FiberGeneration

Fete du Tres Haut Debit, Photos

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"Fete du Tres Haut Debit" Running Notes

Yesterday in Mortain, a beautiful small town a few miles away from the Mont St Michel,was the 3d Ultra-Broadband Conference, held by the french optical cable manufacturer ACOME.

Here are my running notes, as is - means no re-writing * ( my personal comments under brackets ) :

Regis Paumier, CEO, ACOME. keynote speech :

- CETHD Center of Expertise for Ultra Broadband : 1,000+ visitors to date (note : opened mid 2007)

- there are many issues with Quality and Maintenance (on optical networks, FTTx)

- key issue in France (on FTTH) : rural environment.

Ms. Agnes Huet, President, Comptoir des Signaux. market survey by the FTTH Council Europe :

- FTTx networks Business Model :

a) OpenAccess is mandatory

b) Operator vs. End-User : capacity becomes commodity; extends potential services; puts the End-User at the center of the market.

- User-oriented solutions : puts the End-User at the epicenter of the system : dynamic bandwidth allocation, dynamic services allocation.

- Open Access / Open Networks not widely adopted in France : very few existing networks allow such services.

- xPON infrastructures limit Open Access systems.

- Collectivities want to : investigate all potential solutions; model contribution and ROI.

- Collectivities claim they don't have visibility on those solutions (hence the need for permanent live show-rooms).

Yves Le Mouel, President, French Federation of Telecoms (i.e. : Operators) :

- FTTH in France : need 100k new subscribers per month to be considered "mainstream";

- Investments : estimation = 10 Billions euros over 10 years (see recent announcement by SFR - link in french);

- New Business models must be invented, because based on abundance of bandwidth and services;

- the key question is : how to deploy a complex infrastructure to deliver services the simplest way (note : hence the need for a complete paradigm shift. Think Different);

- how FTTH will win by 2012 : the Killer App.

- the Killer App : images, video, online gaming, music, unlimited storage (read : Cloud Computing);

- services : teleworking, telemedicine, teleassistance, telemonitoring, online shopping;

- QoS : PnP, Easy2Go, AlwaysOn.

- avoid the Digital Divide : think Geography, Social, residential customers vs. enterprises...

- issues to be fixed : evangelisation, training & education of networks' deployment professionals (comment : good to hear that from the operators themselves);

- this represents more than 100,000 jobs (comment : good to hear that one too. I personally claim FTTH is a unique opportunity for new jobs and businesses creation, since months);

- target FTTH France 2012 : 3-Mo new subscribers per year. Same as ADSL. (comment : on this one, I slightly disagree : ADSL is easy to deploy, because it uses an existing infrastructure. FTTH : you need to install at least the last mile).

Thierry Houdart, Deployment Director, Axione (ETDE groupe Bouygues). an innovative solution for optical cable deployment :

- install the optical cable along the low-voltage power distribution network;

- speed : up to 1-km per day, by 2 technicians;

- no traffic disruption (road, power, telecom, etc.);

- capillarity : the fiber cable can go right to the end-user;

- infrastructure' cost : divided by a factor of 2 to 3 compared to existing traditional solutions, e.g. buried cables;

- green deployment : lower the CO2 emissions by 50%.

My personal take (this time w/o brackets, because it's a pretty crucial point ;-) : I assume the cost of deployment with this new solution is less than 30€ per meter, all together - site survey, components, installation, etc. Let say we can achieve 15€/m : a fantastic quantum leap for FTTH. 

This solution is a true paradigm shifting one anyway : the split of the cost of deployment is no longer 80% civil work and 20% components + instal; it is now 20% civil work and 80% components + installation. On top, it's an eco-friendly solution. Fiber finally goes Green. Brilliant.

* I wish I could capture notes this way ;-)

It's about the iPhone

Back at home after being on the road (and in the air, and on the Southern Alpes slopes), I took a couple of hours this morning to watch the recent introduction of the iPhone SDK by Steve Jobs and his fellow Apple execs.

You'll get a flavor of the impact of the iPhone Software Roadmap by reading those two articles, from David Pogue for The New York Times here, and Mike Elgan for ComputerWorld here.
Quote Master Pogue : " iPhone 2.0 will turn this phone into an engineering tool, a game console, a free-calls Skype phone, a business tool, a dating service, an e-book reader, a chat room, a database, an Etch-a-Sketch…and that’s on Day One."

To better understand why the iPhone 2.0 is THE Revolution many of us were waiting for, just watch Scott Forestall, VP iPhone Software, demonstrating one of the most exciting new features of the platform, based on the built-in 3D-accelerometer : undo a photo edition by... shaking the iPhone (demo starts at 39:30).

After seeing this, you'll get a better picture of Apple' s Hardware roadmap : the next gen iMac will be multi-touch based. Then, you'll agree with Elgan : the iPhone will change the PC world, forever.

Live from San Diego : Bob Metcalfe speech @ OFCNFOEC'08

This are my running notes of Bob Metcalfe' s keynote speech at the opening plenary session here at OFCNFOEC'08, San Diego, California. Posted after the speech, for misspelling corrections and irrelevant stuff deletion.
I'll comment some of them later on, in a further post. Just this personal note : Mr Metcalfe himself confirms that good times are ahead for the the Fiber industry. Should she wants to reinvent herself.

Running notes :
- BM has no ppt slides.
- uses instead 3 cards stacks, today will use 5 packs - reads the cards either on the table or hand held.
- the agenda of the day is to get the answer to two questions : "why should we be Terabit Ethernet ?", and then "how ?".
- 20 years between the first optical Ethernet in 1978 and the real commercial one.
- BM has a new project : create the Ether-Net, to solve energy crisis.
- SONET vs Ethernet : Ethernet won because of prices slash on cost per bit.
- BM prefers the terminology "telephon television and data" vs "voice video and data".
- the Internet is now carrying video, mobile, and embedded apps.
- Internet was not designed for none of them.
- Bubblephobia : people still afraid of traffic growth after the 2000 burst.
- expects growing traffic on embedded apps : first were mainframes then mini-computers then PCs then laptops then palmtops, so what's next ? : embedded.
- "alien wavelengths" : fiber people don't allow computer people to send their own wavelengths on the fiber.
- Ethernet technology will continue to ramp-up on a 10x slope, not 4x : 10G, then 100G, then 1T.
- Terabit Ethernet needs break out the existing infrastructure, otherwise it will be chaos.
- chaotic infrastructure because of too many levels, pieces, components - too much complexity.
- BM to the audience : "it's good news for you : it's gonna be fun". invent new stuff. means new business.
- BM lists some directions : new fibers : maybe carbon fibers ? how about no fibers at all ? how about free space mesh ? OOO (no more OEO conversion) ? etc ?
- we will never hear the word "OC3072" because of Ethernet 100G.
- Intel Sales & Marketing VP says TbE will not happen on terminal devices - it will be WiMax instead.
- when Tim Berners Lee invented the WWW, he never thought there will be a Google.
- today we have 4 layers, no more the 7 of the OSI model : at the bottom : Ethernet, then Internet, then WWW, then on top : Google.
- we need to re architect Ethernet because online video : download needs bandwidth, streaming needs QoS, interactive needs low-latency : Ethernet never been good at that.
- re-architect Ethernet : routing, switching, etc.
- meet people needs for lower energy consumption.
- Ethernet will help reducing transportation needs etc.
- BM asks the audience : "you fiber communications people are you ready to help solve the energy crisis ?"

Short biography of Dr. Robert M. Metcalfe: MIT engineer, Harvard mathematician, Internet developer, Xerox scientist, Ethernet inventor, Stanford professor, 3Com founder, Cambridge fellow, InfoWorld pundit, and now Polaris partner.

Read the OFCNFOEC plenary session program here.
See Bob Metcalfe' s recent interview by Light Reading here, and read more here.
Get the clear picture on why online video naturally changes the World here.
Last but not least, the legend of Bob Metcalfe is here, by Wired.

From San Francisco to San Diego

I'm heading for the OFC'08 tradeshow, going first to San Francisco to do some business with a couple of french friends of mine who have the very chance to have both a french and a US passport.
I'll do my best to do live blogging on Tuesday next week, for the OFC Keynote - Bob Metcalfe will be there.
CU soon ;-)

That's Web 2.0 At Its Best

Here's a modern, innovative way to do the exec summary of an event.
See Mahalo Daily' s Veronica Belmont funny video : Steve Jobs' MacWorld Keynote in 60 seconds. Boom. Gorgious. Incredible.

Columbus Day

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered America. 499 years later, I discovered Columbus Avenue.

[photo credit : Don Klosterman]

GPON Deployment Forum

The Fiber Optics Industry keeps accelerating its pace towards  full recovery and  bright  sustainable future. The forthcoming "GPON Deployment Forum" organized by IIR Telecoms is a must-attend for all of you involved with FTTH Fiber To The Home networks.

GPON Deployment Forum is to be held Mon 03 Dec  - Thu 06 Dec 2007 at the Moevenpick Hotel, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Event detailled presentation here.
Event brochure here.
Registration here.