Telstra challenges SingTel for Aussie deal

Telstra Corp, Australia 's largest phone company, submitted a proposal to bid to build a nationwide high-speed Internet network in Australia, challenging the Terria group led by Singapore Telecommunications and two others.

Telstra, the former state-owned phone monopoly, aims to defend its dominance in Australia 's telecommunications market.

Second-ranked SingTel Optus Pty, SingTel's Sydney-based subsidiary which has less than a third of Telstra's high-speed Internet users, could narrow the gap by building the fibre-optic network.

Speeding up the Internet

Metamaterials may help speed up the Internet. Light travels quickly on fiber-optic networks. But separating the light slows data transfer. Metamaterials could help by slowing parts of the light down.

The net's speed limit comes about not in transporting information, but in routing it to its various destinations.

As data nears the end of its journey, the bulky and slow electronics will do the routing and send them to their destinations.

Metamaterials could replace these electronics, thus paving the way for lightning fast speeds.

What is GPON?

GPON (Gigabit Passive Optics Networks, ITU-T G.984) is an evolution of the BPON (Broadband PON) standard. It supports higher rates, enhanced security, and choice of Layer 2 protocol (ATM, GEM, Ethernet).

The GPON standard represents a boost in both the total bandwidth and bandwidth efficiency through the use of larger, variable-length packets. Again, the standards permit several choices of bit rate, but the industry has converged on 2.488 gigabits per second (Gbit/s) of downstream bandwidth, and 1.244 Gbit/s of upstream bandwidth.

GPON Encapsulation Method (GEM) allows very efficient packaging of user traffic, with frame segmentation to allow for higher Quality of Service (QoS) for delay-sensitive traffic such as voice and video communications.

A passive optical network (PON) is a point-to-multipoint, fiber to the premises network architecture in which unpowered optical splitters are used to enable a single optical fiber to serve multiple premises, typically 32-128.

A PON consists of a central office node, called an optical line terminal (OLT), one or more user nodes, called optical network units (ONUs) or optical network terminals (ONTs), and the fibers and splitters between them, called the optical distribution network (ODN).

The OLT provides the interface between the PON and the backbone network. These typically include:

* Internet Protocol (IP) traffic over Gigabit, 10G, or 100 Mbit/s Ethernet
* standard time division multiplexed (TDM) interfaces such as SONET/SDH or PDH at various rates

An ONT is a single integrated electronics unit that terminates the PON and presents native service interfaces to the user. In apartment buildings, the ONT often separately connects via VDSL or Ethernet to the apartments, at speeds up to 100 megabits.

A PON is a shared network, in that the OLT sends a single stream of downstream traffic that is seen by all ONTs. Each ONT only reads the content of those packets that are addressed to it. Encryption is used to prevent eavesdropping on downstream traffic.

What is DWDM?

DWDM, Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing, refers originally to optical signals multiplexed within the 1550-nm band so as to leverage the capabilities (and cost) of erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs), which are effective for wavelengths between approximately 1525 nm - 1565 nm (C band), or 1570 nm - 1610 nm (L band).

Today's DWDM systems use 50 GHz or even 25 GHz channel spacing for up to 160 channel operation.

DWDM systems have to maintain more stable wavelength or frequency than those needed for CWDM because of the closer spacing of the wavelengths. Precision temperature control of laser transmitter is required in DWDM systems to prevent "drift" off a very narrow frequency window of the order of a few GHz.

In addition, since DWDM provides greater maximum capacity it tends to be used at a higher level in the communications hierarchy than CWDM, for example on the Internet backbone and is therefore associated with higher modulation rates, thus creating a smaller market for DWDM devices with very high performance levels. These factors of smaller volume and higher performance result in DWDM systems typically being more expensive than CWDM.

Recent innovations in DWDM transport systems include pluggable and software-tunable transceiver modules capable of operating on 40 or 80 channels. This dramatically reduces the need for discrete spare pluggable modules, when a handful of pluggable devices can handle the full range of wavelengths.

Singapore's Next Generation National Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN)

Singapore's Next Generation National Infocomm Infrastructure comprises the ultra high-speed Next Generation NBN and the pervasive Wireless Broadband Network (WBN). Next Gen NBN will be capable of ultra high speeds of symmetric 1 Gbps or more, with initial provisioning of 100 Mbps.

The Network Company (NetCo) Request-For-Proposal (RFP) for Singapore's Next Gen NBN Network closed on 5 May 2008 with submissions from the following:

S/N	Consortium	Consortium Lead	Members
1	Infinity Consortium	City Telecom (H.K.) Limited	MobileOne Ltd StarHub Ltd
2	OpenNet Consortium	Axia NetMedia Corporation	Singapore Press Holdings Ltd Singapore Telecommunications Pte Ltd SP Telecommunications Pte Ltd

IDA of Singapore is evaluating the bids and the winning bid is expected to be announced in the third quarter of 2008.

What is CWDM?

CWDM stands for Coarse Wavelength-Division Multiplexing system in which four wavelengths near 1310 nm, each carrying a 3.125 gigabit(Gb)/second data stream, are used to carry 10 gigabit-per-second of aggregate data.

The main characteristic of the recent ITU CWDM standard is that the signals are not spaced appropriately for amplification by EDFAs. This therefore limits the total CWDM optical span to somewhere near 60 km for a 2.5 Gbit/s signal, which is suitable for use in metropolitan applications. The relaxed optical frequency stabilization requirements allow the associated costs of CWDM to approach those of non-WDM optical components.

CWDM is also being used in cable television networks, where different wavelengths are used for the downstream and upstream signals. In these systems, the wavelengths used are often widely separated, for example the downstream signal might be at 1310 nm while the upstream signal is at 1550 nm.

What is WDM?

In fiber-optic communications, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) is a technology which multiplexes multiple optical carrier signals on a single optical fiber by using different wavelengths (colours) of laser light to carry different signals. This allows for a multiplication in capacity, in addition to enabling bidirectional communications over one strand of fiber. "This is a form of frequency division multiplexing (FDM) but is commonly called wavelength division multiplexing.

Fiber-optic broadband shows strong growth

Fiber-optic broadband growth is overtaking cable.

With China showing the strongest growth. However, DSL is still the most popular form of broadband.