By: MarkJ - 10 January, 2012 (3:35 PM) - Score: 2641 - Fixed Line Broadband
Global telecommunications firm Alcatel-Lucent and UK ISP Sky Broadband (BSkyB) have today claimed success in a deployment of the "country’s first 100G high-speed optical transmission network", which will deliver a significant internet capacity boost to Sky's customers.The effort directly relates to our previous report on 2nd December 2011 (Sky Broadband Installs Massive 7Tbps Internet Capacity Upgrade), which revealed Sky's plan to install five new ultra fast fibre optic links around the country during 2012.
Each link will be based off Alcatel-Lucent's 100G optical coherent technology, which uses Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) to push data speeds of 100Gbps (Gigabits per second) over each of the 88 wavelengths of an optical fibre. For Sky the work is apparently a "relatively simple, quick and cost effective" in-service network upgrade.
Sky's Director of Network Services, Mohamed Hammady, said:
"Millions of Sky customers use our broadband network to enjoy video and other high bandwidth services. Part of the reason we have been the UK’s fastest growing ISP since our launch in 2006 is that we offer a high-quality, good value and reliable service that’s genuinely unlimited and is free from any form of traffic management.
We can do this because of the investment we make in our state-of-the-art, all-fiber core trunk network. With the introduction of Alcatel-Lucent’s leading edge technology, we only enhance our ability to define the Sky broadband experience through our high capacity core network."
"Millions of Sky customers use our broadband network to enjoy video and other high bandwidth services. Part of the reason we have been the UK’s fastest growing ISP since our launch in 2006 is that we offer a high-quality, good value and reliable service that’s genuinely unlimited and is free from any form of traffic management.
We can do this because of the investment we make in our state-of-the-art, all-fiber core trunk network. With the introduction of Alcatel-Lucent’s leading edge technology, we only enhance our ability to define the Sky broadband experience through our high capacity core network."
Lucy Dimes, CEO UK & Ireland at Alcatel-Lucent, added:
"High-definition video and other broadband services are driving up the volume of data being transported on networks today. This trend is driving us to continuously introduce new innovations into our portfolio, while ensuring that our customers can continue to benefit from the investments they have already made.
The introduction of 100G with Sky offers a clear example of the benefits to this approach. It also reinforces our leadership in 100G - 15 months since our launch of this technology we are still the only vendor capable of delivering this kind of speed and capacity on existing networks."
"High-definition video and other broadband services are driving up the volume of data being transported on networks today. This trend is driving us to continuously introduce new innovations into our portfolio, while ensuring that our customers can continue to benefit from the investments they have already made.
The introduction of 100G with Sky offers a clear example of the benefits to this approach. It also reinforces our leadership in 100G - 15 months since our launch of this technology we are still the only vendor capable of delivering this kind of speed and capacity on existing networks."
The first 100G link has already gone live between Birmingham and London and additional links will certainly help to support Sky's 3.5 million broadband customers as their usage continues to grow. By June 2012 Sky expects to hit an overall total for network traffic of 700Gbps!
Crucially Sky has yet to launch its own selection of superfast broadband packages and, aside from a few closed trials, hasn't revealed much about its future intentions. Sky has survived quite well without such services but at some point, over the next year or two, that will probably begin to change. Today's upgrade news could be seen as helping to lay the groundwork for a new generation of superfast packages.
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Comments: 15
anPosted: 10 January, 2012 - 4:28 PM
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"country’s first 100G high-speed optical transmission network"
What a load of BS! ja.net has had a live (production) 100gbe network spaning hundreds of miles for many many months now and i know of at least two other companies using for short range networks
adamPosted: 10 January, 2012 - 4:39 PM
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sky have until march this year to announce FTTC or im off to BT
MarkJPosted: 10 January, 2012 - 4:39 PM
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Sky's press release is bit too general and I think they should have framed it more clearly as the firstly deployment of Alcatel-Lucent's specific 100G and DWDM tech. Other 100Gbps optical networks do indeed exist, with differences.
VMPosted: 10 January, 2012 - 4:44 PM
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What a load of rubbish talk, even thought Ofcom won't allow sky to use 100Gbps network. Sky LLU still up to 20 Meg and FTTC still up to 40 Meg and Sky haven't done any FTTC.
Don't believe a word of what sky had to say, they only try to bring more customers to sign up sky broadband and sky had secret upgrades many exchanges of sky network without any lists or tell us.
SledgehammerPosted: 10 January, 2012 - 6:05 PM
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Well I will be leaving Sky in May 2012. They have not been outstanding in any way, to me just a MEDIOCRE company, poor speed compared to Talktalk and see no reason to stay.
Telecom EngineerPosted: 10 January, 2012 - 9:55 PM
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Dear God. This is about backhaul - and its nice to see companies investing where it matters. Not much point having fttc / fttp when some ISPs still restrict some services (like video / vpn) to sub 1 meg speeds. Building a better network for its customers isnt something to slag off. While sky are trumpeting their "unlimited" service they need to keep the back-haul in step - nice to see someone doing it.
And of course its nice prep for any future fttc / vula announcement.
SledgehammerPosted: 10 January, 2012 - 10:01 PM
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@ Telecom Engineer
Give this some thought any one on a LLU service that wants to have FTTC will be forced to pay through the nose to have their line changed back to a BT line before they can get a FTTC service.
I wonder how many will fork out and do it?
dragoneastPosted: 10 January, 2012 - 10:19 PM
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I'm on a local service that uses Sky's backhaul (through Easynet). It's always been much more reliable than the BT Wholesale network (that's not OpenReach, by the way). This sort of investment makes it better still. Don't just equate the backhaul to Sky LLU (which like all DSL is dependent on the performance of the weakest link, your local loop).
DeductionPosted: 10 January, 2012 - 11:21 PM
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Dont think i have ever agreed with Telecom Engineer on here before, but he/she nailed it 100% with their post :)
VMPosted: 11 January, 2012 - 12:01 AM
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Telecom Engineer doesn't know what he was talking about! (probably himself as a sky sales person)
DeductionPosted: 11 January, 2012 - 12:54 AM
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LOL nah he works or did work for BT would be my guess.
SomersetPosted: 11 January, 2012 - 8:26 AM
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VM - what don't you believe is true about this?
N00B13Posted: 11 January, 2012 - 9:39 AM
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I've been watching these forums for a while and it seems that VM is just full of hate.
Sky uses standard copper from the exchange to the house, BUT at the exchange as long as sky has equipment installed the traffic then goes over the sky backhaul NOT BT (this VM is what the article is about, not installing 100GBps to the home which it seems you have gotten confused with)
JacksonPosted: 23 January, 2012 - 2:17 AM
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New_Londoner and his Multi aliases are like cancer
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