Conexões de Internet

The face of future broadband












The
UK is lagging behind other countries in the push for next-generation
broadband networks. Telecoms firm BT has said it is unwilling to fund
the roll-out of a £15bn fibre optic network to every home in the UK,
and there are concerns over how such a network would make money.
Find out more about the technologies that could one day deliver faster broaderband to your home.












FIBRE TO THE HOME






Fibre to the home would bring speeds of between 50Mbps and 100Mbps,
with the added benefit of being able to offer those speeds both
upstream and downstream. This would make contributing back to the net -
sending video files for instance - much easier.
Unlike DSL technologies - which are carried along copper cables - it is not subject to noise issues.
Fibre optics are encased in cable similar to an ordinary PC
cable but inside are tiny, hair-size fibres of many colours. They are
used to transmit digital information in the form of light signals
Providers such as BT would lay ethernet over the fibre in order to provide services.
The biggest problem issue about fibre is the cost. To provide fibre to the home across the UK would cost up to £15bn.
BT is the most likely candidate to provide such a network and
while it has committed itself to putting fibre in all new-builds,
nothing else has yet been decided.









FIBRE TO THE CABINET






This is the cheaper option than fibre optics - UK estimates are
about £5bn for a nationwide rollout - and it is basically a hybrid
solution utilising both copper and fibre.
To provide FTTC across the UK will require the building of
90,000 new street cabinets - where wires from the telephone exchange
are kept at street level. It is capable of supporting new high bandwidth applications
such as HDTV, as well as telephone services such as voice-over IP and
general internet access, over a single connection.
It will not deliver the same speeds as fibre to the home, with a maximum of around 60Mbps.
Like ADSL, speeds will be dependent on how close people live to the street cabinet.
The final part of the connection to the home would run over ADSL or the latest flavour of ADSL, known as VDSL2.
VDSL2 can provide data rates exceeding 100Mbps in both the upstream and downstream directions.









ADSL2+






This variant of existing DSL is being rolled out in the UK from April 2008 with every exchange enabled by 2011.
The arrival of ADSL2+ is closely linked to work BT has been
doing on its core network, upgrading it to an IP infrastructure in a
project known as the 21 century network. ADSL2+ offers speeds of up to
24Mbps, but as it is distance-dependent a lot of people will not
actually achieve those kind of speeds.
Because the copper lines it operates on pick up
electro-magnetic noise the line can be affected by some unusual issues,
such as noisy fridges.
Old houses with old internal wiring will also affect the service, with possible breaks in service or speed slowdowns.









WIMAX






Wimax stands for Worldwide Interoperablity for Microwave Access. It
is based on the IEE 802.16 standard, also known as WirelessMAN.
It is often referred to as wi-fi on steroids, because of its
ability to provide wireless data over much longer distances than wi-fi.
In countries with good fixed line infrastructure, WIMAX acts as
a filler but in some developing countries is can be the dominant
infrastructure for broadband access. Countries such as Pakistan are
planning nationwide WIMAX rollouts.
It is possible for WiMAX to deliver speeds of up to 70Mbps and operate over distances of up to 50km, although not concurrently.









CABLE






Cable Broadband has three major parts - the customer cable modem
(which connects to the customers PC or laptop), the cable TV network
(through which the signal flows) and the main cable router (which take
the customer signal off the cable TV network and passes it on to the
Internet).
The system which is used, or "the protocol", is called DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification).
Currently DOCSIS 1.0 offers speeds up to 38Mbps. The new system,
called DOCSIS 3.0, could offer up to 120Mbps and higher. This (D3) is
currently in trial at 50Mbps in selected regions of the UK, such as
Ashford, Folkestone and Dover.
The system is always on, it is not dependent on the distance
you are from the exchange (unlike ADSL) and every person can receive
the same speeds - unlike ADSL.
The electronics are a mixture of fibre and copper cable, with
the majority being fibre. Only the last part to the customer is copper
which means that cable broadband has the potential to offer far greater
speeds now, and in the future, compared to its DSL rival.

Tier 1 Network


Unusually within the SME hosting market, WebFusion has access to a Tier 1 network with 50,000Mbit connectivity.

With over 100 Points of Presence (PoPs) nationwide and 40 private
spectrum point-to-multi-point radio PoPs, our network is based on
proven technologies such as ATM and MPLS. It is fully engineered to
provide Virtual Private Networking (VPN) as well as Internet
connectivity.



The UK Network



We
have deployed a multi-layer and fully meshed national network based on
optical fibre and microwave with Cisco GSR 12000 Series Gigabit
Switched Routers.
As a summary, the network is designed to be:

• High performance - low latency ensures that we can forward information quickly and to where it needs to get to.
  
• Scalable - providing the ability to increase capacity and extend geographical reach.
  
• Resilient - which means you can trust us to deliver mission critical data safely.
  
• Reliable - deploying carrier class, fully resilient equipment and redundancy to maintain service.
  

Our
network is managed and monitored 24/7 via a team of accredited,
experienced and customer-focussed engineers in our Network Operations
Centre (NOC).

Kenya cable ushers in broadband era




















The first of four undersea cables bringing high-speed internet to
eastern Africa has gone live. The BBC's Anne Waithera, in the Kenyan
capital Nairobi, finds a nation impatient to join the broadband
revolution.In a busy cyber cafe in Nairobi dozens of people, mostly young, are hunched over computers surfing the net. I
try to strike up a conversation with one of them but he will not even
look my way. Without looking up from the monitor he signals with his
hand that I should wait until he is done.

You'll see a lot of YouTube and Facebook stuff now made for Africa by Africans Idd Salim Symbiotic Media Consortium Africa's broadband future

This is perfectly understandable. It costs slightly less than $1 to
surf for about an hour in a cyber-cafe in Nairobi and internet
connection speeds are very slow. But he is ready to talk after he pays his bill. "It's not good. It's hanging and keeps wasting time and frustrating me," he says. Another frustrated user complains: "I've spent more than 15 minutes instead of 10." But things are about to change for these internet users. The
Seacom undersea fibre-optic cable goes live on Thursday, promising
changes that will be felt right across eastern and southern Africa.










See map of Africa's new fibre-optic cables











The switch will take place simultaneously in the Kenyan port city of
Mombasa, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Maputo in Mozambique and Mtunzini
in South Africa. The switchover from relying mainly on satellites to the submarine cable is expected to massively increase connection speeds.

The cables are being laid on the floor of the Indian ocean

One of the biggest setbacks of satellite connections is that a change in weather almost always leads to unstable connectivity. It
is hoped that cyber-cafe owners will transfer the benefits to their
customers, as they will be making a huge savings on international
links. "When the fibre-optic cable goes live this means the
speeds will be fantastic, we'll have a higher turnover of clients and
that translates to increased income," says Fred, a cyber-cafe manager. These
benefits will also be felt by millions of phone users, who will enjoy
cheaper international connections and quicker voice transfers. "The
fibre-optic connection enables faster voice transfer unlike satellite,
which has an average response time of 650 milliseconds, thus
introducing some delays in our voice communication," says Mahmoud Noor,
Seacom's cable-station manager in Mombasa. Mr Noor says the new
service will reduce this to an average of 90 milliseconds for calls
between Europe and eastern Africa, and an even faster response of less
than six milliseconds between Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. Potential squandered?In
Kenya, various sectors of the economy are expecting a major boost
following the launch of the undersea cable, and investors are anxious
about it.

The first undersea cable was launched last month, but is not yet live

"At the Nairobi stock exchange there is a possibility that things
like day-trading will be introduced, where you make an order and in two
minutes you will know if it has been sold or not," says Idd Salim of
the Symbiotic Media Consortium, a software firm in Nairobi. "That is not possible right now because you have to make an order today then wait for two or three days for it to clear." Mr
Salim says that Africa's potential is being hindered by the absence of
fast internet connectivity and this technological advance will open new
avenues. "For instance computer programmers cannot start a video service or a powerful website because the connection is slow," he says. "You'll see a lot of YouTube and Facebook stuff now made for Africa by Africans. "Look
at things like medicine - people will be able to be diagnosed from
their homes because now we can have virtual hospitals." The use
of the undersea cable is expected to be immediate, save for some ISPs
(Internet Service Providers) who may want to test it within their
networks for a few days first. Last month the Teams fibre-optic cable was launched in the coastal city of Mombasa, but it has yet to go live.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3169/2756836140_a189b01304_o.png

Google could not have started in the UK



In order to be a successful 'dot COM' business a good Internet connection is a
basic requirement. No, you can't "work from anywhere". You must have a fast &
reliable Internet connection.

Most Web developers in the UK host their applications in the USA where the
costs are much lower. Any company I've heard that co-locates or rents space in
the UK is paying about a two fold premium to do so. However it's about 20%
cheaper in Germany compared to the
UK, with 3x increased latencies.

Now if you are an innovative IT company you really need your machines and
services close by for fast development iterations.

Google could never have started in the UK. How on earth would they have had
the right IT environment to grow when bandwidth is so incredibly expensive in
the UK? JANET don't have a clear policy
WRT commercial "research" connectivity services. From past experience of JANET
network administrators if you wanted them to host an enterprise like Google
they would have responded with their typical "can't do" attitude.

google.ja.net? You're dreaming.

Bamboozled



Typically a demanding UK business could be connected by LAN Extension aka
'leased line' aka LES100 (mbit) or WES (wholesale). This high end Internet
market in the UK is full of meaningless service level agreements, mis-leading
acronyms and terminology. The sales people will ease you into a false sense of
confusion. Bonded, expresstream, dedicated, scalable 2M-10M and other sort of
bollocks. Dedicated "tail circuits" to their point of presences
(PoP) typically start at
2500GBP for installation and similar upkeep costs per month.

If you ask a reasonable question like: "Will my upload channel be faster than
the 100 kB/sec I currently get from my Virgin
XL connection?", the sales
people won't know. They'll sprout bullshit about how their contention is better
or that they can handle more parallel connections. Actually I just want to
serve (upload) as fast as possible. 100 kB/sec (1M) upload is too slow. Good
domestic broadband can currently suck down at 1000kB/sec (10M) to give you some
perspective.

Most business UK leased lines barely compete with cabled domestic connections.
Especially since high quality broadband ADSL connections are no more than 30GBP
a month. Ideally there should be no distiction between domestic and business
connections, though the UK sales boys don't miss a trick.

If your company is based in London, perhaps you can actually connect straight
up to fibre to an exchange like LONAP. This typically
will cost your premises at least 20kGBP to get hooked up. Plus all sorts of
equipment rental and bandwidth costs. If I was budgeting, I would say 50k GBP
was needed just to get started. Combined with your London rental rates, why not
pile your venture capital in a mound and just set fire to it?

Non-Wired West





The irony is in Cornwall, Praze Farm, my family home
is adjacent to fibre optic cable running along the A30 motorway. Probably the fastest
Internet connections in the world are the transatlantic links between Cornwall
and New York. However neither Global
Crossing or
EasyNet, would consider a splice into either of their
cables that run along the A30.

If you believed the "connected" hype from government and schemes derived from
Objective One such as:

• Actnow Cornwall
  
• Wired West
  
• Beacon technology park
  

You could be fooled into thinking that EU money was going into improving the IT
infrastructure in the South West of England. The truth is very different.

There are no "point of presence" (PoP) hubs in Cornwall as far as I'm aware, so
you can not get a costly high end leased line even if you wanted to. In the
Cornish countryside a typical broadband connection is about 1M down and 0.5M
up. So a symmetrical leased line to 2M~10M would be a massive improvement, at
great expense. Anyway there is no such (WES) option offered by British Telecom
(BT) in Cornwall.

The fastest connections in Cornwall are probably at Penwith College (Penzance),
University College Falmouth & Truro College, all connected by the
JANET offshoot
SWERN. However they have no links near me in
Bodmin, I've checked.

The highways agency



Webconverger isn't the only company that could do with a fast Internet
connection. After calling
EnterpriseMoucel who
manage the A30 from
Exeter to Penzance, they were interested too about getting connected to
fibre. They need fast Internet for their cameras to stream data to
their control centre. Currently they use an obscenely expensive
microwave link between Mount and Looe supplied by BT.

Compared to copper



Imagine your business could only have one telephone line. That's what good
domestic broadband or 'entry level' leased line gives your business. The
ability to serve just one customer at a time. Your business would not be able
to grow. This is the poisonous state of the current IT infrastructure in
Britain.

Aside from the frustrating UK business banking
service to deal
with, I can't help but think if a serious IT firm wanted to innovate it would
have to be based elsewhere. Trouble is, there aren't many fertile grounds in the
world. I can only think of:

• USA, especially Silicon Valley
  
• Japan
  
• Korea
  
• Bangalore, India
  
• Good list of FTTH countries from Wikipedia
  

It's a shame Britain can't seem to get its act together with respect to wired
fibre optic Internet links when we are such a small country. Attitudes must
change. Fibre optics must come above ground. Britain must become better wired
for new IT based economies to grow. Government should make this a national
issue and nationalise the fibre optic network.

About Verizon-MCI

Verizon-MCI's commitment
begins with the ability to leverage their extensive and
rigorously-engineered worldwide IP network. This high capacity, fully
meshed network provides maximum redundancy and ensures connectivity
from end-to-end. The Verizon-MCI network includes more
than 98,000 wholly-owned route miles connecting over 87,000 buildings
around the globe, spanning more than 4,500 Points of Presence (POPs)
throughout the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and
Africa with over 3.2 million dial modems. In addition, MCI operates
world-class frame relay, ATM, and voice networks with over 2,600
switches.
Verizon-MCI also operates the world's most expansive Internet network,
which provides connectivity in over 140 countries and operates at
speeds up to OC-192, the fastest available in today's market. Multiple
fibre-optic cables span both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They have
more than 130 data centers throughout the world. With the industry's most complete global IP backbone
and one of the world's most expansive, wholly-owned data networks,
Verizon-MCI develops the converged communications products and services


that are the foundation for commerce and communications in today's market.
To ensure that their networks operate at peak efficiency,
Verizon-MCI has five global Network Operations Centers distributed
around the world. Skilled technicians at these centers monitor network
performance 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

For more information about Verizon-MCI, which is an independent public company, see www.mci.com.

The broken submarine cables (global map) are operated by Flag Telecom, a subsidiary of Reliance Communications, and SEA-ME-WEA 4, run by a consortium of 16 telecommunications companies. Repair time may be measured in weeks, not days, says the Renesys Blog. VSNL restored Internet Services within 24 hours by going around the world — the long way — but it has snarled Internet and phone traffic from Egypt to India. Google News and Blog Runner have the latest news.

The countries highlighted in red (above) are those whose Internet
connectivity is being disrupted the most by this event. As you can see,
there are several cable systems that connect Europe, the Middle East
and Asia, via the Suez Canal.

According to Bloomberg,
six ships were diverted from Alexandria port because of bad weather,
and one may have severed the cables with an anchor, said a spokesman
for Flag Telecom Group.
The FLAG cut (pdf) is reported to have taken place 8.3 kilometers (5.2 miles) from Alexandria beach in northern Egypt. Flag (for Fiber-optic Link Around the Globe), runs from Britain to Japan.
FLAG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of India’s No. 2 mobile operator Reliance Communications, was cut (pdf) around 0800 hrs GMT on January 30, on a segment between Egypt and Italy.
Another submarine Internet cable owned by Flag Telecom — Falcon — was cut on February 1 at 6 a.m. GMT, at a location 56 kilometers from Dubai, on a segment between UAE and Oman. Falcon (wikipedia) has a maximum capacity of 2.56 Tbps, with initial launch at 90 Gbps. The four fibre pair links the Gulf to Egypt and India.
In Cairo, much of the capital city was without access to the Internet
for the bulk of the day, frustrating businesses and the professions.
“It’s a national disaster,” said Joseph Metry, network supervisor at
Orascom Telecom Holding SAE, the biggest mobile- phone company in the
Middle East and North Africa. New financial hubs like Dubai has increased traffic on many of these cables.
The South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) cable, has 17 landing points. The SEA-ME-WEA 4 cable was damaged in the waters off Marseille, France,
reports C/Net shortly after the first cut on FLAG. The two cables,
which are separately managed and operated, were damaged within hours of
each other.

How is it that Flag Telecom, Falcon, and SEA-ME-WEA 4
cables (above and below) were severed within hours of each other,
although Marseille, France and Alexandria, Egypt, are hundreds of miles
apart? At this point, details are sketchy and the cause is still
unclear.

VSNL has a terrific interactive global cable map (above), while the SEA-ME-WEA 4 map (below) shows the distance to France. VSNL, the Indian telecom giant, bought Tyco’s 6 Terabit transpacific cable for a relative song in 2004. Now they planning a new TGN-Intra Asia submarine cable linking Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan with an additional connection to the Philippines, and potentially Vietnam. At least five new submarine systems will run through the Middle East and provide additional connectivity to Europe and Asia says Light Reading.

The International Cable Protection Committee, an association of 86 submarine cable operators dedicated to safeguarding submarine cables, says more than 95 percent of transoceanic telecoms and data traffic are carried by submarine cables, and the rest by satellite. Communications satellites
generally have something like 500MHz of spectrum dedicated for upstream
and 500Mhz dedicated for downstream — not much more than a typical
consumer cable television system. Fiber can carry thousands of times
that capacity.

On 26th December, 2006, a powerful earthquake shook the seabed off southern Taiwan (pdf).
The magnitude 7.1 earthquake was followed by one of the largest disruptions of modern telecommunications history.
Nine submarine cables in the Strait of Luzon, between Taiwan and the
Philippines, were broken thus disabling vital connections between SE
Asia and the rest of the world. China Telecom reported that several international submarine communications cables had been broken, including:

• CUCN and SMW3, which was damaged at December 26, 2006 20:25 UTC+8 approximately 9.7 km away from landing point in Fangshan, Pingtung County, Taiwan;
  
• APCN 2 S3, which was damaged at December 27, 2006 02:00 UTC+8 approximately 2100 km away from landing point in Chongming, Shanghai, China;
  
• APCN 2 S7, which was damaged at December 27, 2006 00:06 UTC+8 approximately 904 km away from landing point in Tanshui, Taipei County, Taiwan;
  
• FLAG Europe Asia, the segment between Hong Kong and Shanghai was broken at December 27, 2006 04:56 UTC+8;
  
• FLAG North Asia Loop, the segment between Hong Kong and Pusan was broken at December 26, 2006 20:43 UTC+8, severely damaging the communications within the Asia-Pacific region and with the United States and Europe.
  

By the end of 2007, 25 oceanic fiber contracts totaling 112,000 route-kilometers were awarded.
Cable ships can’t just drop everything in the middle of a job. Both of Portland’s cable ships, the Tyco Durable and Global Sentinel, are expected to have plenty of work throughout the Pacific as the telecom industry rebounds. Here are Research Ship Schedules. The nearest research vessel looks like the Poseidon.

Sounds like a job for the USS Jimmy Carter. Why doesn’t anyone seem to appreciate our help?