France Telecom testing 2.5 Gbps broadband for €70/mth

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http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/07/26/HNparishighspeed_1.html

Paris homes test very high-speed broadband
France Télécom lays fiber to 100 homes in trial of connection with a maximum data rate of 2.5Gbps

By Peter Sayer, IDG News Service
July 26, 2006

France Télécom has laid new optical fiber connections direct to 100 homes in and around Paris to test a very high speed broadband access service, the company said Tuesday.


For €70 ($88) a month, customers participating in the fiber trial get Internet access, digital television broadcasts, and unlimited telephone calls over an optical connection with a theoretical maximum data rate of 2.5Gbps downstream, and 1.2Gbps upstream. The price includes installation and activation of equipment at the customers' homes, and the first two months' access are free.

During the trial, France Télécom also plans to offer interactive television services and videoconferencing, and will test new content-sharing and gaming services, it said.

Former monopoly operators in other countries are eyeing similar strategies. German operator Deutsche Telekom, for example, is laying fiber to the curb in front of German homes, and plans to use VDSL (Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line) technology over the last few meters to deliver broadband services to the homes at up to 50Mbps. It wants the service to be exempt from regulation, on the basis that it is a new market. German parliamentarians will debate a new telecommunications law that could decide such an exemption after the summer recess.

France Télécom, meanwhile, has laid 100 kilometers of new fiber, connecting its network direct to houses and apartments in six of the 20 arrondissements (administrative districts) in Paris, and in the nearby towns of Asnières-sur-Seine, Boulogne-Billancourt, Issy-les-Moulineaux, Rueil-Malmaison and Villeneuve-la-Garenne. The service is delivered over a Giga Passive Optical Network (GPON), the company said. The GPON standards were developed by the International Telecommunication Union, beginning in 2003.

Delivering new broadband services using fiber to the home would be attractive for France Télécom, as in the market for existing consumer broadband services it is hemmed in by competitors and regulations. Using unregulated fiber would allow it, and other former monopoly operators in markets where copper infrastructure is heavily regulated, to offer something their younger competitors can't.

France Télécom owns the decades-old copper infrastructure that links most homes to the French telephone system, but is obliged to rent it at a closely regulated price to competitors wishing to offer DSL services. They, in turn, typically undercut France Télécom's retail prices to offer a better, cheaper service over its own infrastructure.

For example, France Télécom bundles Internet access at up to 18Mbps and digital television service for around €40 a month, with unlimited telephone calls costing €10 a month more. Meanwhile competitor Iliad, through its subsidiary Free, bundles Internet access, digital TV and unlimited calls to European and North American destinations for around €30 a month. On Wednesday, Free announced it will increase the maximum speed of connections to 28Mbps for users of its newest modem, with no change in price.

GPON: http://www.itu.int/itudoc/gs/promo/tsb/85155.pdf

zuma

This absolutely breaks my heart!!!

bk

FYI using this technology the bandwidth is shared amongst many users in an apartment building and is also shared with TV streams.

This tech is already available in Ireland from the likes of Smart Telecom and Magnet in new apartment buildings.

What is news worthy about this is that the major, national telco is doing it, rather then smaller competitive players.

1huge1

:eek: damn

lol go me with isdn... all hail 64k

godskitchen

Really, thats not at all fair!

thats a crazy amount of bandwidth to have, even if it is shared!

how many people do i have to head butt in the chest to get this service?

probe

bk wrote:

FYI using this technology the bandwidth is shared amongst many users in an apartment building and is also shared with TV streams.

You don't expect 2.5 Gbits/sec uncontented for €70 per month!

bk wrote:

This tech is already available in Ireland from the likes of Smart Telecom and Magnet in new apartment buildings.

According to the Magnet website the fastest "package" they offer is 8 Mbits/sec for internet access. And 6 Mbits/sec according to Smart's website. Unless you are Polish and use Magnet and you are limited to 3 Mbits/sec and 9 TV channels. I smell lots of vaporware waffle from these companies in the FTTH zone.

What is news worthy about this is that the major, national telco is doing it, rather then smaller competitive players.

Yes.

Why the difference?

Answer - Real competition from loop unbundling in France. Forcing the incumbent to move to a higher level if it is to survive, in an environment where it was losing 20,000 subscribers per week.

Loop unbundling remains a token gesture in Ireland. Companies who dare to unbundle customers face an uphill struggle against eircom – now in the hands of a small gang of upstarts from yonder who appear not to have any experience in the telecommunications business but seem to be very expert in paying themselves! [The new holding company paid a bonus of $266 million out of total company profits of $599 million in 2005 to senior management – and an even higher percentage in the previous year].

And Irish copper loop subscribers run the risk of being without service of any kind for several days, weeks, months depending on how lucky they are in the stew of incompetence and bloodymindedness in the party that controls the copper pair, if they are reckless enough to attempt to unbundle. Not to mention number porting problems. And the problem goes on and on and on. Leaving broadband unaffordable to the masses in Ireland and slow for everyone.

probe

bk

probe wrote:

You don't expect 2.5 Gbits/sec uncontented for €70 per month!

Of course not, it was just FYI, not everyone might know it. Of course the TV streams are going to eat up a lot of bandwidth, specially if VOD.

probe wrote:

According to the Magnet website the fastest "package" they offer is 8 Mbits/sec for internet access. And 6 Mbits/sec according to Smart's website. Unless you are Polish and use Magnet and you are limited to 3 Mbits/sec and 9 TV channels. I smell lots of vaporware waffle from these companies in the FTTH zone.

It is worse then that, Smarts FTTH is only 2Mb, slower then their basic DSL product!!!!

In fairness to Magnet, I believe they actually deliver 8Mb over FTTH, even if you have TV (the TV doesn't effect the bandwidth, unlike DSL).

probe

bk wrote:

Of course not, it was just FYI, not everyone might know it. Of course the TV streams are going to eat up a lot of bandwidth, specially if VOD.

How many HDTV sets in your Paris home? Even a 1080i HDTV feed using an MGEG4 CODEC consumes only about 10 Mbits/sec of bandwidth. [They only stream the services you are watching over the last km while you use them]. They could stream 100 HD equivalent services simultaneously and use under 1 Gbits/sec of capacity.

The platform is probably good enough for the 3D holographic TV complete, with 16 channels of Dolby Real Sound using MPEG99 downstream and carrying real-time continuously repeating 3D total body scans to your doctor's preventative medical service when it materialises in 2030 or whenever.

In fairness to Magnet, I believe they actually deliver 8Mb over FTTH, even if you have TV (the TV doesn't effect the bandwidth, unlike DSL).

Magnet used to advertise a 100 Mbits/sec FTTH service on their website - alas no longer. Presumably Ireland's corrupt developers are making so much money from the architecturally and environmentally obsolete tiny houses and apartments they are rubber stamping all over the place at very high prices - they have neither the time nor inclination to worry about petty fibre roll out issues…..

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Urban Weigl

Irish people prefer dialup to this newfangled "broadband phenomena", or whatever it is. This is clearly proven: 450,000 Irish people are on dialup instead of broadband. They clearly prefer its glacial speed and higher cost.

bk

probe wrote:

How many HDTV sets in your Paris home? Even a 1080i HDTV feed using an MGEG4 CODEC consumes only about 10 Mbits/sec of bandwidth. [They only stream the services you are watching over the last km while you use them]. They could stream 100 HD equivalent services simultaneously and use under 1 Gbits/sec of capacity.

The platform is probably good enough for the 3D holographic TV complete, with 16 channels of Dolby Real Sound using MPEG99 downstream and carrying real-time continuously repeating 3D total body scans to your doctor's preventative medical service when it materialises in 2030 or whenever.

I think you are missing the point that it is a shared technology. The 2.5Gb of bandwidth would typically be shared amongst over a hundred users.

So yes you could fit about 200 HD streams into it (MPEG4 HD uses more like 12Mb/s), but you are going to have over a hundred users and some of them are going to want more then one stream (for multi-room), so a lot of the bandwidth will be eaten up by the TV.

This is actually the problem that Smart and Magnet seem to be facing, some of Smarts fibre locations seem to have actually run out of bandwidth due to putting too many users on one fibre.

1huge1

Urban Weigl wrote:

Irish people prefer dialup to this newfangled "broadband phenomena", or whatever it is. This is clearly proven: 450,000 Irish people are on dialup instead of broadband. They clearly prefer its glacial speed and higher cost.

don't be so sure the fact is that loads of people still can't get broadband, me for instance have been stuck with isdn for 4 years and would gladly pay 3 times as much for broadband even though its cheaper that how much i want it.

cgarvey

1huge1 wrote:

don't be so sure the fact is that loads of people still can't get broadband, me for instance have been stuck with isdn for 4 years and would gladly pay 3 times as much for broadband even though its cheaper that how much i want it.

He was being sarcastic, referring to the recent theory being bandied about that supply is all sorted now, it's just lack of demand that explains why were rock bottom.

.cg

probe

bk wrote:

I think you are missing the point that it is a shared technology. The 2.5Gb of bandwidth would typically be shared amongst over a hundred users.

The level of bandwidth sharing depends on the network architecture used. The typical ITU-T G.984 2.5 Gbits/sec GPON would be shared between 16 and 32 set top boxes (not a hundred). This would allow 78 to 156 Mbits/sec per STB – assuming everybody is using the thing flat out.

Pushing hundreds of subscribers into a space designed for 16 to 32 is surely defeating the purpose. Might as well have a copper pair or even two cans and a piece of string!

probe

bk

probe wrote:

The level of bandwidth sharing depends on the network architecture used. The typical ITU-T G.984 2.5 Gbits/sec GPON would be shared between 16 and 32 set top boxes (not a hundred). This would allow 78 to 156 Mbits/sec per STB – assuming everybody is using the thing flat out.

Yes, but the end of these set top boxes is often shared out to even more users via Ethernet.

Then certainly seems to be how Magnet and Smart are doing it

probe wrote:

Pushing hundreds of subscribers into a space designed for 16 to 32 is surely defeating the purpose. Might as well have a copper pair or even two cans and a piece of string!

Couldn't agree more, for companies like Smart and Magnet, laying one fibre is cheaper then laying lots of copper, that is why they do it.