professional grade like Business DSL, T1, or Carrier Ethernet? Here's a quick guide to what's available and what makes sense for the home office user.

Most often, the best option for home office connections to the Internet are the "residential" broadband services. That's true for a couple of reasons. First of all, residential broadband is as low cost as you can get. It's generally only available in residential neighborhoods. The local cable company may well be selling broadband connections to restaurants and small offices in areas zoned for business, but they'll also be charging around double what you'll pay at home. It's likely to be the same or very similar connection quality, perhaps with special customer service attention for the higher paying business customers.

Beyond cost, the other reason residential broadband is a good match for home offices is that most home users are willing to live with occasional short outages and varying bandwidths in exchange for cost savings. If the line drops for 20 minutes, can you take a break and come back or do something offline? If so, you'll save a bundle. If you are using VoIP telephony, is the bandwidth high enough so that your phone calls sound decent and rarely drop? With one or two phones and a decent router that lets you set priority for voice packets, you may very well be able to use a single broadband connection for your broadband telephone and PC Internet.

So how do you find your best deal on residential broadband? The easiest is to use an online broadband search engine such as "Can I Get DSL?" You enter your name, email, and phone number and in a matter of a minute or two you get back a display of which broadband services are available for your location and their prices.

Notice that you need to enter you landline phone number for this to work. Search engines like this one use the phone number to establish your exact location based on phone company records. That's important because all broadband services are location sensitive. The house across the street may be wired for cable or fiber optic service, but yours isn't. Or vice versa. For DSL, it's even more critical. DSL uses high frequency signals that ride on the telephone line along with standard voice service. These signals have a very limited geographical reach from the phone company office. If you are more that a few thousand feet, it gets dicey. By the way, that applies to both residential and business DSL offerings. It's the technology that limits the distance.

OK, but what if you don't have a landline? Perhaps you use a cell phone exclusively or VoIP sharing your broadband connection. Or you are moving to a new location and want to find out what broadband services are available there. For DSL, forget it. It's rare to be able to get DSL without landline phone service. Both services use the same phone lines. Plus you need that phone number to even run a search. If you are using VoIP for phone calls, chances are that you are looking for Cable Internet anyway. To get an idea on service availability and prices, use a next door neighbor's landline number to run a search (with their permission of course). This won't guarantee availability, but is likely to give you an accurate picture of what services are available. You'll need to call your cable company or the cable company at your new location to actually establish service.

An exciting new service rolling out in selected parts of the country, mostly in the New York metroplex area, is Verizon FIOS. This is the long awaited FTTH or Fiber To The Home service. You can get download speeds up to 30 Mbps, plus telephone and television service, all delivered over fiber optic cable.

I should mention that the broadband search at Can I Get DSL? returns DSL, Cable, and Satellite Internet. Satellite is a viable alternative if you live in a rural area or part of town not served by DSL or Cable. It's more expensive than the other residential options and you have to pay a equipment fee, but it may well met your Internet needs when the other option is dial-up. Because of the time delay, called latency, involved in sending a signal up to a geosynchronous satellite and back down, this service isn't very usable for VoIP phone service. You might be able to make it function, but the conversations will be more like using walkie-talkie or CB radio than traditional telephone service.

Another option that may be available locally is wireless broadband. These are locally owned and have very limited coverage, so there's no search engine. Try the newspaper ads or Yellow Pages to see if there is a provider in your area. If so, you can often get service quality similar to Cable broadband at about the same cost. Sometimes there are wireless providers in smaller or more rural counties that aren't hooked up to Cable.

But what about the profesional grade telecom services? T1 is the defacto standard for many small business locations because it provides rock-solid bandwidth at 1.5 Mbps both upload and download, often with a service level agreement or availability guarantee. The reliability is at least an order of magnitude better than residential services, repair times are faster, and the provider may offer you a managed router so they can monitor your service quality at all times. For this, you pay about 10x the cost of residential broadband. In major cities, that's around $400 a month with a 1, 2, or 3 year lease require. In less built-up areas the cost is higher. There's also a rather stringent credit check.

For some people, T1 service to the home is worth the expense. These tend to be people with expensive residences and demanding professions that require top grade service, whatever the price. If you fall into that category, please let one of our professional consultants help you decide on the best professional grade services available for your location.

There is also Business DSL service, but this is also typically available only for business-zoned areas near telephone company central offices. It typically costs 2 to 3 times residential DSL and is characterized by symmetrical bandwidth. That means similar upload and download speeds. Once again, this service is distance limited by the technology involved. If you can't get residential DSL, you won't be able to get business DSL.

The other available business bandwidth solutions are more intended for medium to large companies. These include T3 or DS3 bandwidth at 45 Mbps and fiber optic Ethernet at 10 Mbps to 1 Gbps. Those services start around $2,000 a month, so it would be the rare home office user who can justify this expense.