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UK Researches Future 10Gbps Broadband Technology 114

Posted by timothy from the and-now-from-the-top-down-people dept.
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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UK Researches Future 10Gbps Broadband Technology

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  • Um, yeah, hai.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by viyh ( 620825 ) on Sunday May 17, 2009 @05:05AM (#27985371)
    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, 2009 @05:07AM (#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:1)

      by viyh ( 620825 )
      You mean you don't have an M20 hooked up to your DSL right now? :P But really, it wouldn't be too expensive (especially relative to an equivalent Cisco or Juniper) to build a linux router capable of 10Gbps. If I could get that to my house, I'd definitely pay the $1000 or so for a 10Gig-E card.
      • Maybe I do I dont know what an M20 is:) Now linux router 10gbps hmmmm I must go and google m20 - xcuse me.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Don't worry, routers will keep up.

      I bought quite a few routers in Japan (to run Tomato on) and they all come with the maximum speed they can reach on the front of the box. Gigabit capable ones are available (and yes, you can get a 1Gb net connection there).

      • Maybe they will but I dont see 10gig ones imminently for the masses let alone people buying them (in the uk at least) and wireless can't do anywhere near that either.

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

    by drmofe ( 523606 ) on Sunday May 17, 2009 @05:45AM (#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, 2009 @10:20AM (#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!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Teun ( 17872 )
          Yeah, like HD CCTV on every street corner.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jabuzz ( 182671 )

          Please tell me where this cheap fibre channel is!!!

          Even a second hand Brocade 4900 (that's 64 4Gbps ports) is eye watering expensive compared to ethernet. The cheapest I can see on eBay is 35,000 USD and only has 32 ports activated. You are looking at another 18,000 USD to get the rest of the ports activated, and your ISL trunking licenses will be more on top of that.

          Also where are the cheap fibre channel storage arrays as well. The cheapest IBM DS4500 I can see on eBay (and that is doggy ancient tech) is 3

          • $8000 for the HP Storageworks San kit [compaq.com]

            "The 8Gb Simple SAN Connection Kit consists of an enterprise-class 8 Gbps switch, four 81Q HBAs, and SSCM - along with all the cables, 8 Gbps SFPs and documentation you need.

            I did see one for $2000, which is what we were going to buy at one point, but I can't find the link. It wasn't an 8Gb san though! I have found a £2000 HP switch [dealtime.co.uk]

            Ok, I'm not going to have one at home, but if you're buying all the discs you need, another $8k is not much.

    • 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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teun ( 17872 )
      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 :)

      • "Government" is not a monolith. No, seriously, if you think one branch is doing something to prop up another, you're probably mistaken. Government proceeds by little initiatives being pushed by various (smallish) groups that don't talk to each other. It's not exactly incompetence, but it certainly is incoherence.

    • ISP companies currently rely on the fact that people don't use their Internet connections at the speeds they offer.

      The behavior of the Internet subscribers changes and more people are doing interactive things or watching video broadcasts on their Internet connection, keeping a certain amount of bandwidth in use for longer periods of time.

      Before video, Youtube, Napster and all the wonderful things appeared, ISP companies cheated by connecting let's say 150 users with a 1mbps plan to a 10mbps Internet Connect

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vlm ( 69642 )

      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.

      And only manufactured in China. So, does anyone benefit except some Chinese factory owners if the UK government re-invents OC-192 SONET from 1996 and gets Linksys to sell it?

      Even 1080p video is only around 3Gbps. Are we suddenly talking about multiple HD streams batting their way around teh interwebs to consumers?

      I have 3 cabletv settop boxes at home. I guess it would be nice to stream HD video to all three at the same time, however unlikely it is I'd need to do so. 3 Gigs seems a factor of 150 too high, since ATSC RF format (actually 8VSB) only sends about 19 megabits/second for our over the air HDTV in the US. Over the pond I believe you g

  • Tech like this will help content delivery over one connection. Everyone in the house can watch HD streams at the same time, other services like phones, power meters, video conferencing etc can easily use up bandwidth like this. It is a HUGE pipe when it comes to current consumer tech but it will help tech of tomorrow...

  • > "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, 2009 @07:14AM (#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.

    • I don't think so. 'The Government' is not one homogeneous organism, the surveillance stuff is mostly pushed by Jacqui Smith, but this research is handled by a completely different department.

      They'll probably invest millions of public money into it and then privatize it off to their friends - that's what they usually do.

      And as you brought up yourself - I am far more worried about throttling and false advertising than surveillance (although Phorm is worrying).

  • 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.

    • he is probably referring to the GBPeso

      divide by 100 to get the price in euro :)

    • GBP is the ISO code for pounds sterling, it's prefectly valid to use it. If you see $, that's a dollar - but is that US, Canadian or Australian? USD CAD and AUD are unambiguous. What's more by using only core ASCII characters they work on any sensible system. Perhaps that's why international businesses use them...

      On the other hand, any symbol that requires a magic ampersand incantation is going to be flaky, especially on this site. Do you see a euro sign inside the brackets ( € )? Apparently so

  • 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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by tangent3 ( 449222 )

      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

      • What part of "caps" didn't you get? When we can get guarantees of no caps on byte count and no overage charges and all that, it might be worth getting excited about faster links.

        We've got too many opposing forces doing things to the net, something needs to be done to settle the mess.

  • 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)
  • If this really proves to be useful, do they really think they will have this speed to themselves for any substantial period of time? DARPA-sponsored universities and firms, Cisco, AT&T, and many other U.S. entities are probably working on the same thing.

    • 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

  • 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:2)

      by Trepidity ( 597 )

      Is there any evidence that telecomm companies can successfully manage large-scale, long-term innovative projects? The only examples I can think of are from quasi-governmental firms, like AT&T Bell Labs in its monopoly heyday.

      The problem is that it isn't necessarily good for the companies, or at least their managers/CEOs. Keeping everyone buying the same crappy, overpriced service indefinitely is better for them---but worse for everyone else.

  • can we first get cheap/commodity 10Gbps **LANs** please?

    Having 10Gbps broadband will be cute 'n all, but useless if my PC only uses 1Gbps...

  • There must be an UK's government importance why there's a research to find 10Gbps Broadband Technology.

  • > "the UK Government...has invested £1M into over a dozen research projects for the
    > development of...up to 10Gbps broadband technologies.

    Cisco CEO Dr. Evil: Oh no! One million pounds. Our corporation cannot afford that kind of competition.

    Number Two: Actually, sir, last year we invested over $9 billion alone in R&D.

    Cisco CEO Dr. Evil: $9 billion, huh?

    Number Two: Yes.

    Cisco CEO Dr. Evil: Well, I see. In the future, could somebody tell me these things? I'm the boss. Need the info.

    > "Th

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