Here is an article I wrote last July for my friend Richard Stephen, Founder and General Manager (the Scottish terminology for CEO ;-) of Opticus, UK. Opticus is the leading fiber optics consulting firm of the Kingdom, specialized in all installation & maintenance matters. Richard is an Optical Network Test pioneer, featuring more than 20 years of experience in OTDRs and all that stuff. So, if the fiber near you is broken, give him a call !
The original article is visible here. I am working on its sequel, which is intended to highlight the issue of network testing. The forthcoming announcement by the French operator Neuf Telecom/Cegetel of its FTTH roll out plan urges me to complete the new article pretty soon !
Enjoy reading, and stay tuned for the next one ;-)
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The City Of Light
aka France and The Digital Divide
Back in January this year, the French President Jacques Chirac stated his ambition to make France "one of the most advanced nations in digital technology" and defined his strategy : "We must be pioneers in the development of digital television and of technologies with very strong potential," he declared at the New Year speech at the Elysée. He thus wants "to develop a high capacity access to wireless Internet and to deploy TV on wireless as well as in high definition between now and mid 2007."
The day before, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe had stated his own ambition that FTTH will be deployed accross the city. Delanoe announced the plans for a municipal citywide fiber network that will be put out to tender at some point “in the coming months.”
A week after those two major fiber network announcements made by French politicians, France Telecom SA (NYSE: FTE) had announced a fiber-to-the-home pilot : a few thousand subscribers in Paris and six cities in the densely populated, mid and high-class Hauts-de-Seine departement to the west of the French capital. The network trial, which became live during the summer, is enabling new services such as high definition TV (HDTV), video on demand (VOD), multi-user VOIP, videoconferencing, and online gaming. Also, the France-based carrier said in its official statement that, following the initial pilot, it will "be able to ramp up the pilot programs to cover other regions in France or abroad by 2007."
Last but not least, Parisian FTTH startup CiteFibre (http://citefibre.fr) is planning to provide triple play services across 100-Mbit/s connections, and CATV operator Noos (http://www.noos.fr) is conducting several FTTH trials in the French capital.
It seems that the Fiber-To-The-Home dream is turning real, right in the country where it all began twenty five years ago.
The very first FTTH field trial was conducted in the Atlantic seaside resort of Biarritz, back in the early 80’s. Newly elected French President François Mitterand came up with the famous “Plan Cable”, which was intended to... make France the most advanced nation in communications technology (sounds familiar, huh ?). Enters the successful Minitel (still used today by elders) all around the country, and the visiophone fiasco in Biarritz : in 1983, multimode fibers were pretty expensive, pre-connectorized pigtails were still a marketeer dream, but, more than that, why the heck would you choose a fiber connection just to talk on the videophone with... your neighbor ?
So, thanks to the Plan Cable, Fiber-To-The-Something (Desk, Pedestal, Home) was considered as an expensive/useless technology for more than a decade, until the recent explosion of ADSL : as with the Minitel, french people discovered quickly all the benefits of broadband access, with the help of the fierce competition between incumbent France Telecom’ Wanadoo and its rivals, Free of the Iliad Group being the most aggressive one. The technology adoption cycle has been pretty fast here : only a year after the deployment of ADSL was completed, ADSL2+ came up together with the first TriplePlay Services offering by Free. That was such a tremendous success that Internet + Unlimited Telephony + TV is the standard entry-level package at France Telecom. When one knows that French youngsters (and some adults, unfortunately) are heavy consumers of illegal download services, blogging, peer-to-peer apps, chats, and other file-sharing websites, guess why 100Mbit/s to the home is no more a marketeer vision !
That is why some smart politicians (yes, there are some in this country) recently decided not to wait but to create demand. Among a couple of deployments in Paris, with Erenis (30,000 subscribers, FTTB) and CiteFibre (100 households, FTTH), there are two major fiber-to-the-home networks currently up and running in France, the two in the South-West region (remember Biarritz ?) : the triangle Toulouse-Albi-Castres, held by e-Tera, a company formed by both the Cities and the operators, and the famous Pau Broadband Country in the city of Pau, well known for its beautiful surroundings and the King Henri IV. With more than 32,000 enterprises and residential subscribers directly connected to fiber, the PBC network is the most advanced access network in France to date. Also part of the Pau Broadband Country magic, is WiFi : the Pau airport was the first one outside the parisian ones to host a wireless network, enabling business men and travelers to hook up their pocket-PC to the Net right out of the aircraft...
Now, back to Paris. Beginning of July, Mr Delanoe unveiled a new plan : the city hopes to set up 400 free Wi-Fi access points next year and allow Internet service providers to install antennae on strategically located public property. The plan also calls for slashing taxes on companies that lay down fiber optic cables in a drive to have 80 percent of all buildings within the city connected to so-called 'ultra-high speed' fiber optic networks by 2010.
This announcement is the true sign that things are finally moving fast in France, at least on the communications perspective. By 2010, you maybe won’t get a job, but you’ll get 100Mbit/s at home !
