subject: Google's challenge - "Think Big With a Gig" [print this page] This network will enable transmission speeds of over 1 Gbps. This means about 100-fold increase compared to the average speed of broadband Internet in the US. Development of high-speed Internet transmission is the basis for Google's new business concepts, including IPTV.
Although many experts think that Google will not undertake to build the infrastructure on its own and will rather use the network of one of the major operators (Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, Qwest), the declaration is a real challenge for all Internet service providers and a point of reference.
Philip Santoro, the spokesman of Verizon, alluding to the Google's slogan "Think Big With a Gig", said: "We are not competing with things [Google is] planning... They may be thinking about competing with things we already have. We have the network in place today." Those words were uttered at the end of August, after launching by Verizon the first commercial gigabit link in Massachusetts.
Hopes for quick development of the service are connected with the fact that this undertaking is based on the existing Verizon FiOS operating over fiber-optic communications network, and the practical speed of 800 Mbit/s has been achieved over a distance of about 650 km. The employed devices use GPON technology (see the paragraph below) and come from Motorola (theoretical upstream of 1.2 Gbit/s, downstream of 2.4 Gbit/s).
In the autumn and early next year, many operators plan to start commercial services of gigabit Internet, also in Europe - it seems that the "provocative" Google's slogan has produced a positive result - an acceleration in the deployment of optical networks of the next generation - FTTH.
Classification of fiber-optics solutions within the "last mile" (the source: Wikipedia)
The main factor limiting the development of high-speed Internet is so-called "last mile". High-bandwidth gigabit backbones have to be extended to local networks and links to the end users.
Among different options of cable technology, the most suitable to fill this gap is fiber optic technology, especially PON (Passive Optical Network). PON uses a point-to-multipoint architecture that allows to deliver triple-play services (TV, Internet, telephony) via a single fiber. The passive network does not need any additional power supply - the active equipment is deployed only in the terminal nodes. This is a great advantage to build a transmission channel with a length of up to 20 km, with components powered only by the operator and customer. The distribution of signals is carried out using passive elements - optical fibers and splitters.
A PON network consists of:
Optical Line Termination (OLT),
Optical Network Unit (ONU) - optical network equipment in the local distribution point.
If the optical link comes directly to the end user (FTTH), it includes Optical Network Termination (ONT).
Classification of PON:
APON (ATM PON),
BPON (Broadband PON),
GPON (Gigabit PON),
EPON (Ethernet PON).
GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) is currently the most popular optical technology used for bridging the "last mile". GPON offers many possible transfer rates, but now the most popular choice is 2.488 Gbit/s (downstream) and 1.244 Gbit/s (upstream).
