FiberGeneration

THD92: Sarkozy' s First Step Into The All-Digital Economy

Brussels finally gave its "Go" to the THD92 project held by the department of Hauts de Seine, west of Paris. With 850,000 homes and enterprises to be connected to Fiber, THD92 is the largest FTTH Fiber-To-The-Home project in Europe to date.

It's also by far the most critical project for the whole Telecoms circle here in France: The Hauts de Seine department is the home of President Sarkozy, who will certainly keep an eye on the construction of the network until completion, and watch carefully the outcomes.

By 2012, the Hauts de Seine will offer ultra-broadband connectivity to all its citizens and businesses. Provided this territory is the richest of France, THD92 is to serve as THE Model for the rest of the country. Maybe the enormous reservoir of talents there will help developing the long-awaited Next-Generation Apps. Perhaps France will lead the Digital Economy then...

ps : for more info on THD92, read this post by Buddy Benoit Felten, and follow the links.

"Fiber Camp" @ Odebit 2009: Not The Camp You Think

I recently wrote a disclaimer about the upcoming "Fiber Camp", to be held in Paris next week during the Odebit tradeshow and conference (trade show first, as you need to be exhibitor to speak at the conference...).

I finally got a chance to read the program, on paper (the one published online don't give details on the so-called Fiber Camp): it has absolutely nothing to do with a BarCamp type of workshop. Participants will attend a Vendors session, with a fixed agenda and fixed speakers, er., vendors.

I wonder if that's the reason why the organizer inserted a "space" between "Fiber" and "Camp"...

Anyhow, you guys who were expecting to participate to the first real workshop on FTTH deployments, better stay home.

Or attend this one.

The Genius Touch

What a better way to kick off the week than watching a Genius at his best ? Enjoy.

Just This [02-09]

Borders, Union Square, San Franciso CA, February 2008.

[Teaser] California Dream Tour 2010

View Green Tech California in a larger map

Rural Ultra-Broadband: En Route To The FTTCh (Fiber-To-The-Church)

Yesterday in Paris, the French Government gathered the ICT community for the first seminar of the series on the Stimulus plan (link in french). The agenda of the day: where, when and how to invest into the Digital Economy.

Of course, Fiber Broadband was one of *the* topics of the day. The opening session has been quite interesting, with several key actors - the Prime Minister, two former Prime Ministers, Ministers, Senators, operators - claiming that if France is to be "fibered", than it must be the whole country, meaning Rural areas as well.

Mr. Yves Le Mouël, President of the French Telcos Federation (comprising all of them but Illiad-Free), used an expression which I find pretty accurate: "in the villages, we must bring Fiber up to the Church."

Starting today, I declare " FTTCh  Fiber-To-The-Church " to be the new motto of us Rural Broadband activists.

Photo Credit: Famara.

French Broadband Stimulus Plan: Announcements On Their Way

I will participate to the Governmental Seminar "Digital: Invest Today For Tomorrow's Growth", to be held in Paris tomorrow Thursday the 10th of September.

I hope that live-tweeting will be allowed... and technically feasible ;-)

Why I Went To The Broadband World Forum Europe

Despite my decision last week, I went to the BBWF'09 yesterday. Here's why.

This Just In: The T&M Rumor Mill says JDSU is in deep troubles

Heard from a very reliable/inside source: JDSU is to lay off 1/3d of its workforce in its European headquarter, based in Eningen, Germany.

Provided that Eningen is the former home base of Wandel & Goltermann, specialized in everything Protocol Testing, one can guess the outcome: JDSU will probably close the operation within the next 12 months or so.

For an industry veteran like myself, the JDSU story is worth a book. Take the Fiber Optic Test product line, for instance - the famous OTDR: when I started my career back in 1983, we bought our OTDRs to the french company Schlumberger. In the early 90's, the business was acquired by the american T&M specialist TTC. Then, at the end of the 90's, during the Bubble, Wandel & Goltermann merged with TTC, to form Acterna. Which almost died in 2001, filling for the Chapter 11 protection. Last, JDSU bought Acterna in 2005. That is five company names for the same product line over the last twenty five years. You can consider this story either a success for the guys running this particular business, because they're still there, or either as a failure for the "company" at large because it keeps changing heads each and every five years. I choose the later option.

ps: now that JDSU is doomed and Agilent focusing on Lab & Prod Testing, who's gonna run the show on the Telecoms Field Testing arena? My take: EXFO is well structured to play this role, whilst the Japanese may come back in the game pretty soon.

Ultra-Broadband On Copper ?

At the Broadband World Forum Europe, which opened its doors yesterday in Paris, a small Canadian firm is making the buzz. Genesis (what a cool name ;-) Technical Systems (slightly less appealing ;-), aka GenesisTechSys, is unveiling its Bonded DSL Rings™ (BDR) solution. A patent-pending access technology, BDR re-uses the existing copper plant to deliver up to 400Mbps of bandwidth.

As Stephen Cooke, President & CTO, describes it, BDR uses each house as an regenerator for the next connected one. So to speak, as with Skype: more users means more bandwidth available for the community.

According to Stephen, Bonded DSL Rings™ is to leave the labs early next year, for the first field trials by mid-2010. For the time being, the only data at our disposal is available on GenesisTechSys website, with the FAQs here.

BDR seems to be an interesting option for Rural Broadband: able to provide Peer-to-Peer, Open Neutral Access on existing infrastructure, for an investment way lower than Fiber - Genesis claims 1/100th the cost of fiber in rural areas, so let's be conservative and say BDR costs 1/10th of FTTH : I know lots of local authorities in France who would sign the tender right now...

Anyhow, this announcement should ring two bells in a Telecoms veteran' s mind (like me, got it ? ;-). First, BDR proves once again that Copper is not dead, although Fiber is going further each day everywhere around the Planet. Copper-based access networks are here for the next 20 years, thanks to some big surprises coming from newcomers like Genesis.

Second, speaking of newcomers : let's hope we are not witnessing a new Silk Road type of adventure. This time, there are people at the other end of the line...

IRL @ Sustainable Development Workshop, Bordeaux, France

Right after the Pyretic conference in Pau, I will attend the 6th edition of the Sustainable Development Workshop "Ateliers du Développement Durable" in Bordeaux, October 20-21.

Unlike many of the seminars and conferences I've seen this year on the subject "Sustainable Development", this workshop is focusing on the Social aspects of things. In summary: how to get out of the current crisis by putting PEOPLE at the very center of the *new* Society' s model.

Quite a challenge, right ?...

IRL @ Dark Fibre Convention 2009

I have been invited to participate to the 2nd Dark Fibre Convention by the Broad Group in London, UK, next November.

I will run the half day pre-conference workshop on 4th November: "Dark Fibre essentials: introductory guide".

I will  also contribute, either as a speaker or a panelist, to the "Trends in Dark Fibre deployment in Rural areas" session on Day One, and to the "Technical maturity status and economics of 40 and 100 Gigabit deployment" session on Day Two. Lots of things to share there...

Shall you be attending as well or in town at this period of time, feel free to drop me a tweet. I'd love to discuss with you Fiber Broadband matters ;-)

Registration for the Dark Fibre Convention here.

post-scriptum : The Broad Group is one of the few events organizers I know who's really looking after Climate changes. That makes the DF Convention even more interesting to follow.

IRL @ Pyretic 2009

Pyretic, the first pan-pyrenean conference on ICT, will be held in Pau, France, on the 20th of October. An event created by two professional associations on each side of the border, Pyretic has been imagined as a nice way to boost research and business cooperation between the regions of Aquitaine in France and Navarra in Spain.

I will be moderating a couple of workshops there. Shall you be in town or nearby at this time, feel free to stop by!

For more information on Pyretic 2009, go here (french and spanish only)

IRL @ FTTH Council Europe Press Conference

Thanks to buddy Alain Baritault, with whom I'm working on some exciting new ventures in the Green & ICT space(s), I'll attend the FTTH Council Europe press conference next Monday in Paris.

Hopefully the format will ease live blogging. Since I'm not sure there's free WiFi available at the CNIT Paris La Defense' conference center, better follow me on Twitter for the instant coverage.

post-scriptum: I won't attend the Broadband World Forum. Too far away of the real world: you and me !

"FiberCamp" @ Odebit 2009: Disclaimer

The forthcoming Odebit 2009 tradeshow and conference, to be held Sept 22-23 in Paris, will apparently feature a so-called Fiber Camp.

It appears that I'm the one who suggested such a brainstorming workshop to the organizer, last year after the third edition of Odebit which has been quite a disaster in terms of attendance.

I even been part of the organization committee for some months, until the organizer decided to kick me out because I was suggesting her people for the conferences' cycle. Unfortunately, I haven't got the point: to speak at Odebit, you have to register as exhibitor first. A strange policy, for me who's more used to the US/UK way of building a conference' agenda...

So, this post is aimed to make it clear : I 'm not involved with this so-called Fiber Camp stuff.

Shall it be a success, fair enough: I'll be happy for the french FTTx community. Shall it be a failure, fine: it will give me a little bit more time to setup and launch the truly first european CampFiber, with fellow FTTH Evangelists Guy Jarvis and Costas Troulos.