DSL Prime: DSL Around the World

In Brazil, Oman, France, and even on an island in the Pacific Ocean, DSL deployment is progressing around the world as customers get ever increasing amounts of bandwidth.

by Dave Burstein of DSL Prime and Future of TV [January 7, 2005]

Paris sees MPEG 4 HD TV over DSL
Free.fr, France Television, Envivio, Tandberg combine
A France Television nature program, delivered from Free's backbone over an ADSL2+ DSLAM to 30 excited journalists, is possibly the first public demonstration of HD TV over ADSL. Free.fr arranged for FT spin-off Envivio to pre-encode the show at 8 Mbps MPEG 4 720p, while Tandberg did on the fly 15 Mbps MPEG 2. Both were streamed to Philips 46 inch TVs, and a participant reports they both looked great.

Envivio's CEO Julien Signes, visiting New York a few days later, was still glowing. "Our HD TV compression will get much better than that over the next year. In a few months, new chips from Sigma Designs and several others will implement Context-adaptive binary arithmetic coding (CABAC) and other parts of the AVC specification, which the decoder in this demonstration couldn't take advantage of." Signes sees challenges ahead, however, particularly for efficient "real time" encoding. "Currently, one demonstration real time unit adds an unacceptable 15 second delay." Despite all the talk of 6 Mbps HDTV, no expert consulted off the record by this reporter expects to soon encode live football below 10 Mbps without some quality loss. It's not clear whether consumers will care or even notice the results the experts decry, however.

France is the most exciting broadband battle in Europe, and Free.fr and LDCOM/Neuf are successfully bringing the Japanese high speed, low price, and nearly free VoIP model to Europe. Telecom Italia, Le Journal du Net reports, has completed a 100 million euro investment in metro backbones, and intends to double advertising in 2005 to build consumer subscriptions. Add DT, and five companies are all committed to heavy spending. It's impossible for all five to achieve their goal of being in the top three providers.

As FT turns on "up to 18 meg" ADSL2+
Tiscali installs 400 DSLAMs, Neuf prices 8 Mbps at 14,90 euro
France is close to rivaling Japan as the world's most competitive market. FT is the only major western telco to commit to upgrade to ADSL2+ across their territory in 2005, and French prices for 6-18 megabits are lower than Deutsche Telekom for a tenth the speed. Neuf's 8 Mega, with unlimited calls across France, is only 23,90 euro, less than half what I would pay to Verizon for similar service.

China Telecom IPTV
600,000 in 2005 targeted in CCTV joint venture
The world's largest DSL carrier, China Telecom, will soon pass 10M DSL subscribers and will offer IPTV to many of them in 2005. Li Weitao of China Daily reports the service is operational in Shanghai will be quickly be extended to cities across the nation. Broadcast licenses are tightly controlled in China, both for native and foreign companies, so carriers cannot easily offer services themselves. China Central Television, by far the world's largest broadcaster, is leading the programming. Nicole Willing of Light Reading reported "China Telecoms services will initially feature only TV programs that have already been aired, since its illegal in China for telecom operators to broadcast real-time TV and radio." But the tie-up with the official broadcaster may ease that rule.

China Daily adds "Tiantian Online, a joint venture of China Netcom, US venture capitalist IDG and other strategic investors, last May gained an online broadcasting license. ... Netcom is also partnering CCTV's Internet TV division."

The direct role of television providers in TV over DSL may be a trend. In Turkey, Beyaz-owned broadcaster Kanal 7 is in a trial with mPhase of TV over DSL, arranging the service through Turk Telecom. They are targeting 15,000 users after a 250 user trial. The great fear of cable companies is that Disney and others will go direct over the Internet and destroy their video revenues. Many analysts think it inevitable; DSL providers vary on the idea, some believing the better choice of programming will sell the basic service, which is their real profit.

1,800 Norfolk Islanders getting DSL
In 1856, 194 descendents of the HMS Bounty mutineers sailed from Pitcairn Island to settle on Norfolk Island, an abandoned and unpopulated ex-prison colony 1,000 miles from Australia. The 40 men, 47 women, and 107 children (some named after Fletcher Christian) have been fruitful, and the less than 20 mile square island has prospered with a tourist trade. They now have begun commercial service with Ericsson ADSL2+ DSLAMs.

Oman with strong government support
Dr Mohammed bin Hamad bin Saif Al Romhi, minister of oil and gas, led the celebration at the Al Bustan Palace Hotel, including a demonstration video conference with Michael Kutschenreuter of Siemens from Munich. He distributed 7 laptops to winners of the Omantel Student ADSL Contest. The Oman Times reported Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdullah bin Isa Al Harthi, minister of transportation and communications; Shaikh Abdullah bin Salim Al Rowas, minister of the environment; Hartmut Blankenstein, the German ambassador; Hamood Sangour Al Zadjali, executive president of the Central Bank of Oman, and members of State and Shura Councils also attended.

Omantel's installed 16,000 ports of Siemens Surpass DSLAMs, and will be picking up the Siemens video system as well.

Brasil Telecom RFP for 2 million lines
Looking for 25 percent+ take rate by 2006
Telecom VP Yon Moreira became a firm believer in the demand for broadband when Brasil Telecom installed a full rack of a thousand ports in town of 30,000 on the border of the rainforest, 1000 kilometers from any major metropolis. It sold out in two weeks! If Brazil's economy continues to boom, he believes they can expand from the current half a million subscribers extremely rapidly, and is ready for 50,000 new orders each month.

Some of their DSLAMs are coming from Ericsson, whose IP DSLAMS have been winning customers worldwide. They are being deployed by MTNL in Mumbai and Delhi, while iiNET in Australia plans 50,000 customers across 100 exchanges. They make remarkable 8 and 16 port DSLAMs the size of a paperback book. I like to hold one high at policy meetings when someone like BT says it's impractical to serve small towns. Like heck it can't be done, for example

Copyright 2005 Dave Burstein.
The DSL Prime Newsletter is reprinted with permission.

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