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UK Researches Future 10Gbps Broadband Technology

Posted by timothy on Sun May 17, 2009 04:01 AM
from the and-now-from-the-top-down-people dept.
Networking Government The Internet News
MJackson writes "The UK Technology Strategy Board, an executive non-departmental public body established by the UK Government in 2007 and sponsored by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, has invested £1M into over a dozen research projects for the development of ULTRA Fast up to 10Gbps broadband technologies. The ultimate aim, the development of pan-European Ultra Fast Broadband, could give EU companies a massive competitive advantage on a global scale."
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  • Um, yeah, hai.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by viyh (620825) on Sunday May 17, @04:05AM (#27985371) Homepage
    I'm from the US. Can I at least have 100Mbps to my house please? Kthxbye.

  • I'm EXTREMELY excited (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17, @04:07AM (#27985377)

    Please keep me UPDATED on this TECHNOLOGY. It seems to be very PROMISING. I would be ULTRA happy if I had access to 10Gbps!

    (sorry, I have that disease which makes it IMPOSSIBLE to modulate the volume of my TYPING)

  • that can handle that as well :) o and the rest of the bottlenecks sorted on the internet also no *aa people so I can dload stuff for free..

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by viyh (620825)
          An M20 is a nice, juicy, Juniper router. If you had one, you would know it.

  • Where is this going? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drmofe (523606) on Sunday May 17, @04:45AM (#27985541)

    Again, the meme is presented that ultra-fast broadband leads to competitive advantage.

    Is this a genuine proposition? Can it lend competitive advantage to one power bloc over another on a global scale? Probably not. Everyone is as smart as everyone else and the technology platform is relatively "flat". Throughout history, we have noticed that when something is discovered, it is often discovered almost simultaneously in multiple centres. If competitive advantage lasts only a short time, what kind of "advantage" is it?

    8Gbps is required for VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry). Multiples of 10Gbps trunks are required for large Internet exchanges, datacentres etc. What is the killer application that mandates 10Gbps on a wide scale? Even 1080p video is only around 3Gbps. Are we suddenly talking about multiple HD streams batting their way around teh interwebs to consumers?

    We are starting to move into uncharted territory by discussing these kinds of capacity at the network edge. Small amounts of megabits are relatively easy to handle at the consumer level. Drop a 1Gbps trunk on the floor and you have a major problem. Putting 10Gbps to the edge makes the network more "nervous" and much harder to maintain and control.

    While full service delivery over Active Ethernet has scaled up incredibly well to the point where it is now accepted at corporate mission-critical level, do we have the necessary capability to design, deploy and maintain networks at the proposed capacities?

    At a technical level, Bandwidth Delay Product will kill your throughput over anything but short distances. You probably reach a point of diminishing returns where 10Gbps is enough for metro and national connections, but beyond that it is trunked and we know how to do that.

    So if it isn't competitive advantage and it isn't enabling consumer-level killer applications, then what is it? Are we getting to the point where we need to start thinking about massive high-speed interconnectivity in a totally new way? That it isn't just to enable commerce or competition or local or global advantage, but that it in fact is something much more valuable? Global self-awareness, anyone?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gramty (1344605)
      This will just be a talking shop to waste money producing another pile of fully buzzword compliant rubbish, like the Digital Britain Report. As for the killer app, given our government's tendencies I would not be at all surprised of they thought it was a good idea to extend hi-res CCTV into everyoneâ(TM)s houses, you know cos of the terrorists and all.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by dirvine (1008915)
      Uncharted territory is where ALL innovation comes from. I think this is something we should all be very positive about.

      At this rate broadband transfers wll be faster than HDD access times. Interesting to think all data could live in the whole network and not in datacentres at all.

      Why on earth rely on others when the whole network can do, at long long last, what it originally was set out to do (OK unknowingly), connect machines together, not to hubs but together in a fully distributed manner.

    • It's now well known that Gordon Brown is totally indecisive and unable to make important decisions. As a result we have lots of initiatives to spend a little money to be seen to be "doing something". We have silly little uneconomic feeder schemes on solar and wind power, a fiddly little car scrappage scheme, endless talking about ID cards - but at the end of the day it's all fluff, and Brown is just working on the basis that the Conservatives will inherit the resulting mess and get the blame for dealing wit

    • Three seem apparent:

      * Large streaming repository output. (Think of the BBC streaming content to all those Linux and Mac users they were forced to support with Flash, instead of that DRM shackled version of Bittorrent for only Windows that they called 'Iplayer'. That was really funny to read about.)

      * Faster network access, for building wide access to bulky, fast storage. This would be very useful for render farms, where the fast desktop access to data for the artists is valuable.

      * Inexpensive Virtualization.

      • Ahh. I made a mistake here: I was referring to in-facility communications, not broadband uses.

        I can see it for telecommuters and remote virtualization, though.

      • Re:Where is this going? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by gbjbaanb (229885) on Sunday May 17, @09:20AM (#27986371)

        fibre channel isn't that expensive, well not any more. But the biggest problem for all of this is latency - you can't use a 10Gbps link for data storage if it takes 500ms to send a packet, you'll be able to stream data across it well though. This is like the difference between adsl and cable.

        Still, we shouldn't stop scientists from playing with this stuff as you never know, they might just make it work, and then we'll invent some application to make use of it!

    • If this is long term development, like they are starting to work on the fundamental theoretical stuff now so it can be implemented in 10, 15, 20 years or something, then I can see the use. After all, there is very well the possibility that in the not too distant future there will be a use for this kind of bandwidth. For one, as nice as high def is, it clearly isn't fooling anyone in to thinking it's real. That's the ultimate goal: A picture so real you can't tell the difference. Well that'll need a lot more

    • You're calculation re. video might be a bit off as compression will likely be used but otherwise you might have hit the nail square on the head.

      The British government urgently needs this bandwidth to accommodate all their efforts in tracking the general population, otherwise also known as spying.

      Hmmm, so the next generation of CCTV camera's will be HD...
      I think it's time to invest in a UK storage solutions supplier :)

      • Re:Where is this going? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by drmofe (523606) on Sunday May 17, @05:37AM (#27985709)
        1080p60 is 3Gbps nominal.

      • While that was my first reaction as well, consider the potential impact on telecommuting with telepresence and high-speed links to business networks. Gigabit should give plenty of wiggle room for the next 3-5 years, but after that...

        My company is looking at software that can't survive without gigabit to the desk. We have more and more of our employees working from home one or two days a week. This type of deployment could keep that viable.

        We forget how far we have come in the last 15 years-- exernal busines

  • > "could give EU companies a massive competitive advantage on a global scale"

    Indeed. Which is why they have invested the vast sum of 1 MEEEEEEEEELION dollars.

    Clearly, forwarding the Departmental Press Release your boss insisted on issuing to SlashDot has paid dividends!

  • A worry (Score:4, Interesting)

    by damburger (981828) on Sunday May 17, @06:14AM (#27985805)

    Knowing how the UK government (and certain ISPs) think, I am concerned that the might use higher speeds to leverage people into more intrusion on their private communications. Virgin currently offer the fastest broadband and they are notorious.

    Also, there is a difference between what a UK ISP sells you as a high speed connection and what you actually get. The ISPs spat the dummy out not so long ago about how IPlayer was 'ruining' the Internet because *gasp* people were actually starting to use the bandwidth they had paid for. Just because you've got a bazillion gigabits between your house and the ISP, doesn't mean the ISP is planning to support that at its end. They might well be counting on you buying an uberfast connection just to show off then not using it.

  • Isn't 10Gb internet access going to further increase the technical requirements for implementing the kinds of surveillance and recording systems the UK government wants? If you think that the associated complexity and costs of their current & proposed systems are extreme already, just imagine if everyone's access were to get 5000x faster!

    Maybe they'll have to give it up. I suppose we can only hope!

  • 1 Million GBP

    Aside from this looking like Mr Ombasa's email to me saying that his grandfather had died, we have this little symbol to denote this. It's above the 3, and looks like this. £. You can use £ if you have some weird furrin keyboard.

  • Competitive advantage on a global scale could be much more easily achieved by patent and copyright reform. Furthermore there should be a rule that all results from publicly funded research (even if only partially funded) are made publicly available.

    Faster internet is nice but it won't help the economy if the relevant information is locked up legally!

  • You can't use it for anything! Online gaming doesn't use so much bandwidth. The slowest part of browsing web or email is quite often the connection on the other side. At every turn someone is trying to place a cap on the byte count and everything people download is suspect.

    • You must be new here.
      Hint: it starts with P and ends with N

    • It's not a question for what you're going to use it. With the capacity, innovative ways to use your Internet connection will come.

      For example, nobody stops me from establishing a company that would stream TV channels to people at let's say 1080p at 20mbps for a small subscribe fee.

      If my business plan wants to allow that subscriber to view up to three TV stations at a time (he watches ESPN, wife watches Travel Channel, kid watches Cartoon Channel), that subscriber would need to have about 75mbps of bandwidth

  • I for one (IFO) think that the use of (TUO) a three or four letter acronym (TFLA) makes the post much easier to read (ETR)

  • Great (Score:2, Interesting)

    by FooRat (182725)

    Yet another "strategy board" to waste huge chunks of our money to sit around and pretend to work, under the guise of helping. Do we really believe amazing advances are going to come of this, or are we all just going to have forgotten about this a few years from now when some or other new "strategic initiative" is launched, while we fall further behind the East? Leave the money in the hands of the companies who stand to benefit from this, and set up true free market competition - if it's really good for the

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jamesmcm (1354379)
      I wish I had some modpoints to mod you down.

      English Heritage is well worth the money, as is this research as it will be the future of broadband.

      It really seems you're just trying to find something to complain about. The NHS is also well worth the money but that's another argument.

      I'm sick of seeing Libertarians misquote Orwell - George Orwell was a Socialist and I am sure he would have supported national investment in technology and preserving our history.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by MoonBuggy (611105)

        Firstly: it's lucky you don't have modpoints, that's not how the system's supposed to work. There's no '-1: Disagree' moderation. You're supposed to discuss, not to hide what you don't happen to agree with.

        Secondly: yes, I think the NHS is worth the money, overall at least. I also agree with you that organisations which would never work in the private sector (I don't know enough about English Heritage to comment specifically) can often, but not always, be a good use of public money.

        I agree with the GP too,

        • Re:Orwellian (Score:5, Insightful)

          by jamesmcm (1354379) on Sunday May 17, @05:52AM (#27985741)
          Well I consider the OP a troll - see they are posting on a website dedicated to technology news against investment in technology using clearly flawed arguments.

          The whole argument with Down Syndrome at the end is a classic Ignoratio elenchi [wikipedia.org]. And the same argument could be made against the space program, or any major public investment.

          And then using Orwell quotes against public spending, does the OP not know that Orwell was an outspoken Socialist (even moving to and fighting in the Spanish Civil War). The OP is just a classic Internet Libertarian, with a superficial understanding of what they quote - I am sure they saw V For Vendetta and now praise Guy Fawkes as a hero despite the fact he would've changed England to a theocracy under the Pope.

        • English Heritage has the potential to do quite well in the private sector. So could a lot of the arts which are currently subsidised, though that reminds me of a Yes, Minister episode...

          In the latest edition of Private Eye I read that British Waterways are currently leaving the public sector because they're fed up of being punished for DEFRA's mistakes.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by FooRat (182725)

          The majority of politicians are in it for money and power, just like the majority of businesspeople;

          Don't pretend these two are equivalent though; unlike "businesspeople", government bureaucrats are assured of continuing to receive a salary regardless of whether they actually deliver, or just sit on their thumbs for a few years. Businesspeople also don't take money by force. Businesspeople also are forced to invest their money wisely in ways that helps others (i.e. that generate sales), because otherwise they soon wouldn't have any money left.

          we should accept that, because it's not changing any time soon.

          That's the stupidest statement I've heard in a very long time.

          • With regard to your first point, I have to disagree. I think I have more power to remove a member of my government (thus depriving them of that salary) than I do to change the upper management of major companies which have a major impact on my life. I also think history has shown that poor performance on the part of a business owner is by no means a guarantee to failure and good performance from a politician is no guarantee of success (and vice versa).

            You misinterpreted my second point, however. I actually

            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by FooRat (182725)

              With regard to your first point, I have to disagree. I think I have more power to remove a member of my government (thus depriving them of that salary) than I do to change the upper management of major companies which have a major impact on my life.

              In theory you do, in practice, I don't really agree ... the majority just keep voting fools and crooks in, and those fools and crooks seem to be good at one thing - convincing people to vote for them the next time round and give them more money (I live in South Africa, where the majority have just voted in a known corrupt rapist with no education as President, so I've seen that voters cannot be trusted). People by and large have short memories and are too distracted and obsessed by inane garbage than wantin

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Hurricane78 (562437)

      I wonder, what you are going to do about it. Just complain? Or rise up?
      Because as long as you do not rise up, it seems like it still is far from bad enough, and has to become much worse, before you actually rise up.

      Please act. Or stop complaining.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mikael (484)

      At least they are trying. And the geography, geology and demographics of each region of the world is going to determine what kind of technology can be used. If everyone is packed together into a small city, then cable/wifi might be the best solution. In a rural area with low density farmhouses, satellite might be the best solution.

      I always thought having miniature tunnel boring machines would be an alternative to digging up roads to lay fibre optic cable. The use of giant cutting wheels is not really permit

    • It's not marketing, actually. IIRC, serial connections are generally described in terms of bits per second because they are moving one bit at a time (think modems or SATA drives), and parallel connections in bytes per second since they're moving a byte's worth of bits together, (think SCSI or PATA drives). Since broadband connections are serial in nature ... bits per second.

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