AUGUST, 202119 Broadband speeds continue to be a universal topic of discussion these days particularly in view of the ever-growing pace of new broadband hungry applications such as ever-higher quality video, gaming, cloud/data storage services not to mention Artificial Intelligence and Robotics coming over the horizon. Speeds are not the only issue however; higher levels of reliability and operational performance are also needed as more customers rely on the internet for mission critical and often lifeline services.Whilst broadband service is now universally available across Europe, there remains significant variation in speeds and performance available to customers and many continue to suffer insufficient speeds to meet their basic needs, often well below 10 Mb/s. Cries from children whose gaming activity is impaired when dad uploads important business files are still not uncommon. The cause of such low speeds usually resides in the broadband connections routed over metallic (usually copper) cables of the national telephone network, which was the network of choice for broadband delivery when the internet and web first emerged back in A DIGITAL ECONOMY THRIVES ON FIBRE RICH BROADBAND NETWORKS HOWEVER NOT ALL COUNTRIES ARE PROCEEDING AT THE SAME PACEJohn Marshallthe early 1990s. Such cables however progressively attenuate broadband data as frequency (speed) and distance increases and this combined with electrical noise (both external and crosstalk between cables) imposes an almost inverse relationship between the broadband data speeds that a customer can reliably receive and their metallic path distance to the Central Office (CO) or Broadband data source as illustrated below Since customers can reside anywhere between a few hundred metres and up to 7 Km from their Central Office (CO), an unsatisfactory `Digital Divide' is inevitably created between the so called `broadband rich' and `broadband poor' within the Telco's network footprint.The solution lies in removing the copper cables completely and replacing them with optical fibre which has none of the impairments described above. Being very low loss and immune to electrical noise and interference, it enables almost unlimited customer broadband speeds (Gb/s +) to be delivered uniformly across the customer footprint. Modern optical fibre cable infrastructures are also intrinsically more robust and reliable compared to the existing often-aging copper cable infrastructure with its questionable joints and terminations. Total fibre connections, usually referred to as Full Fibre, Fibre to the Home (FTTH) or Fibre to the Building (FTTB), BY JOHN MARSHALL, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, ECI TELECOMTotal fibre connections, usually referred to as Full Fibre, Fibre to the Home (FTTH) or Fibre to the Building (FTTB), and are now being rolled out across EuropeCXOINSIGHTS
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