MIT Cracks Fiber-Optics Conundrum
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Researchers say they've created a nifty optics-on-a-chip device that overcomes a major obstacle in harnessing the full power and speed of light waves. By the Associated Press.
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PHILADELPHIA -- When Henry Powderly II ordered Verizon Communications Inc.'s FiOS fiber-optic service, he knew he was about to be connected to the future of telecommunications. He also got unplugged from its past.
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Experimental network excels at long-distance collaboration; researchers hope to up ante with hybrid optical packet infrastructure.
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(InfoWorld) - Researchers at Siemens have transmitted data over polymer optical fiber cable at around 1Gbps, opening up new possibilities for the technology, including easy-to-build home networks linking PCs and high-definition TVs "Polymer cable enables do-it-yourself installations," project manager Sebastian Randel said Tuesday. Unlike optical fiber made from glass, "It's flexible and it's easy to cut and insert in connectors." The cable is around 1 millimeter thick, doesn't break easily, and can be cut with a razor blade, according to Randel. Although glass optical fiber, which is widely used in long-distance and local loop networks, can carry data at much higher speeds than the polymer version, it is also much thicker once wrapped in a protective shield, and breaks if bent too tightly, according to Randel. Cutting it cleanly to attach connectors or make joints requires a diamond blade, he said. Demand for easy-to-install, low-cost home networking systems is growing as new high-speed services such as IPTV (Internet Protocol television) hit the market. The twisted copper pair used in Ethernet networks is more of a competitor to polymer fiber in home networking because it is thinner and more flexible than glass optical fiber, Randel said. However, it's difficult to attach connectors, requiring special tools. While Wi-Fi eliminates the need for cables altogether, it can't guarantee constant and robust transmission required for services such as IPTV, according to Randel. Siemens researchers transmitted TV signals at 1008Mbps over a 100 meter-long test network, without errors or flickering on the screen, he said. Rather than transmit each bit as a pulse of light, they modulated the light signal using a technique similar to that used by DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) to send signals over copper wires, allowing each pulse of light to carry several bits of information. The overal effect was to increase the rate at which data was transmitted: Previous top speeds achieved over polymer were around 100Mbps. In addition to home networks, polymer cable could be used in factories, where rugged, low-cost cables are the standard, according to Siemens. Randel was unable to say when a 1Gbps polymer cable product would be available and what it would cost but said the Siemens research team proved that the technology works.
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New Delhi, Dec. 15 (PTI): Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States are close to mending broken hearts.
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A group of MIT grads attempt to decipher airlines' hopelessly Byzantine ticket-pricing structure.
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(InfoWorld) - A high-tech mecca in Silicon Valley wants to get even more connected by rolling out a superfast fiber network for all its residents. The city of Palo Alto, California, home to many major IT vendors and venture capital firms, last week put out an RFP (request for proposals) seeking a private partner to build a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network. The required speed: 100M bps (bits per second) both downstream and upstream. And as debate swirls in nearby San Francisco over how much the city should be involved in a proposed citywide Wi-Fi network, Palo Alto's position is clear: It wants to eventually own the whole fiber network. The drive by some U.S. cities to build their own broadband networks has been attacked by incumbent carriers and other critics who claim governments have an unfair competitive advantage. Many municipalities have taken a different tack by forming partnerships with private network providers. This approach is now under fire in San Francisco, where the city's budget analyst is studying the business case for a government-owned wireless system. City ownership is critical for network neutrality, according to Peter Allen, a founder of the advocacy group Palo Alto Fiber Network. The city understands that having a service provider own a municipal network doesn't work, he said. "If UPS owned Highway 1, FedEx would not be able to make competitive deliveries," Allen said. Existing service providers that might object to the city's plan, such as local incumbent AT&T Inc., can compete for the project along with other private applicants, he said. Palo Alto, a mostly affluent and liberal city of 60,000, already owns several of its own utilities. Its electric utility owns a fiber-optic ring around the city that links to the Palo Alto Internet Exchange, a "peering point" where most major Internet service providers meet on the Internet. In 2000, the city launched an FTTH trial that reached 66 homes and drew rave reviews from users. The city explored having the electric utility build a fiber network itself but found that its plan to pay for it with revenue bonds wasn't allowed, according to the RFP. The council eventually settled on seeking a private partner, then transferring ownership to the city after a few years. How that transfer would work has yet to be determined. At a minimum, the network would provide data, video and VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service, according to the RFP. It would be neutral and open to multiple service providers who would buy wholesale access. The city wants services to be affordable and available citywide, though some remote parts of the city might not get the full 100M bps bandwidth, according to the RFP. A service provider would have to come up with just over US$36 million to build the whole network and operate it until it achieved positive cash flow, according to Neil Shaw, a principal at Uptown Services LLC, a Boulder, Colorado, consulting firm the city hired to study the concept in 2002-2003. That estimate included an upgrade after 10 years to provide even greater speed. Uptown estimated revenue from the network would pay off that capital investment within 14 years. The cost of building fiber networks has gone down since 2003, Shaw added. Responses to the RFP have to be in by Nov. 28, and the city plans to identify the finalists on Dec. 18, according to the RFP. The timing of its final choice will depend on what responses come in and how long it takes to review them, said Kathy Bradley, the city's contract administrator.
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By Simon Usborne  In 2005, when Nicholas Negroponte of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced his vision, experts queued up to say it couldn't be done, and that the professor's plan was little more than a well-intentioned dream.
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(InfoWorld) - Researchers from Siemens have successfully tested technology that not only increases the speed of passive optical broadband connections to the home or office but also the radius of coverage. The team of researchers, sponsored by the European Union, achieved downstream transmission rate of 10Gbps and upstream speed of 2.5Gbps over a passive optical access network, Siemens said Monday. By comparison, current gigabit passive optical network (GPON) technology supports downstream data rates of 2.5G bps and upstream rates of 1.2G bps. In addition, the researchers were able to extend the distance between the hub and subscribers, the equivalent of the "local loop" in copper networks, from 20 kilometers to 100 kilometers. The number of subscriber lines per splitter, where the optical signal is divided up to serve more destinations, was also expanded from 64 to 512. Numerous operators are keen to deploy high-speed broadband access systems that offer far greater speed than DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) technology, which uses existing copper twisted pairs to provide data rates of up to 50Mbps, Siemens said. Services such as VOD (video-on-demand) and HDTV (high-definition TV) perform best when delivered over fiber-optic subscriber lines. At the same, new GPON systems eliminate the need for aggregation devices commonly used to collect and distribute data traffic locally. In the future, operators will be able to connect subscribers directly to the core network, Siemens said. Earlier this year, Siemens researchers achieved a transmission speed of 107Gbps over a single optical fiber. The speed, which the company claimsÂ sets a recordÂ for electrical processing of data through a fiber-optic cable, was reached over a 100-mile route. Siemens has developed a new transmission and receiving system that is able to process data directly before and after its conversion into optical signals using electrical processing only. Current systems handling very high data rates have to split signals into multiple lower data-rate signals and later reconvert them from optical to electrical, a process that adds to costs and reduces network capacity. Â
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Swapping out optical media drives does the trick, hardware hackers report. In Gadget Lab.
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Research work could mean data gets in and out of computer chips at speed of light.
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An electrically driven laser expands the range of photonic crystal devices.
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Light regulation will encourage this alternative form of high-speed Net access.
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TROY, N.Y., Feb. 16  /PRNewswire/ -- "T-rays" have been touted as the next breakthrough in sensing and imaging, but the need for bulky equipment has been an obstacle to reaching the field's potential. Enter Brian Schulkin, winner of the first-ever $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize.
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A novel nanolaser could cram more data onto a hard disk.
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Internet decisions aren't always made at Internet speeds.
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By Jon W. Glass, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.  Sep. 23--An ultrafast fiber-optic network that officials hope will turn Hampton Roads into a national magnet for high-tech research and business is up and running.