Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH or SONET)

The introduction of any new technology is usually preceded by much hyperbole and rhetoric. In many cases, the revolution predicted never gets beyond this. In many more, it never achieves the wildly over optimistic growth forecasted by market specialists - home computing and the paperless office to name but two. It is fair to say, however, by whatever method you use to evaluate a new technology, that synchronous digital transmission does not fall into this category. The fundamental benefits to be gained from its deployment by PTOs seem to be so overwhelming that, bar a catastrophe, the bulk of today's plesiochronous transmission systems used for high speed backbone links will be pushed aside in the next few years. To quote Dataquest:, "It has been claimed by many industry experts that the impact of synchronous technology will equal that of the transition from analogue to digital technology or from copper to fibre optic based transmission."




For the first time in telecommunications history there will be a world-wide, uniform and seamless transmission standard for service delivery. Synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) provides the capability to send data at multi-gigabit rates over today's single-mode fibre-optics links. This first issue of Technology Watch looks at synchronous digital transmission and evaluates its potential impact. Following issues of TW will look at customer oriented broad-band services that will ride on the back of SDH deployment by PTOs. These will include:



Frame relay

SMDS (Switched Multi-Megabit Data Service)

ATM (asynchronous transfer mode)

High speed LAN services such as FDDI

Figure 1 shows the relationship between these technologies and services.

Figure 1 - The Relationship Between Services

Overview

The use of synchronous digital transmission by PTOs in their backbone fibre-optic and radio network will put in place the enabling technology that will support many new broad-band data services demanded by the new breed of computer user. However, the deployment of synchronous digital transmission is not only concerned with the provision of high-speed gigabit networks. It has as much to do with simplifying access to links and with bringing the full benefits of software control in the form of flexibility and introduction of network management.



In many respects, the benefits to the PTO will be the same as those brought to the electronics industry when hard wired logic was replaced by the microprocessor. As with that revolution, synchronous digital transmission will not take hold overnight, but deployment will be spread over a decade, with the technology first appearing on new backbone links. The first to feel the benefits will be the PTOs themselves, as demonstrated by the technology's early uptake by many operators including BT. Only later will customers directly benefit with the introduction of new services such as connectionless LAN-to-LAN transmission capability.



According to one market research company it will take until the mid or late 1990s before 70% of revenue for network equipment manufacturers will be derived from synchronous systems. Remembering that this is a multi-billion $ market, this constitutes a radical change by any standard (Figure 2).



Users who extensively use PCs and workstations with LANs, graphic layout, CAD and remote database applications are now looking to the telecommunication service suppliers to provide the means of interlinking these now powerful machines at data rates commensurable with those achieved by their own in-house LANs. They also want to be able to transfer information to other metropolitan and international sites as easily and as quickly as they can to a colleague sitting at the next desk.


Source : gare.co.uk

School of Communication Student Project - 'Of Shoes' and 'Evermore' video

Wateen WIMAX - Pakistan

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology Abbottabad,

Demonstration on DWDM optical Fiber communication system

Pocket Switches

SONET/SDH

Telecom Networks

Europe Says It Leads U.S. in Broadband Use

BRUSSELS — The European Union has re-established its lead over the United States in the use of high-speed computer connections, making the Continent “the world leader in broadband Internet,” the European Commission said on Tuesday.
Viviane Reding, the commissioner who oversees the Internet, said that the spread of the technology could help power the European economic recovery and that continuing the development of high-speed Internet could create two million jobs by 2015. But she also warned that obstacles needed to be overcome to maximize the economic benefits from digital networks. In particular, Ms. Reding said, European Union member countries should make it easier for new entrants in telecommunications markets. “Governments must show leadership by adopting coordinated policies that dismantle existing barriers to new services,” she said.
Despite Europe’s leading position, a third of European Union citizens have never used the Internet, and only 7 percent have bought goods or services online from a vendor based in a neighboring country, Ms. Reding said.
She acknowledged that many young Internet users were reluctant to pay to download or view digital content like music and movies — a factor that could blunt the economic gains from increased network access.
Europe’s broadband lead over the United States narrowed to about one percentage point after 2004, when poorer countries from Eastern Europe joined the bloc, said Martin Selmayr, a spokesman for Ms. Reding.
The European Union has since regained a lead of three percentage points over the United States, with 23 percent of European homes and business using fixed-line broadband, compared with 20 percent in the United States, Mr. Selmayr said.
Denmark has 37 percent of homes and businesses fitted with high-speed Internet, the highest percentage in the world, followed by the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Luxembourg, according to figures released on Tuesday by the European Commission. The United States ranked 17th globally, about the same level as Spain, Mr. Selmayr said.
South Korea, the country with the highest percentage of homes and businesses equipped with high-speed Internet outside Europe, ranked sixth globally, Mr. Selmayr said.
Since 2004, the number of European homes connected to the Internet has increased to 60 percent from 41 percent, and of those households 80 percent enjoy high-speed connections, up from 33 percent over the same period, according to the commission.

Source : nytimes.com

Chinese Telecom: China Mobile Leads the Way

Until recently, operators in China have been able to focus on the affluent subscribers living in urban regions, with sufficient demand for telecoms services and customers aplenty. But now the balance is shifting; the bulk of new customers must now be found in rural areas. So far China Mobile has been the only operator to seriously target the countryside.
In the eyes of China's telcos, urban regions such as Beijing, Guangdong and Shanghai will always hold the most appeal. They are home to millions of people and crucially include the mid- to high-income individuals and early adopters.
Yet this also means that the cities are fiercely competitive, especially in the wake of the industry restructure in 2008. China Telecom and China Unicom are focusing on winning customers in both the fixed and mobile markets through service bundling strategies (a segment where China Mobile is weak).
On the other hand, China Mobile is continuing to act like a mobile-only player, despite possessing fixed operations through China Tietong, and is pushing services to promote fixed-to-mobile substitution.
The imminent flood of 3G handsets and services will further amplify the competition for China's mid- to high-value mobile customers.
Taking a "tunnel vision" view and focusing on the urban regions makes business sense in initial network deployment stages.
However, such an approach will not provide the long-term growth that the Chinese operators desire. Urban regions are already mature - China's mobile penetration rate was around 49% in April 2009 and 43% of the population lived in the urban regions at the end of 2008. In stark contrast, China's rural market is a treasure chest of new customers.
All operators must focus more attention and resources on the rural market if they are to achieve their ambitious growth targets. However, targeting rural markets is no easy task and extending mobile coverage to rural regions is only one part of the equation. Customization is just as important as it facilitates demand from rural mobile customers. Such customization needs to be applied not only to mobile services but also to sales, marketing and support functions, as shown by the efforts of China Mobile.
For the market leader, with 74% of all mobile customers, rural towns and villages have become a valuable source of connections. In 2006, 2007 and 2008, around half of China Mobile's net additions were from rural customers (around 105 million over the three years). We expect that in 2009 rural net additions will continue to make up around half of its new mobile customers.
By exploiting its scale, experience and ability to customize, China Mobile has engineered itself a secure leadership position in the countryside. Shortfalls from its rivals have also contributed to securing its dominance.
China Telecom's experience in extending fixed networks to rural regions has been unrewarding, and it believes it is not cost-effective compared to mobile.
China Unicom simply does not have the scale, branding and experience to put up a strong fight against China Mobile in remote areas of China. With China Telecom and China Unicom focusing on urban regions, it seems China Mobile will further extend its lead in rural China.

Source : businessweek.com

A Transformation without Boundaries

Until recently, telecommunications (telecom) has been a rather arcane, obscure,and uninteresting field. In the last few years however, a technologicalrevolution in conjunction with radical transformations in the internationaleconomy have brought telecoms to the center of the political stage throughout theworld. Governments talk today about telecommunications, informationinfrastructure, and electronic highways much as they did about nuclearweapons, arms control, and foreign relations during the Cold War. This chapterbriefly explores the principles around which the sector functioned until recently.It discusses some of the key forces that drove reform in more developedcountries (MDCs), and it presents the differences in the reform process betweenMDCs and less developed countries (LDCs). It also describes recent events inLDCs telecom reform, and lays out the question around which this study isorganized.

Source: "Publication Information: Book Title: The Political Economy of Telecommunications Reform in Developing Countries: Privatization and Liberalization in Comparative Perspective. Contributors: Ben A. Petrazzini - author. Publisher: Praeger Publishers. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 11. "

U.S. government will not get secret company Internet data

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Telecommunications providers will not have to give the government sensitive revenue and Internet speed data for a program to map broadband use in U.S. homes and bring high-speed Internet service to more people.
The U.S. Commerce Department said on Friday that companies such as Verizon Communications Inc, Comcast and AT&T do not have to share how much money they make from each Internet subscriber. Nor must they say how fast their Internet connections typically run.
Instead, they will provide data by the block, usually about a dozen homes depending on the size of the block. They also will share the speed of Internet service that they advertise.
Companies do not want to share the specific data because they do not want their competitors to see it.
But failing to make it public allows the companies to advertise -- and charge for -- something that they often cannot deliver, said Joel Kelsey, a telecom policy analyst at Consumers Union, a watchdog group.
"The actual speeds delivered to particular areas simply doesn't match up," Kelsey said. "The government gave a lot and received very, very little in return."
Companies that sell Internet service advertise maximum service speeds as a way to entice customers. More speed means faster access to online entertainment and information.
Internet connections can work at slower speeds than the maximum speed advertised, especially when many subscribers are online at the same time .

Source : uk.reuters.com

France Telecom cut at RBS on 2010 cash outlook

By Aude Lagorce

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- RBS on Monday cut its rating on France Telecom

to hold from buy, saying that while the group's earnings and free-cash-flow targets look secure for 2009, its outlook for free cash flow of 8 billion euros in 2010 looks less secure. The broker told clients that while management is controlling costs and has reassured the market it's not interested in large acquisitions for the time being, in the absence of a recovery in mobile revenue growth, the group's cash flow targets "could be harder" to deliver in 2010 with capital expenses, tax and cash interest all expected to creep back up

Source : marketwatch.com