© Sakari Luukkainen

TMitTI 1

Content

• Previous technology cycle

Analog ModemsISDN

• Technology cycle of fixed broadband

Case ADSLCase DOCSIS

• Conclusion

© Sakari Luukkainen

TMitTI 2

Analog Modems

• In the 1950’s the modems were proprietary and based on the technology used previously in the radios

• The international standardization of modems started in the 1960’s

• The analog modem technology started to develop incrementally and reached 56 kbit/s speed in the 1990’s

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TMitTI 3

ISDN

• The core network started to digitalize in the 1970’s and the name of the related technology was PCM, later PDH

 • The recommendations to digitalize the switching were

made in 1984, the related standard was ISDN  • The evolution of ISDN started slowly because of different

ways to implement standards, interoperability problems between the operators

• After the harmonization of the implementations ISDN started to diffuse to the market in the 1990s

© Sakari Luukkainen

TMitTI 4

• The final part of connection - the local loop - is still the analog twisted pair copper line

• The end-user services of the ISDN like videophone or fax did not succeed in the market

• ISDN was unexpectedly used as a 128 kbit/s Internet access

• Recently ISDN and analog modems have largely been displaced by the broadband technologies

ISDN

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TMitTI 5

Case ADSL

• The main goal was to be able to reach fast data speeds over the present copper line • With an existing base of local loops, it made feasible to develop a technology, which could reuse the infrastructure • ADSL uses an advanced modulation method and works simultaneously with the telephone service • The connection is always on

 

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TMitTI 6

Case ADSL

• The development of the hardware technologies enabled to integrate the new algorithms into the chipset  • The network cost per subscriber decreased, while the cost of the ADSL chipset started to fall in the late 1990’s • The replacement of copper by fibre was planned in the early 1990’s, but it proved to be expensive and uncertain

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TMitTI 7

Case ADSL

• The telephone operators thought that an interactive VOD service would be important application • The long distances of the local loop, the inadequate quality of the twisted-pair copper wire and electrical interference prevented from transmitting digital signals at the speed required by the video

• Proprietary DSL technologies caused interoperability problems at the beginning of the technology cycle

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TMitTI 8

Case ADSL

• ADSL has been the most popular technology of the xDSL family, it was originally standardized by ANSI in 1995 and the first international ITU standard G.992.1 was introduced in 1999 • The ADSL standard was also approved by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) • This standard enabled speeds up to 8 Mbit/s downstream and up to 640 Kbps upstream

• In 2002 ITU standardized a new family of ADSL standards known as ADSL2

 

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TMitTI 9

Case ADSL

• The deregulation acts in USA ended the operators’ monopolies

• ISP could request the local telephone company for access to the local loop at a regulated tariff rate and CATV companies were able to offer data services

• Mobile phones also started to substitute fixed telephone calls, and ADSL provided incumbent local telephone operators with a way still to make business with their local loop

• The ADSL mass market emerged first in the USA • The commercial launch of ADSL services started in 1999 in several countries of Europe

 

© Sakari Luukkainen

TMitTI 10

Case ADSL

• In 2004 about 65 million ADSL lines were globally, ADSL dominates the consumer market  • Similarly to the case of ISDN, ADSL based services emerged much more differently than it was originally expected: as a high speed access to the Internet

• Flat rate pricing method important success factor • The ADSL based Internet broadband access also stimulates all kinds of new applications and business over the Internet 

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TMitTI 11

Case DOCSIS

• The deregulation acts in the mid-1990’s ended monopolies by opening the competition in the USA

• CATV companies were able to offer data access over their existing network and compete with the telephone operators’ ADSL services • Because of the early deregulation the first CATV data mass market first emerged in the USA • In the first years of the CATV data evolution the technologies used were proprietary, many different solutions in the market

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TMitTI 12

Case DOCSIS

• US vendors and operators started to develop a standard called DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) • The standard defines the addition of high-speed data transfer to an existing CATV system  • The first DOCSIS specification 1.0 was released in 1997

• This technology allowed data access over the CATV system by using parallel phone lines for the upstream traffic

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TMitTI 13

Case DOCSIS

• The technical challenges related to the return channel were solved in the following version DOCSIS 1.1  • DOCSIS was further revised in order to increase upstream transmission speeds in a new specification 2.0  • ITU also adopted DOCSIS as the international standard

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TMitTI 14

Case DOCSIS

• The CATV data architecture includes a CMTS (Cable Modem Termination System) unit, which is similar to DSLAM in the ADSL network

• The DOCSIS 1.1 standard enabled mass markets, and CATV data started to diffuse to Europe

• DOCSIS 2.0 introduced a new modulation method, no backward compatible, investments in new CMTS and modems

• In the USA there were 20 million CATV data users in 2004, 8 million in Europe 

© Sakari Luukkainen

TMitTI 15

Conclusion

• impact of deregulation to new market creation

• contradiction between proprietary innovation and interoperability

• typically first a fragmented phase which leads to a single dominant technology

• reuse of the existing infstaructure - evolution

• unexpected end user applications, flexibility to react

• enough new added value by reasonable cost for the end user