Olivier Ferveur: The Buzz Over 5G Shows That New Fiber Networks Also Need a Global Standard

LUXEMBOURG, EUROPEAN UNION – On October 16, Post Luxembourg launched its commercial 5G wireless network, when the first cell sites were activated in the city of Luxembourg and other pilot zones using the 700 MegaHertz and 3.6 GigaHertz spectrum auctioned by city-state earlier this year.

As a senior architect of network access at Post Luxembourg, a state-backed telecommunications company in this small and rich country in the heart of the European Union, I’m pleased to offer my vision of the role that fiber technologies play on their own, and also in advancing 5G mobile development.

Post Luxembourg’s lunch event has been considered as major news item by the local media. For the first time in this post-COVID world, a subject besides the pandemic has in Luxembourg created discussion, enthusiasm, and perhaps a little bit of fear.

Post Luxembourg’s 5G coverage will be steadily extended during 2021 before the footprint is gradually expanded to cover the whole country, providing a “network of the future” that includes advanced applications like cloud gaming.

In fact, for the first time my grandmother asked me questions about my job in the field of broadband. But what and why is all of this happening?

Why is there so much dynamism surrounding 5G wireless technology? Indeed, the technology I am in charge of, XGS-PON, does not appear much in the media but only in a  few specialist press articles. (The term “XGS-PON” refers to 10 Gigabit per second (Gbps) symmetrical fiber using passive optical networks.)

Is this a sign of the end of the fixed broadband network that some people might begin to imagine? Not at all, in my opinion.

5G is not really a technology, but a global concept

To understand this difference in status we must identify that 5G is not really a technology. It is a global concept using multiple technologies that offers many uses for consumers and for enterprises. So what does this mean for fixed networks?

This way of presenting the bundle of technology and use cases is very powerful: It identifies the trends for the public, brings politics inside the discussion and gives broadband operators a perspectives of technology evolution. And for providers of equipment and solutions, this framework leads to research and development that both identifies future problems and gives a global new perspective to all industries.

Yet over the past decade, the so-called fixed network has been increasing bandwidth everywhere. This came through installing fiber technology or by improving existing technology like Vplus, a form of VDSL (which stands for “very high speed Digital Subscriber Line) or G.fast, another DSL technology with performance technology between 100 Megabit per second and 1 Gbps. All these technologies have bringing fiber closer to the consumers in common.

In parallel, network technologies that facilitate installation and maintenance have emerged. These include network function virtualization and software defined networks. But there has been no flashy and global “standard” like 5G that seems relevant and understandable for the public and for business enterprises. Why this difference between the fixed and mobile worlds?

The convention view about geography-specific fixed fiber networks

In fact, the fixed environment has a major difference with the mobile world: Fixed networks have a heavy dependency with massive investment in infrastructure.

Every fiber, copper or coaxial cable which is put in the ground is expected to last at least for 20 years. Because of this long-term investment, each country has a different status and doesn’t necessarily follow the same trend.

In Europe, for example, France has more deeply invested in fiber networks has Germany. Why? It’s because Germany has in the past installed lots of coax cables inside cities. Therefore, fiber investment has not been seen as relevant and necessary there.

In addition, the topographies and the population repartition highly impact the choice of one technology from another.

In fact, we now need a global standard for fiber network deployment

This means that, according to the conventional view, taking a global perspective is nearly impossible in the arena of fixed, fiber-based deployment.

But here’s where I disagree. On the contrary, I believe it is possible to have a global view in favor of fixed, fiber networks. It starts by recognizing how mandatory internet use has become. In one year, the internet use has changed as never in the past, and largely because of the pandemic.

We can speak about the number of devices inside houses, the increase of bandwidth for applications like the increase of 4k or 8k for videos. But in reality, the revolution is not yet here at this point. The true revolution comes for the high interactivity request from consumers.

Today, games, video conference services, enterprise VPN and other applications require a high availability, a disponibility of bandwidth every time, and good latency also. And these are just the requirements from actual and existing applications!

The development of new applications are basically blocked by the limitations in network capability. We need to unlock the network to offer more services.

After 30 years of the creation of the internet, this network is still a “best efforts” network. In other words, we are not able to manage complex apps with high requirements yet.

If we want to technically solve this issue, we need more interactions between open systems interconnections layers and that it is only possible with an overview of all fiber-based systems.

The creation of the F5G standard for fixed or fiber 5G

These observations are some of the reasons that my company, along with other actors inside the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, are participating in the creation of the F5G group, for “fixed” 5G.

This group has the ambition to explore new technologies. F5G want to define use cases based on one principle: Fiber everywhere and in everything. The group not only focuses on residential markets, but also looks at enterprises and vertical industries.

After a definition of the relevant use cases, the F5G group wants to highlight relevant technologies and analyze the gap between them. Collaboration between all standards organizations will become a key point to create a dynamic and reliable environment for the sector and the public.

This initiative has just begin. The whitepaper is already accessible. Additional definitions will come in the current months. Don’t be shy, but join us. This initiative will be successful if a large panel of actors participate to the basement of the next generation of fixed network.

Dr. Olivier Ferveur is senior network architect in the network transport department at Post Luxembourg. He joined the company in 2009 and helped develop the core IP/MPLS network. In 2014, he led the transformation of the core network to the next generation technology, including selection, design and deployment. He also represents Post Luxembourg inside ETSI’s F5G working group. This piece is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.

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