FiberGeneration

Portugal Commits to FTTH (in the meantime, France awaits the next Google...)

That is one of the headlines on the FTTH Council Europe homepage :

" Public and private interests in Portugal have this week made a series of ambitious and immediate commitments to FTTH investment that could propel the nation into the top tier of European fibre nations. 

On Friday 4^th July, the Portuguese government set the target of 1 million FTTH connections by 2010, and there is every indication that this will be achieved as carriers Sonaecom and Portugal Telecom announced investment plans to potentially exceed this number before the end of the decade. 

Incumbent telco Portugal Telecom forecast connecting 100,000 homes by the end of this year and a total of 1 million by the end of 2009.

In February, alternative operator Sonaecom announced a €240m FTTH roll-out to reach around a quarter of Portugal’s 10.6 million population.  Its project completion is anticipated three years from now."

So, Portugal enters the Ultra-Broadband race with a quite aggressive plan.

In the meantime, FTTH deployments are still on hold (sort of) in France, with the three major telcos : FT-Orange, SFR-NeufCegetel, and Free waiting (sort of) or the final decision by the Authority of Regulation ARCEP on the mutualisation.

OK-derle, Portugal is a small country compared to France - say 6 times smaller population-wise. However, 1 million connected homes by 2012 as target goal defined by the Portuguese government is more aggressive than the one set by the French government - 4 million homes (link in french) - when compared to the respective population numbers : for Portugal, the ratio is 1:10, whilst for France it is 1:16. Ever heard of the Digital Divide ?...

Cycling At The Fiber Age

Le Tour de France will make its annual stop here in Pau next week. The city is readying for the big show, with signs, ads, and welcome events popping up everywhere. In the meantime, the new release of the blockbuster "Pro Cycling Manager" game is on the shelves.

Among the key features of this 2008 version, there's one which rings a bell to me :

" Play in single and/or multi-player mode (allows up to 20 players over the Internet or via LAN). "

Imagine the benefits of FTTH Fiber-To-The-Home for such a game : no more players number' s limitation, so that you could be part of a *real* 200+ racers' peloton, even better graphics, and a faster speed of reaction for you to counterattack your rivals...

FTTH does offer many other possibilities to practice sports like Cycling or Skiing. For instance, imagine home-trainers connected to the Internet, simulating a real competition between cyclists for their  indoor training during winter...

Shall you be a game developer loving Sports (e.g. Cycling, Tennis, Ski, Rafting, etc.), please feel free to drop me a line : Pau is the place you should be.

When P.R. Brings You Joy & Faith (sort of)

For those of you who still have doubts on the bright future of Fiber To The Home, this press release will wipe them out right away.

ed. note : to read with a grain of salt, of course ;-)

"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 ;-)

The True Broadband Country

At NXTcomm'08 yesterday, Verizon Communications Inc. announced its plan to offer 50-Mbit/s FiOS service to its FTTH Fiber To The Home customers (approx. 10 million households).
Read LightReading article by Raymond McConville for more details.

According to LightReading, " the 50-Mbit/s FiOS package will be offered for $90 per month in New York and Virginia, and at $140 per month in all other markets. The 50-Mbit/s downstream speeds will be coupled with the 20-Mbit/s upstream speeds Verizon began offering in October 2007."

Writes McConville, " Verizon’s ultimate goal is to enable 100-Mbit/s downstream to each FiOS subscriber. The carrier says it has successfully conducted 100-Mbit/s field trials with employees, but hasn't yet set a timetable for a commercial launch.".

Bokay. That's a truly compelling offer for the lucky FiOS' subscribers. But this is still an annoucement. For people - read Online Gamers, developers, entrepreneurs - looking for ultra-broadband access today, there's a place on Earth where they'll find 50Mbit/s upstream & downstream, immediately : Pau, France.

For less than $53 per month, installation and first month for free*.

Since decades, Australian and Californian surfers move to Biarritz for its beautiful spots. Why wouldn't the young *Net* generation, online gamers first, move to Pau for its blazzingly fast broadband access (and its wonderful landscapes in the meantime) ?

ps : 100Mbit/s is also commercially available, since a couple of years...

* by NeufCegetel, until June 30th.

Say Hello To FiberCamp

I've just opened FiberCamp, a discussion forum aimed at defining new ways to design, build, and operate Fiber-To-The-Home networks.
See the first post to get the flavor.

Dear Fiber Optics fellows, please feel free to bookmark and RSS FiberCamp, and more : feel free to participate. Once upon a time, Usenet was a wonderful place to discuss innovative ideas. Let's move on and leverage on the Web 2.0 to re-invent the way we do collaborate on such of mission-critical topics.

Note : FiberCamp is powered and hosted by Lefora. Hence the ads banner on the right sidebar, which is quite a trade-in when you know how easy it is to set up and operate a forum on this new platform.

FiberOnDemand Refresh

I've revamped the Fiber On Demand blog. Was a matter of a few clicks only, thanks to Yahoo!Pipes (see the features in the previous post). Aggregating content from different sources onto a single web page has never been so easy.

Just missing a 3D/whirling/magnifying carousel, which will be available in a next release I guess.

See Fiber On Demand here. Subscribe to the RSS feed here.

FiberNews MashUpdated

I've updated the FiberNews site.
After a few months out in the wild space of the blogosphere, it was time for a first revamp.
First modification : more news, coming from more online resources - adding RSS feeds with Yahoo!Pipes is just a matter a seconds.
Second modification, thanks to the new "Get a Badge" feature : replacement of the Google Map mashup by the Yahoo Map, directly from Pipes. Just outstanding. It's mashup for the rest of us.

You can visit FiberNews here.
Add the FiberNews as a badge on your own site, or get the RSS feed, JSON, PHP, KML and more - including getting the results by email or phone - here.
My public pipes are available here. Feel free to copy, paste, and use.

Fiber-To-The-Home : The Exploding Market

See by yourself...

[UPDATED 03-19-08 2:25PM CET] The video is no longer available on YouTube. That's the beauty of Web 2.0 and Rights Management ;-)

Looking Forward To The Googled Fiber World

Back from San Diego, I had a meeting yesterday night in Paris with the VP Sales & Marketing of a new startup working on some *fiber network monitoring* stuff. I can't disclose anything of course, just that it's about Fiber-To-The-Home.

Things we've discussed until late in the evening were on the forthcoming changes in the optical comms industry per se and our own lives.

Like this one : thanks to FTTH and 40G/100G/etc. networks, we're going to be "online" everywhere anytime, with our entire "life" relying on *The Net*. Fine.
Now, since we'll do everything - working, watching TV, training, sharing life, etc. - through a single fiber strand, this one better stay up and running 24/7 : we won't accept being cut off for 2 days until the Repair guys come in. Hence the need for monitoring systems, which would look after the faults on the fiber right up to our living room.

A tremendous challenge, provided the numerous FTTx networks topologies and technologies. A challenge which requires to think out of the box. Something the legacy Test & Measurement firms can't do. Something a well funded startup can do. How much do they need ? $5m. Which is not that much for a solution which will help change the World (because it'll guarantee your fiber stays okay).

Ed. note : French world-famous blogger Loic Lemeur got $6m for his Web 2.0 video-sharing platform. Raising $1m less to produce something which really serves the World shouldn't be that much a problem. At least in a perfect World...

Get EnterTrained With eXperide

What if you could get trained on fiber cable installation right at your place, right on the field ? No more wasted time in transports, no more painful lecture training in a classroom far from your home, no more hands-on practice on a table. Just a time-saving, practical, productive training.
That is what eXperide is to provide : quick-start on-site hands-on training for installation & maintenance contractors, enabling technicians to get up-to-speed faster and better.

I won't disclose everything of course - although I'm quite proud of the marketing & sales strategy the team has put together - but here's a brief overview of the tools eXperide will bring to its fellow customers sometime this year :
- pre-equipped mobil-home trucks, sporting ready-to-use workstations for hands-on training (cable preparation, splicing, and testing);
- pre-loaded iPhone and/or iPod Touch, with e-learning materials (e.g. podcasts and videos) and direct access to eXperide' s technical support;
- discussion forums and weblogs, for people to share their best practices and experiences.

Quite an exciting one, right ? Then, stay tuned for more ;-)

Say Hello To eXperide

Since October 1st 2007, I'm working with the french group "R&D", who owns the french largest fiber optics distributor ICTL. My job: help the company to create and launch a new subsidiary aimed at consulting & training services for the Optical Communications industry.

Please welcome eXperide, your new fiber optics companion.

What we do : bring fiber optics skills to everyone.
Why we do exist : to help telcos and al. to build, operate, and maintain state-of-the-art networks faster and better.

Here's the eXperide' flyer intro :
" in this ever-changing world, where the survival and development of your business relies on a fast and constant adaptation, knowing markets and technics is mandatory for your success. eXperide has been designed to address your needs of advice and training in all parts of installation & maintenance of optical communications networks.
We do exist to go alongside with you at every stage of your growth, from qualifying existing installations up to helping you to setup new structures aimed at networks' s construction & maintenance and certifying your outside plant technicians for jobs at service providers and system integrators.
Our only objective : to enable you to go to market faster, better, and safer. "

To better understand the core idea behind eXperide, have a look on the presentation I've created back in late October to get the whole team engaged - and focused. Of course, you won't see the most interesting part of of it : our strategy ;-) My favorite quote : "Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual".

| View | Upload your own

Pau Broadband Country : The Quick Start Info Pack

For those of you who would like to learn more about the fantastic Pau Broadband Country environment, here's a quick start URL links - I'll put them on the right sidebar ASAP.
Note that some of them are in french only.

[updated Feb.20 6:22PM CET - with actual URL links for SnapShot to display the right pages]

Google "Pau Broadband Country"
Wikipedia "Pau Broadband Country"
PauBC Info
Agglomération Pau-Pyrénées Economie
WebTV Pau Pyrénées

Ed. note : if you still wonder if you should make the jump from the Bay Area to the Bearn (nice confusion when pronounced with a typical french accent ;-), have a look at the weather forecast for San Francisco and Pau.

See what I mean now ?

Okay, They Got It Right (well, almost)

Sunrise Telecom just announced its new TriplePlay tester. See here.
The good thing : it does all TriplePlay Services tests. The bad one : it does the tests from the CO.
Question : how about testing the link FROM the subscriber' s home ?

Dear FTTx Contractors, Say Hello To Customer-Facing Coaching

When you think about it, Fiber-To-The-Home is the ultimate experience for outside plant technicians. For the first time ever, those folks are working right in front of the end-user.
That implies a lot of new behavior for the OSP people, as they are kind of the front-desk of the service provider. To make it short : the guy who's installing the fiber at the subscriber' s place is also the ISP' s sales rep.
Hence the need for coaching the OSP technicians to customer-facing situations. Be the best sales rep. That's quite an interesting challenge, for both the trainers and the installers themselves. Have a look at this video, and you'll understand why.

The I-Take-Some-Time-For-Blogging On Fiber-To-The-Home Edition [01-30-08]

Buddy Blogger Benoit Felten has published an outstanding interactive map on the actual situation of FTTH Fiber-To-The-Home networks worldwide. Worth the look (and bookmark) for all of us working in the FTTx field.

FYI, here's the comment I just left :

"About Pau : the 6,000 active subscribers milestone will be achieved within the next couple of weeks.

Based on the map, which is pretty accurate thanks to Benoit's outstanding work, one can note that Pau is the ONLY european city south of the Loire river (means, where weather conditions are wonderful for most of us ;-) that offers up to 100Mbps connectivity to enterprise & residential customers."

Go to the map here.

France 2.0 ?

Buddy Blogger Benoit Felten has posted a very interesting article on the recent report from the French business owners/managers' Union MEDEF : "How to make of France a leader in the Digital Economy." (link and pdf document in french).

The Magic Is Back, or : Marketing That Serves The End-User

Back in 2000, I titled the brief report of the OFC Optical Fiber Communications exhibition to my management at Agilent Technologies : "The Magic is gone." The whole Telecoms industry was ruled by marketeers, and Fiber was no different. The Lucents, the Cornings, the Pirellis : they were all selling wonderful shiny proprietary solutions to hungry customers (the new telcos which were popping up like hell everywhere on the Planet), totally forgetting that what made the Optical Communications industry in the past was Innovation.
Fact is, until 1998 the fibers were sporting strange names, such as "ITU-T G652". Everything changed in '98, when Corning came out with its Leaf, Lucent with its TrueWave, or Nec with its Lucyna. Since then, marketeers took over the business, leaving inventors and researchers in their labs. The best example : the Pirelli Telecoms booth at OFC'99, with an... italian motorcycle as the only product on stage.
For people like myself, whith a technical background, a marketing position and a customer-focused mindset, the outcome was obvious : a total lack of real customers' s needs, leading to what happened to be a violent downturn.

Today, almost 8 years later, my feeling is that the Magic is back. Reaserchers and innovators can talk to end-users again. See this product presentation video by... Corning : for the very first time since a decade, a new product is a true solution to a real customer problem.

" Looking for IPTV? Then move to France. "

This article, by Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor at the mandatory Light Reading, demonstrates once again that my country (France. You know, the little old piece of european land ruled by a superb showman) is truly leading the Telecoms World. But nobody here knows it, including our Emperor, ooops sorry, er. President, unfortunately.

That's why I keep thinking the iPhone IS Testing 2.0, 2d edition

See here. And apply the same concepts (i.e. remote control, keyless, etc.) to testing devices or networks. You'll get the idea. Granted.

FTTH Market Overview, An Old Yet Useful Study

Digging the Web for data on FTTx Fiber-To-The-Something key players in the Bay Area, I found this 125+ pages document. Quite an extensive overview of the FTTx markets, although the study is dated 2003. Considering that the Telecoms industry just recovered by the end of 2006, IMHO most of the informations you'll find in there are still pretty much relevant - simply change names when M&A apply.

Ehrhardt & Ehrhardt consulting firm website here (in Dutch)

This Is Not My High-Speed Internet

French ISPs do face some road bumps with their FTTP roll-out plans. It seems that customers are not that much interested going the extra mile on fiber just for HDTV and VOD.
When you see this, you understand why such of reluctance.

FTTH Struggles

FRANCE24-EN-WebNews-Optical Fiber war
Uploaded by FRANCE_24

Fiber To The Home ? What For ?

Ever wanted to know if Dan Brown was right ? Click here. But better have a real broadband connection *, Buddy !

* it's worth a fiber-to-the-home subscription...

Anyone Willing To Relocate To France, American Fellows ?

Earlier this week, US Telco Verizon  unveiled a Groundbreaking FiOS Internet Service. Claims the press release : " Verizon has changed the definition of "fast" with the introduction of a new, symmetrical Verizon FiOS Internet service for consumers, featuring an upload and download speed of up to 20 megabits per second (Mbps)."

Wow. 20Mbps on fiber, that's quite a breakthrough. For the US. Because, not willing to play the Arrogant Frenchie, but... we've got 20Mbps DSL since years, allowing real TriplePlay services including HD-TV. Okay, DSL is not symmetrical. Guess what : we (well, the lucky guys in Paris or Pau and many other cities across the country) can get full-symmetrical 100Mbps on fiber since months.

Take the city of Pau and its state-of-the-art 'Pau Broadband Country' broadband access network : 40,000+ homes passed, with 6,000+ active subscribers : NeufCegetel offers symmetrical 50Mbps   since May this year, whilst enterprises and high-end users enjoy a full 100Mbps connection.

So, for those of you who seek bandwidth hungrily : take a one-way ticket to the 21st Century' (Broadband) Capital : Pau.


Update 10-27-07 : I just replaced the previous photo for the one above. The reason is that the author of the original photo sent me a message today, claiming the copyright. He wanted me to mention his name, blahblahblah. Well, I would, should this famous photo be about a private thing or so. Fact is, the photo shows a public work on a public street, for a public community (a french city somewhere in the Alpes). In summary, the guy shot a picture of something paid by the French citizens, and he wants a copyright on it. Weird, IMHO. Especially at the Age of the Web 2.0.
To reach this modest person, click here, er, nowhere : I haven't seen any "email me" button on his weblog, which is here.

post-scriptum : the photo is mine, means I shot it myself some years ago, somewhere in Santa Rosa, California.
I must apologize : I didn't ask the authorization to PacBell to take this picture. However, it's here for you, with no copyright. Enjoy it, copy it, save it, distribute it : it's free, because I decided to put it here, on my blog, on the Web, on the Internet.
By the way, the PacBell folks did a great job repairing a fiber optics cable this beautiful morning. I wish the French telcos and I&M contractors be able to deliver the same level of quality. But that's another story.

Me Too

Ten years after leaving my own firm to do something else, I'm back in the Fiber Optics Training & Consulting business. Since Monday this week, I'm in charge of the creation of a ad-hoc subsidiary at a 20-yrs old / 50-people / fast-growing company here in France.

It's a little bit strange to me : I'm paid to do what I haven't had the chance to achieve with my own firm ten years ago.
The good news is : today, the market is there (thanks to YouTube, Facebook, and MSN), the customers are there, and the tools are there (thanks to the Internet and the Web 2.0).

And thanks to those ten years out of this particular business, I've learned so many different things myself in so many different domains that I'm more capable to run this business successfully than in the 90's.
For instance, this : today, I've been working at Production, assembling and testing fiber patchcords. For the first time since 1983 when I first put my fingers around an optical fiber, I've been shaking. I was afraid of breaking the fiber whilst stripping it. Now I understand my attendees fifteen or ten years ago, when they were shaking and I was saying "come on guy, look at me, am I shaking ?"...

Over the last ten years, I've learned a lot of things, for sure. Maybe the most important one is humility.

 

Building Fiber-To-The-Home Vs. Building Homes

Heard from Mr Dominque Paret, IT Development Director at the Region of Loire (you know, Saint-Etienne, their Soccer Team, their Schlumberger/Wavetek/Acterna/JDSU/Who'sNext? Fiber Optics Test R&D & Manufacturing Plant, etc...)  last week at the Odebit Conference in Paris, this true fact - for France in this case, however I'm sure it also apply to many other countries in Europe : when you build a new road, you know the traffic will double the next year AND you know there will be a new college within the next five years. Simply because people have moved all along that new road.

According to Mr Paret, this is a well known and well mastered model (that's why we have those ENA and X and Mines things ;-). The problem with fiber is that there is no such a model at the moment : nobody can tell for sure what will be the outcomes of a FTTx network  five years after its completion.

Shall YOU have heard or experienced or built such a model yourself (i.e. in/for your community), please don't hesitate to share it !

Chattanooga Choo Choo

Thanks to the weekly delivery of my YouTube' subscriptions, just discovered this video from the Electric Power Board, a.k.a. EPB, of the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

A Chattanooga' s public utility, EBP launched a Fiber To The Home initiative back in August this year. In the official announcement, Harold DePriest, EPB’s President and CEO said : ”A Fiber to the Home infrastructure will help ensure a growing supply of jobs for our children – and our grandchildren. Fiber to the Home will be as critical to Chattanooga’s quality of life as electric power was in the 1930s or the Interstate system was in the 1950s. On top of that, it will help make electricity in our area even more reliable and affordable.”

What makes this initiative an interesting case study for the cities and local collectivities wondering if a FTTH network is worth the investments : it's a 160,000 inhabitants town, with a local economy that includes a diversified mix of manufacturing and service industries, four colleges, and several preparatory schools. According to Wikipedia : Chattanooga is the corporate headquarters of many mid-sized firms including bicycle manufacturer Litespeed  (looking for a titanium bike ? there you go ;-) and sustainable design company Tricycle Inc.. Many businesses in the banking and insurance industries run their operations from Chattanooga. The city is also home of large branch offices of  AT&T and UBS. In summary, Chattanooga is pretty similar to lots of european cities, take many Germany, UK, and France for instance, which might benefit from Fiber-To-The-Home too...

Back to DePriest announcement :

“A recent study by a group of professors at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Tennessee State University suggests these economic and social benefits alone could top $600 million for Chattanooga over ten years.
Another study, verified by the Electric Power Research Institute, indicates that Fiber to the Home will also allow EPB to make significant improvements to its electric power distribution system. The infrastructure can help the company locate problems earlier, restore outages more quickly and gain efficiencies that are not currently available. It will also allow EPB to provide more tools to help customers reduce their power usage and cost.
The value to electric power customers in the form of reduced outages, energy conservation and other efficiencies is estimated at roughly $300 million over ten years, bringing Fiber to the Home’s total value to the community to nearly $1 billion over the course of ten years.”

Quite an interesting ROI, right ?...

See the video - and much much more - directly on EPB' s website here.
Read why the such an initiative always generates FUD here and here.

More on the lovely city of Chattanooga  here. Among many other key factors to make a city a nice place to live in, this :  "The city supports a downtown shuttle fleet of zero-emission electric buses -  manufactured here in Chattanooga - for commuters and visitors wishing to park-and-ride."

Post-Scriptum : for those of you who are too young to remember, here's why the title, and a pretty cool video to illustrate it.