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Brazil wants to build South American broadband network, says it will bring down costs
A pan-South American broadband network: It sounds rather ambitious, but that's exactly what Brazil proposed yesterday, during a meeting of the continent's communications ministers. In an address to his colleagues, Brazil's Paulo Bernardo called for the creation of "a ring of South American fiber optic networks" encompassing the entire continent. This "South American solution," he added, would lower the costs of internet and mobile access across the region, benefiting consumers and ISPs alike. "Connection costs for South American users represent on average between 35 and 40 percent of the total price of the service," the minister explained. "An Internet provider in South America pays, in the best of cases, three times more for the connection than in the United States. This situation must change urgently." Bernardo estimates that the initiative would cost about $60 million and could be completed within two years, though it'll likely have to jump through a few more hoops before nearing reality.
Shaw plants 100Gbps fibers in Canada, watches them grow
Consumers can dream of 1Gbps, businesses might ask for 10Gbps, but here's the next step along that logarithmic curve: Shaw and Alcatel-Lucent just launched a new 100Gbps inter-city fiber optic network in Canada, following a successful trial between Calgary and Edmonton. The network can purportedly handle 133 million simultaneous voice calls, 440,000 HDTV channels, or transmit the equivalent of 44 Blu-ray discs in a single second. More redweed details in the PR after the break.
Intel says Mac Thunderbolt ports will support optical cables
While currently-shipping Thunderbolt cables and peripherals are still running over copper, Macworld reports that Intel has confirmed that current Thunderbolt ports in Apple's latest Macs will support data transfer over optical cables. Back when it was known as Light Peak, Thunderbolt was originally supposed to be based on fiber optic tech, which would theoretically have allowed superior data transfer over much longer cable lengths than possible with copper. Current copper-based Thunderbolt cables can transfer data over a length of about three meters, but optical cables will be able to move data over cable lengths of "tens of meters" according to Intel. Optical cables should also allow for faster data transfers, but after citing the probable expense and stating that current Thunderbolt speeds are likely fast enough for most users, Intel is not likely to implement that feature for now. Optically-based Thunderbolt cables should be debuting in 2012, and existing Macs' Thunderbolt ports will be fully compatible with them. Meanwhile, both Acer and Asustek are planning to introduce Windows-running PCs featuring Thunderbolt ports next year, so hopefully that means Thunderbolt won't be an also-ran connection standard the way FireWire turned out to be.
FCC measures US wireline advertised broadband speeds, fiber dominates cable and DSL
Ever wonder if the speeds your ISP advertises are actually what you're getting while reloading Engadget all day? The FCC did, and decided to team up with 13 major broadband providers in the US to test how they performed from February to June of this year. Notably, during peak hours the average continuous download speeds of fiber connections were 14 percent faster than advertised, while cable and DSL were slower than claimed by 8 and 18 percent, respectively. Upload speeds also varied, with DSL again dipping the lowest at 95-percent of what's advertised -- might be time to ask your phone-based ISP for a partial refund, no? In addition to sustained speeds, the FCC analyzed consumer connections' latency and the effect of ISP speed boost tech on activities like VoIP, gaming, and video streaming. In concluding its research, the Commission noted that it should be easy to get tools in users' hands for keeping better tabs on ISP-provided services, without needing to contact customer frustrations relations. The study is chock full of even more graphs and stats, which you'll find by hitting that source link below. Now, if only we could get those speeds on par with our friends across the Atlantic.
NC State discovery finds optimal connections 10,000 times more quickly, ResNet admins do a double take
Ever wondered how just one message in an average Chatroulette session finds its way to whatever destination fate may deem suitable? Sure you have. As it stands, every single pulse from your Ethernet socket starts its initial journey by hunting for an optimal connection path; in some cases, that involves routing through massive ring networks crossing over untold miles of fiber optic cabling. Using traditional techniques, nailing down an optimal solution for a ring can take eons (or days, whichever you prefer), but there's a new methodology coming out of NC State's den that could enable the same type of scenario to reach its natural conclusion 10,000 times faster. Dr. George Rouskas, a computer science professor and proud Wolfpacker, has just published a new paper describing the scheme, with the focal point being a "mathematical model that identifies the exact optimal routes and wavelengths for ring network designers." More technobabble surrounding the discovery can be found in the source link below, but unfortunately, there's no telling how long it'll take your impending click to be addressed using conventional means. Here's to the future, eh?
Sonic.net starts trial of 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home internet in California, asks just $70
You'll be forgiven for not being intimately familiar with Californian ISP Sonic.net, though we get the feeling you'll also wish it operated a little closer to your abode by the time you've finished reading this. You see, Sonic has always dabbled in the business of high-speed, low-price internet connectivity, and now it's going for the jugular with a new fiber-to-the-home service, which costs just $69.95 a month, reaches speeds up to 1Gbps, and bundles in two phone lines and unlimited long distance calling. Just for reference, Comcast's "Extreme" 105Mbps connection costs $105 a pop when taken as part of a bundle, whereas Sonic's budget menu option will net you a 100Mbps line for $39.95 (plus a phone line with unlimited calls). Understandably, Sonic's grand plan is starting out small, with a trial in Sebastopol spanning 700 households, but provided the company doesn't go bust by giving people so much for so little, expansion to bigger cities will follow, with San Francisco and Santa Rosa being the prime candidates. And just in case you're questioning Sonic's credentials, Google's chosen the ISP to manage its gigabit fiber network at Stanford University, and who knows ultrafast broadband better than Google? [Thanks, Roland]
Researchers create 26 terabit-per-second connections with just a single laser
Remember that pair of 100 terabit-per-second connections we told you about earlier this moth? Impressive? Sure, but not entirely practical thanks to the massive banks of lasers (370 to be exact) that guzzled several kilowatts of electricity. Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany haven't hit 100Tbps yet, but they were able push 26Tbps using just one, lonely laser. The new single-laser fiber-optic speed record was set using a technique called fast Fourier transform that pulses light at an incredibly high rate with data encoded in 325 distinct colors across the spectrum. A detector at the receiving end is able to distinguish between the various colored data streams, based on tiny differences in arrival time, and recombine them into a high-speed torrent of ones and zeros. The scientists behind the project believe that, eventually, the technology could make its way into commercial use and be integrated into silicon chips. Now, someone needs to hurry up and jack our FiOS connection into this thing -- all this talk of terabits-per-second and graphene modulators, yet we're still jealous of grandma Löthberg.
Graphene-powered web could download 3-D movies in seconds, give MPAA nightmares
Graphene, is there anything it can't do? Researchers are already trying to put it in processors, fuel cells, and batteries -- now your internet connection might get ten-times faster thanks to the silicon successor. Researchers at UC Berkeley have created tiny, one-atom-thick modulators that could switch the data-carrying light on and off in a fiber-optic connection much faster than current technology. In addition to running at a higher frequency (the team believes it will scale up to 500GHz -- modern modulators run at about 1GHz) the smaller, 25-micron size means thinner cables could be used, reducing capacitance and further boosting speeds. Labs have already crossed the 100 terabit threshold and graphene could push that even higher, yet we're still stuck staring at a buffering screen every time we try to Netflix Degrassi.
Researchers create two 100 terabit per second optical connections, dare us to torrent something
Even a woman with a 40 Gbps internet connection might feel a twinge of jealousy at this news -- Japan has successfully tested two separate 100 terabit per second data links that use a single optical fiber to carry their loads. New Scientist reports that NEC scholars stuffed the light from 370 lasers into 165 kilometers of fiber to achieve a speed of 101.7 Tbps, while NICT researchers set a new record of 109 Tbps using a special fiber with seven cores to manage the trick. We imagine that Alcatel-Lucent and NTT aren't sitting still. Not that we really care who has the fastest fiber... just so long as one end leads to our house.
Virgin Media to test 1.5Gbps broadband on London's Silicon Roundabout
Just last week we reported on Fujitsu's plans to get in on the gigabit broadband game, and now Virgin Media is taking things a step further by announcing its intention to test internet speeds up to 1.5Gbps in east London. The trial, which plans to deliver upload speeds of 150Mbps, uses a similar fiber optic setup as the one employed by Fujitsu, and targets multimedia companies near the junction of the city's Old Street and City Road, also referred to as the Silicon Roundabout. These tests have been made possible by a £13 billion investment from Virgin Media. If this thing pans out, it looks like Google might have some catching up to do. Full PR after the break.
New laser sighting system enlists electronic sensors to make sure snipers hit their marks
Anyone who's ever picked a flea off a dog's back with an automatic weapon knows there's a fine line between a crushed bug and a bloody mutt. Fortunately for flea-bitten K9s, a team of researchers are working on a laser-packing fiber-optic sensor system to guarantee that your rifle's crosshairs are always dead on. Known simply as the Reticle Compensating Rifle Barrel Reference Sensor, the setup enlists the exterior grooves, or flutes, on a typical rifle as a receptacle for glass optical fibers. These fibers direct beams of light along the top and side of the weapon to precisely measure just how far off the gun's sights are from the barrel's actual position. A set of algorithms and sensor inputs are then employed to adjust for distance and other factors that affect a bullet's trajectory, providing the shooter with crosshairs that adjust to environmental changes in real time. Unsurprisingly, the system is being targeted at military and law enforcement, which means it probably won't make it into the hands of anyone who uses firearms as an alternative to Advantage. Sorry, Rover. Full PR after the break.
Fujitsu to build 1Gbps fiber optic broadband network in the UK, but needs BT to play fair first
Good news for anyone feeling left behind by the broadband revolution just because of their post code: Fujitsu has just announced a joint venture to deliver fiber optic connectivity to neglected rural homes in the UK. Built on hardware provided by Cisco and supported by Virgin Media and TalkTalk, this network will focus on channeling fiber directly to the home, which is said to provide symmetrical 1Gbps bandwidth with up to 10Gbps speeds considered possible down the line. Best news of all, perhaps, is that the cabling will be available on a wholesale basis to all ISPs, not just the ones involved in the project, so the UK may finally get a decent taste of what competition in the internet service space feels like. Alas, there's a key line in the press release that notes the new venture is dependent on BT providing "access to its underground ducts and telegraph poles on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms," which it apparently isn't doing at the moment. Ah well, we're sure they'll sort things out like the mature professionals that they are. Full PR after the break.
Elderly Georgian lady disconnects Armenian internet for half a day... by accident
A 75-year old lady from Georgia (the country, not the state) has perpetrated an impressive feat of international sabotage in what seems to have been an accident of extremely bad luck. While foraging for copper wire near her home in the village of Ksani, the unnamed septuagenarian managed to come across a critical fiber optic cable, one responsible for serving internet connectivity to "90 percent of private and corporate internet users in Armenia" and some in her own country as well. Her swift strike at the heart of said bit-transferring pipeline resulted in all those folks being thrown offline for a solid 12 hours, while the Georgian Railway Telecom worked to find and correct the fault. In spite of her relatively benign motivations, the lady now faces three years in prison for the damage she caused. We'd say all's well that ends well, but this doesn't actually seem like a very happy ending at all.
Patents aplenty: iPhone radio, fiber optic MagSafe, 3D without glasses
Apple's patent team must be cramming before the end of the year, because this past week we've seen a flood of patent applications come out of Cupertino. First up, Apple has patented a radio system in the iPhone (finally!), allowing you to listen to standard FM and AM broadcasts on the smartphone. The patent itself also includes an idea for a satellite radio connection, as well as a card to plug into Macs that would do the same thing. And there's a radio map idea as well, that would chart and let you browse nearby radio stations. Pretty cool idea -- hopefully we'll see it in the next iPhone revision. Next up is a new version of the MagSafe power adapter that could include a fiber optic channel, so that the cord not only carries a power connection, but can also transmit data to and from another unit equipped to provide both (Intel's Light Peak technology isn't mentioned in the patent, but it would probably work). You can see four pins in the current MagSafe connector, but this fiber optic node would sit right in the middle of those. Cool idea, though it seems like the actual implementation would need to be worked on a little bit further. Finally, Apple's also picked up patents for a 3D rendering system that would allow you to see live 3D in a room without glasses. This one's complicated -- it would track a user's position, and then send separate images to their right and left eyes through multiple projectors. This patent was actually filed a few years ago, so it's likely a hairbrained idea Apple had at the time, rather than anything that will eventually see the light of day. At least Apple's keeping up the creativity for us, right?
BT offering British broadband users free fiber upgrade -- when the rollout reaches them
Well now, isn't this nice? British Telecom has come out with a sweet and loving promise to subscribers who partake in its current broadband and landline telephony bundles -- stick with us, says BT, and we'll upgrade you to our fiber (or fibre, as the Brits call it) optic network free of charge. Of course, this wouldn't be BT if there weren't some gnarly details to the bargain, which include 40GB a month usage limits and £25 setup fees for users on the cheapest monthly bundles. Still, at least the upgrade to 40Mbit is something to look forward to and BT's saying you won't have to pay any additional levies for it on a monthly basis. See its press release after the break or check out the map below to see when the rollout might be hitting your particular corner of the Queen's home isles.
SMU and DARPA develop fiber optics for the human nervous system
The Department of Defense and Southern Methodist University have teamed up to develop prosthetics that use two-way fiber optic communication between artificial limbs and peripheral nerves to essentially give these devices the ability to feel pressure or temperature. The technology is called neurophotonics, and it will someday allow hi-speed communication between the brain and artificial limbs. But that's just the beginning -- the work being done at SMU's Neurophotonics Research Center might someday lead to brain implants that control tremors, neuro-modulators for chronic pain management, implants for treating spinal cord injuries, and more. And since we can't have a post about DARPA-funded research without the following trope, Dean Orsak of the SMU Lyle School of Engineering points out that "[s]cience fiction writers have long imagined the day when the understanding and intuition of the human brain could be enhanced by the lightning speed of computing technologies. With this remarkable research initiative, we are truly beginning a journey into the future that will provide immeasurable benefits to humanity." Truly.
Auto-tune nabs new lease on life, kills phase noise in long-haul fiber transmissions
(function() { var s = document.createElement('SCRIPT'), s1 = document.getElementsByTagName('SCRIPT')[0]; s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.async = true; s.src = 'http://widgets.digg.com/buttons.js'; s1.parentNode.insertBefore(s, s1); })(); Digg It's probably advisable to not mention this to T-Pain or anyone even closely related to him, but it looks as if auto-tune may have finally found a legitimate use. You know -- aside from crafting one of the most hilarious Bud Light commercials in the history of Bud Light commercials. An EU-funded team has crafted a prototype device that uses a technology similar to auto-tune in order to nix cross-talk on signals that travel down fiber optic cabling. Currently, the clean up process on phase noise ends up decimating the total capacity available to travel, so far less information actually gets through the end than what you started with. Now, this here device is claiming to spit shine the noisy signals and "re-transmit them with fuller capacity." Periklis Petropoulos, a researcher on the project from the University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Centre, summed it up as such: "With this demonstration we've shown that it is possible to use the capabilities of the optical fiber to the full without being restricted by the capabilities of the electronics; you could say that in its final functionality, it is like auto-tune." Obligatory video demonstration is after the break.
Intel's Light Peak optical interconnect shrinks slightly, LaCie, WD, Compal and Avid begin prototyping
Intel's Light Peak isn't setting any new speed records at IDF 2010 -- it's still rated at 10Gbps for now -- but the optical data transfer system is finally looking like it might appear in some actual products. As you can see immediately above, a Light Peak to HDMI converter has shrunk considerably since May, and a number of optically-infused sample products were on display at Intel's Light Peak booth. Compal's got a laptop with the optical interconnect built in, while Western Digital showed an external hard drive, from which the Compal could pull and edit multimedia in real-time using a Light Peak-enabled Avid rackmount. Meanwhile, LaCie showed off what appeared to be a 4big Quadra RAID array with two Light Peak ports catapulting high-definition video content at 770MB/s to a nearby Samsung TV, though we should warn you that the TV itself was a bit of a hack job, and not a collaboration with Samsung -- note the big, honking EVGA video card sticking out of the back. Though obviously a good bit of work went into these prototypes, Intel reps told us none would necessarily become a reality. Either way, don't expect to see Light Peak products until sometime next year.
Chattanooga becomes home to 1Gbps internet service, just $350 per month
It pales in comparison to Sigbritt Löthberg's home internet connection, but it sure makes Comcast's Extreme 105Mbps broadband package look downright sluggish. EPB Fiber Optics (Chattanooga's municipally-owned fiber-to-the-premises network) and Alcatel-Lucent have teamed up to offer America's "fastest" home broadband service -- a service that brings 1Gbps (or 1000Mbps, if that strikes you better) directly to your PC. Best of all, the service is actually on sale starting today, and every single home and business within EPB's 600 square-mile, nine-county service area will be able to access the network. Oh, and in case you're wondering, this actually isn't affiliated in any way with Google's own proposed 1Gbps service, which likely means that this record will only sit in southeast Tennessee for a few months. Still, we hear this place is some kind of beautiful in the fall, but make sure you're cool with a $350 monthly charge before pulling the trigger on a relocation. Update: Tipster Jens notes that he can get a 1Gbps connection for 900 SEK per month in Stockholm, or around $126. Baby steps, we Americans are taking.
Fiber optics get political in Australia as opposition party vows to scale down national broadband plan
When Australia goes to the polls on August 21st, citizens will vote for more than men and the traditional issues they represent -- the ballots cast will directly impact the country's national broadband plan. Where Australia's ruling Labor party had pledged A$43 billion for an up-to-100Mbps fiber optic network fed directly to 90 99 percent of homes (and agreed to pay A$11 billion to Telstra) over the next seven to eight years, the opposing Liberal-National coalition says if elected, it will scrap that notion in favor of a cheaper A$6.3 billion plan. That money would create a fiber-optic backbone by 2017 but actually connects homes with hybrid fiber-coaxial connections, DSL and about A$2 billion worth of wireless, with a minimum promised speed of 12Mbps. The coalition says these services would cover 97 percent of Australians, with satellite coverage for the final 3 percent, and that those networks receiving funds from the project and connecting to the backbone would have to compete based on pricing (set by the country's Competition and Consumer Commission) and pledge open access. Having never lived in Australia ourselves, we don't know what's best, but we're pretty sure we wouldn't be satisfied with the 12Mbps end of the Liberal-National stick. Update: Labor plan is to bring 100Mbps to 99 percent of the population, not 90 percent as originally stated.
