Your
don't need your phone, TV and Internet lines now
On
a Sunday afternoon, you want to see your favourite movie
from the 1980s but you neither have its print at home,
nor do you want to go to the video parlour which stocks
old scratched CDs of movies and videos. You need not
visit the video library ever for any movie you want
to see because it will now be made available to you
at your convenience right on your TV screen.
You are eagerly waiting for an important call on your
landline phone but it has suddenly gone dead. This shall
never happen now as there shall be no loose connections
and hanging telephone cables which get snapped every
now and then.
You want to see the live telecast of wedding ceremony
of your cousin sister in USA through the Internet while
you were busy studying for your exams in India. But
you cannot see and enjoy the streaming video. This shall
be history as you can enjoy live error free video streaming
from any remote location in the world.
You are watching your favourite TV show with your family
but the signal quality is so poor that you decide against
watching it. You shall not complain about it ever again.
All this may sound a little too much, but it is true.
The reason for this lies in the application of a fundamental
technology called fiber optic transmission.
As compared to conventional telecommunication, in which,
copper cables carry electrical signals, in fiber optic
communication, optical fibers made of glass carry light
signals to carry data at more than 40Gbps which is analogous
to 6,25,000 voice calls running simultaneously.
A number of technologies have been developed to provide
broadband on copper network in order to provide high
data rate services like file sharing, video conferencing,
video downloads but, because of the limitations of copper
cables to carry high speed data for long distances (more
than 70-80m) and because of interference due to electromagnetic
fields, applications requiring high data rate transmission
are not possible.
Today, even basic services like file sharing, online
music/video sharing require large bandwidth which cannot
be provided by most of the current copper cable based
broadband networks. Bandwidth demand is increasing at
a CAGR of about 60% and thus, a long term solution is
required which provides limitless capabilities.
The solution: FTTH
The solution to all these problems is very simple and
lies in the use of optical fibers to provide all communication
services to the consumers. In a current generation home,
there would be a coaxial cable for Cable TV, a twisted
pair cable for telephony and a CAT5 cable for Internet.
Inspite on having three different cables, the service
quality is not upto the expectations. Instead, if the
home is connected to all the communication networks
through just one optical fiber, all the services can
be provided with highest levels of quality. This next
generation system for communication is called Fiber
to the home(FTTH) or Fiber to the premises(FTTP).
Fiber to the home (FTTH) refers to a broadband telecommunications
system based on fiber-optic cables and associated optical
electronics for delivery of multiple advanced services
such as the triple play of telephone, broadband Internet
and television to homes and businesses.
Through Fiber to the home, a large gamut of services
as shown in the figure below can be provided to the
consumers.
Through, Video on Demand, you can choose any movie or
video from a large collection of movies at your service
provider's head end and can watch it at your home whenever
you want. In addition to this, you can do video conferencing,
online file sharing, high speed Internet browsing, distance
education and many more things at home.
Consumers can have telephone connections from multiple
service providers on the same fiber. Services like CCTV,
video door phones, EPABX for housing complexes can be
provided using the same network.
There are so many innovations happening in the communication
space to develop products to enhance the quality of
lives of citizens. We are moving towards such applications
that require more and more bandwidth. FTTH enables the
provision of virtually unlimited bandwidth and thus
all the future bandwidth intensive services that will
evolve with time would easily be provided to the users.
In this system, there won't be any hanging and loose
untidy copper cables in your residential complex. All
the service providers viz., telephone service providers,
Internet service providers and Cable TV operators shall
terminate their cables at a central location in a residential/commercial
complex and from there, there shall be just one optical
fiber cable going to each home. This network is called
a Passive Optical Network (PON), wherein, only the opto-electronic
units at the central location and in the home need electric
power to operate while all the other components in the
network need no electricity to run. A small device of
the size of a modem is fitted in the house which interacts
between all the equipment like TVs, PCs, phones in the
home and with the external network.
The entire network can be managed from a remote location
through the Internet, which means that nobody is physically
needed in the complex to man the network. Even the service
provisioning, configuration and termination of services
as per the demand of the consumers can be done remotely.
FTTH has taken the world by surprise and is growing
at a very rapid rate in all the developed regions like
North America, Far-East Asia and Western Europe. Nearly
50% deployments of FTTH are happening in the home segment
because of increasing demand for services like video
on demand, online gaming and file sharing.
The major cost in building a new communication network
is the cost of construction and deployment. Due to this,
in case of a new building or complex, there is no difference
in the cost of building an FTTH network and a copper
network. Thus FTTH is the logical choice for new housing
developments. On the other side, installing an FTTH
increases the property value for the home owner as it
increases the future resale value of the property.
FTTH roll outs have begun in India recently with many
real estate developers being keen on offering the best
services to their customers. Sterlite Optical Technologies
Ltd, which is a pioneer in Optical fiber technology
in this region, is a promoter of FTTH in India. SOTL
is the only fully integrated and largest optical fiber
manufacturing company in India and invests in innovation
and cutting edge R&D to provide the best products at
optimum costs to its customers. It is the principal
supplier of optical fiber cables to all the major telecom
companies, carriers, PSUs, State governments and MSOs
in India. SOTL has expertise in building communication
transport networks and has built next generation IP/MPLS
based core network for one of the largest telecom companies
in India and is undertaking many other projects to build
communication networks. Currently, SOTL is executing
FTTH projects in metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi and
Bangalore alongwith some of the most prestigious real
estate development companies.
The
writer of this article is:
Dr Anand Agarwal
Director and Chief Executive
Sterlite Optical Technologies Ltd.
