An interview with Kathleen Maiman

Theodore Maiman with the world's first laser on its 25th anniversaryTwelve years after the 40th anniversary of the laser, we are celebrating its 50th. That’s only possible because the 40th anniversary was a Bell Labs’ invention based on the date of the now famous Physical Review paper describing the theory of “Infrared and optical masers”.

In their own words “Bell Labs threw a party and everybody came” – and most journalists (and I confess that I was one of them) didn’t seem to appreciate that this was the birthday of a dry, scientific paper rather than the creation of a working device a few years later.

Read More »

Posted in Components | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Rewriting the history of the laser

The press photo of not-the-first laser - it was another (working) prototype.This is part 1 of a series of articles on the invention of the laser 50 years ago.

Winston Churchill famously said that history is written by the victors. In the case of the laser it might be more accurate to say that history was written by those with the best public relations team.

This weekend, on 16 May to be precise, the laser celebrates its 50th anniversary. On this day in 1960, Theodore “Ted” Maiman, a junior employee at the Hughes Aircraft Company, observed the first evidence of laser action.

Read More »

Posted in Components | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Benoît on the FTTH Benefit Compendium

Why fibre? It’s a fundamental question for proponents of fibre-to-the-home, but it’s difficult to answer concisely or even clearly because the answer varies dramatically depending on where you reside in the FTTH ecosystem.

The “FTTH Benefit Compendium” is a new study commissioned by the FTTH Council Europe and carried out by research firms iDATE and Yankee Group, which set out to map the FTTH ecosystem and look at the benefits of FTTH from the different perspectives – including homeowners and building managers, local authorities and utilities, ISPs and over-the-top network service providers.

Despite being present at the FTTH Conference in Lisbon last week when the study was unveiled, I struggled to get the complete picture. Only 15 minutes was allocated to the presentation of this report – an unfortunate necessity in a conference with such a packed timetable.

Read More »

Posted in Next-gen access | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

7 things I learned in Lisbon

Having just returned from the FTTH Conference in Lisbon, I thought I’d jot down my thoughts while they’re still fresh in my mind.

This year’s event was held in Portugal’s premier conference centre, the Feira Internacional de Lisboa – the best conference centre in the world according to my taxi driver, who provided the scary moment of the trip by reversing onto a roundabout to get me there (he would no doubt blame my poor Portuguese pronunciation which I tried to supplement with pointing).

The conference itself was the polished production that you will have come to expect if you’ve ever been to an FTTH Council Europe event before: impeccable organisation, slick audio visuals on huge screens, and a cleverly organised layout that minimized walking and made it possible to forget that we were in an aircraft hanger of a venue. The food and Wi-Fi were also free of charge – these items are a sure-fire way to a journalist’s heart (not that I needed winning over).

Read More »

Posted in Next-gen access | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Broadband Lite? No thanks!

Does the expanding use of social media provide a good reason to deliver better broadband networks? Yes, says Eric Qualman, author of Socialnomics, and keynote speaker at the FTTH Conference in Lisbon. As evidence he points to the recent announcement of Facebook Lite, a version of the popular social media website that has been specifically developed for end-users that don’t have enough bandwidth to support all the photo and video-rich updates being posted to the site.

Video sharing is a key service on social media websites, and high-bandwidth networks are essential for these services to function properly. Qualman noted that while consumers may not understand megabits, they do understand that their video isn’t loading fast enough. And they may well use social medial channels to complain about the quality of their broadband service.

Read More »

Posted in Next-gen access, Video | Tagged , | Leave a comment

NGA in the UK: the patchwork quilt

Although Britain was a leader in first-generation broadband, we’re definitely late to the party when it comes to next-generation access (NGA). But the transition to fibre access networks has finally begun, and one image particularly brings this message home to me.

NGA projects are springing up all over the UK, from high-rise apartment blocks in Wembley to Alston, the most sparsely populated parish in the country. The end result is likely to be a “patchwork quilt” of community networks – a term coined by Brian Condon, director of Community Broadband Networks (CBN), and illustrated in this neat image made by Adrian Wooster, CBN’s chief technology officer.

Read More »

Posted in Next-gen access | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Dutch broadband speeds don’t measure up

dutch-flag80 The Netherlands may be one of Europe’s leading broadband nations, but it’s suffering from a familiar problem – the actual broadband speeds received by consumers are significantly lower than advertised. A study carried out by Telecompaper in partnership with iPing shows that Dutch subscribers currently receive about 60 percent of the average advertised broadband speeds.

The results echo findings from a study carried out earlier this year by Ofcom in conjunction with technical partner Samknows, which showed that actual broadband speeds in the UK are also substantially below advertised speeds – and consumer expectations.

Read More »

Posted in Next-gen access | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Public money and broadband in France

Gabrielle Gauthey, SVP Public Affairs, Alcatel-LucentNEXTGEN09, LEEDS — What’s the best way for local authorities to encourage the roll out of next-generation broadband without distorting competition? The French experience, recounted by Gabrielle Gauthey, senior vice-president for public affairs at Alcatel-Lucent, seems to suggest that investing in backhaul would be a smart move.

Gauthey is uniquely qualified to talk about public investment in broadband networks. Before joining the giant optical equipment vendor, she was a member of ARCEP, the French telecoms regulator, and prior to that was responsible for regional digital development strategy at government-owned bank Caisse des Dépôts.

Read More »

Posted in Next-gen access | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Backhaul bottlenecks

NEXTGEN09, LEEDS — None of the consumer applications being discussed at Fibrecamp Britain today really require fibre, but in a perverse kind of way that might be a good thing. Today’s community networks are severely constrained by backhaul; until this problem is solved then innovative applications don’t stand a chance.

“Backhaul is the bane of our life. One, we can’t get it, and two, we can’t afford it,” said Kevin Wood, team leader for Cybermoor, a community network in Cumbria. Cybermoor currently has around 360 users on a wireless network sharing 5 Mbit/s of backhaul. “We’ve got a very clever bandwidth management package that keeps most users happy,” he added, “But we’ve decided that if we’re going to put new kit in, we can’t carry on like this.”

Read More »

Posted in Next-gen access | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Fibrecamp Britain: a reporter’s notes

nextgen09logo NEXTGEN09, LEEDS — It was standing room only at Fibrecamp this afternoon; a measure of the interest in providing high-speed broadband and next-generation access in the UK. Perhaps it is also some sort of recognition of how many people in this country are still affected by poor broadband connectivity, or have no broadband in the first place. It seems clear to me that the market hasn’t delivered for these people, and it isn’t likely to in the near future. There is an alternative – build it yourself – and that’s where Fibrecamp comes in.

Read More »

Posted in Next-gen access | Tagged , , | Leave a comment