Why we need FTTH-based gigabit internet access

Streaming requires only so much bandwidth, but there remain several reasons to want gigabit FTTH.

There are really a limited number of reasons. The first and last are relevant to operators, the others to end-users.

1. Opex. FTTH brings large savings to operators.
2. Speed, bandwidth. FTTH can handle speeds of 1 or more Gb/s.
3. Downloading. It can never go too fast. And uploading is generally slow on any other infrastructure. The asymmetric nature of traffic has nothing to do with this argument.
4. Redundancy, reliability, dedicated & future-proof access.
• Only on FTTH are real-world speeds comparable to headline speeds.
• Screens are getting bigger.
• Growing video traffic.
• Quality is getting better (HD, UHD, etc.)
• Web pages are becoming heavier, with more graphics, auto-play video etc.
• There will be more devices, more users.
• New applications.
• Backhaul for (offloaded) traffic, including tethering, mobile hotspots.
• Multi-tasking, including app updates, software updates, photo/video uploading etc.
5. Latency. FTTH beats other technologies. This is especially important for critical (but low-bandwidth!) IoT services.
6. Marketing. No matter what, speed sells.

TelePresence hits the Southbank

Vindication for Cisco's TelePresence: Southbank Sinfonia doing auditions via the system. Candidates were in Sydney, the orchestra is based in London.

Latency issues make you wonder how an opera performance such as below can be done.

On-net over fiber, latency can be as low as 3 ms, which seems fine.