On Connection Technology — Or How Belgium is Building Its Future with Technology from the Victorian Era
On my previous post I touched on the fact that in Belgium telecom operators are building current internet with technology from the past.
Let’s jump in the Jules Verne Timetrain with Doc Brown and visit the 1800's.
Removing the Headphone Jack
Apple recently raised some ruckus by removing the headphone jack from the iPhone 7. They used a classic picture of a switchboard.
Like the headphone jack, the twisted pair (aka “phone cable”) and coax (aka “TV cable”) cables are products of a very distant past. These are products of the Victorian Era and La Belle Époque . The come from the year 1880. That was a remarkable year:
- The Koln Cathedral was completed (a mere 633 years after it began)
- The building of the Panana Canal began.
- The 1st pay phone was installed.
- Edison patented the electric incandescent lamp.
- and both the coax and twisted pair cables were patented
It is amazing what these cables have done to humanity. 136 years of connecting the world.
Unlike the headphone jack, however, these two types of cables — coax and twisted pair — have a very well-established successor: optic fiber.
If you reading these words it is thanks to fiber optics. The Internet of today is only possible because of them*. They connect continents, countries, cities. Except that in Belgium it is not very widely used at all.
Do you see Belgium in that list?
Why do we need fiber?
It is time to say “thank you and goodbye” to copper. Why? Well, it is simply unmatched on the amount of cat GIFs it can transport.
It is about speed . Bandwidth needs have been growing 50% per year since 1984 (Nielsen’s Law of Internet Bandwidth). It is about putting the right infrastructure in place for growth , it is about “skating to where the puck will be”.
Building a fiber infrastructure creates a new layer of abstraction where Mbps are abundant and we evolve to the next challenges.
It is not only about faster. It is about enticing competition .
A copper-based network is expensive to operate. The constant upgrade cycles and complicated provisioning makes money for the tightly-held ecosystem at the expense of the subscriber’s experience. With a proper fiber infrastructure there is structural separation which creates Wholesale Telecom Providers (aka Network Operators). Who optimize for the benefit of Service Providers. Who, in turn, optimize to the delight of subscribers.
Time To Move Away From The Victorian Era
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Belgium are still nurturing a technology that had its birth 2 centuries ago. It is time to say goodbye to copper and welcome fiber.
This post first appeared on LinkedIn Pulse.
