Operational NBN model to be ready within two months
- 28 September, 2009 07:48
- Comments 13
Researchers and vendors will be able to test their applications and equipment on a fully operational model of the National Broadband Network (NBN) within two months.
Melbourne University’s Institute for a Broadband Enabled Society (IBES), which was launched with $2 million in Victorian Government funding within six weeks of the Federal Government’s announcement of the NBN, will host the model network.
Former Bell Labs employee and IBES director, Professor Rod Tucker, said researchers developing applications will be able to test the performance of their creations on the end-to-end network. Vendors will also be able to run their equipment next to other vendor’s gear to test for interoperability.
“What we are doing is building a test bed which will be an operating model of the National Broadband Network using the latest state of the art equipment; the kind that will be used in the NBN,” he said. “This equipment will be largely donated by vendors that will be participating.”
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IBES is also running a series of workshops around the university for researchers to interact and throw up ideas for new projects and possibilities for the network. In its short existence, the institute has already attracted between 30 to 50 researchers working on projects across its initial five research themes: Education and Learning; Health and Wellbeing; Social Infrastructure and Communities; Service and Business Transformation; and Network Deployment and Economics.
Tucker said he expected both the number of themes and researchers to grow over time, with up to 100 people forecast to be onboard by early next year.
“In parallel to this we have been working very closely with industry to get them involved. Because it is really important they work closely with research. So we have about 12 and soon will have 15 companies that are members of the institute.”
These include Cisco, Microsoft, Alcatel-Lucent, Optus, Ericsson and NICTA.
While much of the technology for the NBN is already commercially available, Tucker, who has 20-year’s experience as a professor in telecommunications, said it was important to continue work on applications and access technologies.
“By the time the rollout of the National Broadband Network is finished in about 8 years time, there will be a new generation. It is still important to work on new technologies. We are talking about 100Mb to the home with current GPON technology. But in 8 years time it will probably be quite easy to upgrade to 1Gb to the home,” he said.
“Some of those less enthusiastic to the National Broadband Network have suggested that 100Mb per second is more than you can need. But there has never been any evidence in history of this kind of thing on a limit of bandwidth that people want. As applications have grown and they’ve become more bandwidth hungry there has always been a move to higher speeds. I can remember not long ago that people were arguing you didn’t need anything more than dial up. But of course that is well and truly passed now. A gigabyte to the home could be on the cards.”
Last week, work officially commenced on the Cambridge to Midway Point section of the NBN in Tasmania, with the first cables being laid in five-year-old foundations.
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Comments
Merari Schroeder
[Quote] "I can remember not long ago that people were arguing you didn’t need anything more than dial up"
When there was dial-up there was text and low-res images (annoying animated gifs).
When there was low-end broadband, there was text, images, MP3s, and people were downloding movies (mostly DivX)
Now there's ADSL2+ - Text, Pictures, Sound, HD Video. What content is Rod Tucker going to invent next?
With a 5Mbps internet connection and a "series link" like service (which predownloads movies, like new releases and genres, actors etc.. that you like), you can download 54GB / day. That's enough for a HD movie a day (or 7 a week - you might watch two on the weekend), and several HD TV shows a day!
Apart from the high bandwidth sucking video content, Yes, there will be other applications and innovations coming along, but this doesn't mean that you'll need more bandwidth! So many people use facebook today, but do you need a gigabit internet connection for that? No. People even manage with today's internet to download YouTube videos.
It's true that in the past we have been limited by speed, but as we go faster the usefulness for the extra speed quickly slopes off. Once we get past 5-20Mbps the benefits are dismal.
Adam Heaney
Clearly your time is not valuable. Increased bandwidth = being able to do things faster.
As for your comment about HD movies or TV shows. I would hate to have my complete bandwidth taken downloading 1 HD movie per day when I also want to do email, facebook, watch youtube videos etc. Clearly you are not from the generation of multi-taskers!
I would like responses on the internet as if I was grabbing files off my desktop and opening them there and then. Instant video on demand rather than managing with the pathetic excuse for what we call "high speed" internet access.
I vote for more research into newer technologies to get us more bandwidth to the home.
Jay
Many people already have 20Mbps so the difference from 100Mbps is not going to be particularly great. It certain wont significantly change they way people use the Internet right now.
In any case there is going to be contention ratios with GPON so it isn't as though everyone will get 100Mbps at the same time.
The limiting factor will remain international speeds. You can have your 100Mbps but international traffic will remain at a miserable 3Mbps. And since it isn't permitted to host anything with content rated at MA15+ or greater in Australia the international traffic is going to remain huge by comparison to local traffic.
Jeff
Jay on the topic of many people having 20mbps and the jump to 100mbps not being that big I think you are quite mistaken. Having a 100mbps up and down as opposed to 20mbps down and 1mbps up will have as big an impact on the use of the internet and local traffic as changing from dial up to ADSL2+.
I cant wait to have a good qualtiy video chat with no lag between my family all over Australia. Or have a desktop that lives in a cloud that I can access anywhere. Or have my information live in a cloud so I can access it anywhere.
The NBN will allow Cloud computing to become a reality in the full meaning of the word Cloud Computing and it will not only change how we use the internet but it will change how we use the computer as we know it today. (Espically when 1gbps links are standard.)
Jeff
For people who think the speed benefits drops off after 5-20Mbps then they obviously haven't looked into the concept of cloud computing. I wish I can upload at anywhere near this speed.
You know we use the internet in a Download only environment at the moment. Once we can upload like we can download at even greater speeds the way we use and contribute to the web will change dramatically. This is the big difference in going from 5 to 100mbps avg it is having the speed in both directions and not just in one.
Anonymous
What about your upload mate?? This is where the problem is. At the moment you can only upload at about 100kbps from a standard home ADSL connection. Try playing a game at the same time as sending your email attachments... LAAAAGGGG!!! What about uploading something to youtube? - a 10 MB file takes nearly 2 mins to upload... - during that time all of your upstream bandwidth is saturated and renders your internet useless.....
Get with the times mate. Upload speed is what we need. The NBN will give us that.
Sean
So you can test your applications on, err.. the Internet? Surely any competent software development company can do load testing over their LAN? I don't see what the fuss is all about here.
Merari Schroeder
"Increased bandwidth = being able to do things faster." (Adam Heaney)
I'm sorry but that isn't true. Having 100Mbps or 1Mbps, sending an email which takes a single ethernet frame is going to take the same amount of time - well there would actually be a difference in latency.
"As for your comment about HD movies or TV shows. I would hate to have my complete bandwidth taken downloading 1 HD movie per day"
For starters it would be 2 HD movies per day.
Obviously I'm not saying that, no one's allowed to have > 5Mbps, but you can definitely get by. Increasing the speed only marginally improves productivity.
You would likely have 20Mbps and be very happy, you could download 8 HD movies / day (who watches that many?) and when your looking up youtube or facebook (for what 1hr/day? and even then you're not using the full 20Mbps in that hour the whole time) then you get priority.
It makes sense to leverage your internet connection to it's fullest potential, by using latent use for the largest content - video (and even music). This is good for you, good for the backhaul operators (less peaks) and good for the publishers (less peaks).
And obviously you on-demand internet browsing would be of high priority over the "long-haul" video downloads.
RL
"Many people already have 20Mbps"
I don't. I'm too far away from the exchange to even get ADSL2+. All I can get is 1.5Mbps. You have got to be the most narrow minded person out there right now.
And Jeff, even though I know what Cloud Computing is, most people here probably wouldn't know what you're talking about.
And if it weren't for my 25GB download limit, I would love to download as many movies as I want (legally, of course).
I know a few people who have ADSL2+, my brother has it too and the fastest speed he can get is 7Mbps. And he lives in Brunswick, less than 5km away from the CBD. So anyone who says that anyone can get 20Mbps is absolutely stupid! Bring on the NBN!
RL
In my opinion, once the NBN is built, it will be available in three separate speeds: 25Mbps, 50Mbps and 100Mbps (Download and Upload speed). Most business users would go for the 100Mbps plans, while most home users would probably go for the 25Mbps plans. Personally I would go for 25Mbps with 100GB a month, the price would probably be $89.95 a month. Just my opinion.
Anonymous
When I lived under 1km from teh exchange I could get 12Mbps. Now I live 6km from the exchange and get about 2Mbps, thats if the file downloads correctly anyway, the copper line is so degraded most downloads over a few MB corrupt if there is no robust error correction.
Paul W
Many people seem not to be aware of the potential value of increased bandwidth, although most of that potential will not be apparent for some time yet.
However, there's a simple example that is current and already relevant. Backups. Everyone in IT is aware of the need for backups, but even many within the industry do not follow their own advice, and I think it would be fair to say that the vast majority of people do not have any meaningful backups. Most who have any, would be irregular and disorganised.
There are already online services that can provide remote backup facilities - but for most, they are not worth the cost, and/or performance hit. With high speed network access, and much reduced traffic costs, online remote backup because practical for a huge number of people.
Even though many of us do not value our data sufficiently to make the effort to do backups, the value is still there. Most realise it through loss, and quick, easy, and cheap backup options can allow us to use that service, without having to lose valuable data first.
Paul W
Interoperability is an extremely valuable thing to test, and only seems inappropriate (or easily done elsewhere) because we haven't had any fundamental changes in networking technology in decades.
The closest we've had was Gifabit Thernet (yes, that's Gig Ether - some may recall the typos at a major networking exhibition :-). Although I wasn't directly involved in the GigE side, I was a part of the networking team that I believe deployed the first large-scale production Gig Ether network back in early 1998. If my memory services me correctly...someone who ran a major InterOperability Lab was testing GigE after hours in early 1997. That was followed by a separate demo network for GigE vendors in late 1997 (before the final IEEE standard was finalised!), and it was a part of the production InteropNet in early 1998.
Although no-one seems to have confirmed that it will be used, NBN logically HAS to use IPv6, and despite appearances from address allocations, the deployment of IPv6 in Australia so far is very limited. There appears to be one ISP providing IPv6 on high-speed links, and one advocacy group providing IPv6 tunnels. Both, I believe, connected to other IPv6 networks by tunnel, NOT over a native v6 backbone.
Although many of the concepts from IPv4 translate well to IPv6, there are some fundamental differences that need to be taken into account. As an example, Comcast have demonstrated native end-user broadband IPv6 (presumably over ADSL, although it wasn't specified)...but do not expect to offer the service publicly for over a year.
Hopefully, in conjunction with this test bed, some technical details about how NBN WILL operate (as opposed to how it might operate) may eventually be provided. The use of IPv6 hasn't even been confirmed.
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