NG-PON2 10Gb/s to 80Gb/s

bk

Yes you read the title correctly, I'm talking gigabits, not megabits!

Thought people might be interested in some of the technology we might see in future. Article below about Verizon in the US doing field trials of NG-GPON2 and getting 10Gb/s with the ability to scale up to 80Gb/s !!!

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/verizon-test-10gbps-fios-says-new-fiber-tech-can-go-up-to-80gbps/

The interesting thing about this technology is that it is an evolution of the GPON technology being used by Eircom and SIRO here for FTTH, so it shows what we could be experiencing in the future.

The really cool part is NG-GPON2 is backwards compatible with GPON. While they would need to upgrade the OLT in the exchange, it would continue to work with the customers existing ONT in their home.

So in other words, you could have most of the customers still happily on 1Gb/s, but just gradually upgrade the real high end users and business users to 10Gb/s as they need it.

Another interesting possibility is that you could have multiple ISP's each with their own wavelength, sharing the same fiber, for a much lower level of wholesale unbundling. That would be particularly useful on the NBP FTTH, where you aren't otherwise likely to have infrastructure competition.

It is great to see that the GPON technology being used is so upgradeable.

This is why FTTH is the technology for the next 100 years. And this is why we need to make sure that FTTH is rolloed out across Ireland, including all rural areas as part of the NBP. It just shows how futile it would be to just make the minimum goal of 30Mb/s using wireless technology in rural Ireland.

We need to fix the digital divide once and for all and put the correct technology in place that will serve everyone in Ireland for the next 100 years.

godskitchen

Thats crazy movement in the standard in what feels like no time at all.

Praetorian

I just need that little piece of glass plugged upto my house first

Exciting times!

Nyum Nyum

Hard to get excited about this kind of thing when you're stuck on 4Mb for the foreseeable future

bk

Nyum Nyum wrote: »

Hard to get excited about this kind of thing when you're stuck on 4Mb for the foreseeable future

I assume you are rural? Then the National Broadband Plan should take care of you. We are hoping that the NBP will deliver FTTH GPON to most rural homes over the next 5 years.

This technology is the evolution of GPON, so it should be interesting to everyone.

bk

godskitchen wrote: »

Thats crazy movement in the standard in what feels like no time at all.

Yes, copper is very much at the end of it's life with VDSL and G.Fast. Copper was very much the technology for the last 100 years.

Fiber at 1Gb/s is literally just at the start of it's evolution. Even 1Gb/s is just Fibers equivalent of coppers dial up! Fiber will leave loads of room for lots of relatively easy upgrades in the future.

That is why fiber is the technology for the next 100 years.

Nollog

And some people want to use gfast in apartment buildings. For shame.

ED E

Hopefully eircom and SIRO can afford the new racks in the coming years

Nody

I'm sorry but why are people excited about ramping up bandwidth in fibre? The bandwidth in the fibre has never been a limiting factor; it's the destination (i.e. servers outside your provider's network) or the end line to the customer premises that has always been the limiting factor. You can easily get 1GB/s bandwidth today as private users in Europe (and pilots of 40GB/s were done already back in 2008) if you have fibre in your house and if you're a company you can simply request a suitable MUX to go with it going up well beyond 250GB/s per fibre. The problem is once you try to put that to use you run into issues of the peering limitations which means while you may download at 250GB in your own network you'll get 5MB bandwidth from the server you're connecting to

ED E

Thats being worked on too Nody. Artic fibre is being commissioned in December which is a 24Tbps link to the UK*. C&W upgraded one of their links within the last year too. By the time FTTH becomes widespread the Tier 1s will have had time to scale their bandwidth to match. We're also seeing data centres being setup here, Facebook being the latest. With CDNs here and service caching (eircom host a Netflix cache for example) then host side bandwidth should be able to scale.


*We dont get all of it, just some goes to cork

bk

Nody wrote: »

I'm sorry but why are people excited about ramping up bandwidth in fibre? The bandwidth in the fibre has never been a limiting factor; it's the destination (i.e. servers outside your provider's network) or the end line to the customer premises that has always been the limiting factor. You can easily get 1GB/s bandwidth today as private users in Europe (and pilots of 40GB/s were done already back in 2008) if you have fibre in your house and if you're a company you can simply request a suitable MUX to go with it going up well beyond 250GB/s per fibre. The problem is once you try to put that to use you run into issues of the peering limitations which means while you may download at 250GB in your own network you'll get 5MB bandwidth from the server you're connecting to

Sure, but everything you describe above is commercial fiber and costs tens of thousands per month!

High multi-gigabit speeds on fiber have always been possible and actually in use in the commercial world, but they also have a price tag to match.

GPON is about affordable, residential fiber. And I think it is very good to see that this residential fiber has a relatively straight forward and affordable upgrade path.

I'm not for a moment saying that we will have 10 to 80Gb/s in residential homes next year. But what about 25 years from now?

I'm certain that the international peering and backhaul will have been massively upgraded 25 years from now and it is good to know that the fiber being installed today will be relatively easily upgradeable 25 years from now to take advantage of this and whatever exciting new technologies require it.

Nyum Nyum

bk wrote: »

I assume you are rural? Then the National Broadband Plan should take care of you. We are hoping that the NBP will deliver FTTH GPON to most rural homes over the next 5 years.

This technology is the evolution of GPON, so it should be interesting to everyone.

Yes, I know - I was just moaning really I'm about 4km from Macroom exchange with about 6 other houses in my lane, so not exactly "one house on the top of a mountain" scenario.

The thought of still being on 4Mb in 2020 is depressing, however.

domeld

Praetorian wrote: »

I just need that little piece of glass plugged upto my house first

Exciting times!

Glass or plastic

Nody

bk wrote: »

Sure, but everything you describe above is commercial fiber and costs tens of thousands per month!

1GB lines are actually about 50 a month...

High multi-gigabit speeds on fiber have always been possible and actually in use in the commercial world, but they also have a price tag to match.

GPON is about affordable, residential fiber. And I think it is very good to see that this residential fiber has a relatively straight forward and affordable upgrade path.

Except of course that was possible 15 years ago; what do you think will happen with another 10 years of development of 15 year old tech?

I'm not for a moment saying that we will have 10 to 80Gb/s in residential homes next year. But what about 25 years from now?

Why bother?

I'm certain that the international peering and backhaul will have been massively upgraded 25 years from now and it is good to know that the fiber being installed today will be relatively easily upgradeable 25 years from now to take advantage of this and whatever exciting new technologies require it.

Actually the peering and backhaul is not being upgraded and it's one of the biggest issues atm and it is far from resolved; if anything it is getting worse! Network neutrality is not going to last in the current state because between the price war on the sales end the bandwidth usage is going up faster than the profits. This means that investments are lagging behind and will only snowball further and further behind reducing the backhaul, the peering etc. and why the likes of Netflix are actively paying ISPs to have their servers in their networks (USA) while in smaller countries blackmail the ISPs to pay them to do the same (or we'll not provide your customers with 1080p video and only give 720p).

It does not matter if you have 10 or 80GB/s if the peering is not there to back it up to the content providers and currently that is failing and failing badly. This means one of two things, either you pay for a 2 tier internet or you get to pay more for your internet connection. Neither will go down well with consumers but that's today's reality.

bk

Nody wrote: »

1GB lines are actually about 50 a month...

I was speaking of high multi-gigabit lines!

Nody wrote: »

Except of course that was possible 15 years ago; what do you think will happen with another 10 years of development of 15 year old tech?

Mass production and scale of production reduce prices. Also advancements in silicon and laser design can help substantially.

The concepts behind VDSL are over 20 years old, but it took that long for Moores Law improvements in silicon to make it small enough and cheap enough to actually deploy outside the lab.

Their is a big difference between deployable in a lab, versus high end commercial deployment (can use very expensive, large gear) versus large scale residential deployment, where the technology has to be very reliable and cheap.

Remember you have to put the equivalent of these WDM lasers in every ONT, in every home. You better make sure these lasers are small, reliable and affordable.

That doesn't just happen magically over night. It takes time and research to achieve, along with mass production and manufacturing process improvements.

BTW a lot of the work on creating improved lasers happens here in Ireland with some of the Irish universities and spin off companies heavily involved in it.

Nody wrote: »

Why bother?

Actually the peering and backhaul is not being upgraded and it's one of the biggest issues atm and it is far from resolved; if anything it is getting worse! Network neutrality is not going to last in the current state because between the price war on the sales end the bandwidth usage is going up faster than the profits. This means that investments are lagging behind and will only snowball further and further behind reducing the backhaul, the peering etc. and why the likes of Netflix are actively paying ISPs to have their servers in their networks (USA) while in smaller countries blackmail the ISPs to pay them to do the same (or we'll not provide your customers with 1080p video and only give 720p).

It does not matter if you have 10 or 80GB/s if the peering is not there to back it up to the content providers and currently that is failing and failing badly. This means one of two things, either you pay for a 2 tier internet or you get to pay more for your internet connection. Neither will go down well with consumers but that's today's reality.

Sigh, of course backhaul and peering is being improved!

International backhaul is constantly being upgraded, with new connections being landed in Ireland and the rest of Europe almost constantly.

Of course it has been a constant battle to keep ahead of the demands of users and it will continue to do so, but it is being improved all the time!

But to be honest, this is all off topic for this thread. This thread is about talking about the future evolution of residential GPON FTTH, not peering and backhaul!

zt-OctaviaN

bk wrote: »

That is why fiber is the technology for the next 100 years.

Unless researchers in quantum physics get things finalised on programming atoms - instant, identical, secure transfer! (its been done already)

Really good for rural ireland.... cos the distance doesnt really matter!