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By Emmanuel Narokobi

Read today in the papers about Digicel looking into data services. I don’t think they are talking about becoming an ISP but rather building a high speed data network on top of their transmission towers which space can be leased out to banks and ISP’s as well. Here is the article below:

(22/11/07, Post courier) Digicel faces row

Embattled mobile phone company, digicel’s latest move to provide data transmission is set to re-ignite the mobile phone saga. The company yesterday fended off claims its move to provide data transmission was illegal but that appeared to contradict the National Executive Council’s decision for it to provide only mobile services.

Digicel chief executive Kevin O’Sullivan told reporters on Monday that the company will spend $US25 million (K73 million) to construct SDH (synchronous digitised hierarchy) facilities to provide the transmission of data, something it is understood state-owned telecom company Telikom has the sole right to provide.

“We are going to build a high capacity SDH transmission link. It is like building an eight lane highway all over Papua New Guinea, eight lanes each way from a data transmission perspective. Is Digicel selfish to itself? No, we are going to provide access to this eight lane highway so that this means banks, ISP’s and other businesses can access transmission”, Mr. O’Sullivan said.

The cooled-down saga could re-ignite if that data transmission is constructed because State Enterprise Minister Arthur Somare last month in a media conference said neither Digicel nor Green Communications would provide services except mobile phone services. “When we introduced competition under NEC decision 25, [that] decision was specific that it would be for the mobile segment only”, he said.

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Another war may erupt, but it will all come down to classifications of services and line drawing in the sand. The way I see it Digicel is making the business case of maximizing returns on their investment into communications infrastructure. All the towers being built and setup across the country need to be used to their fullest capacity so how better to do that then to introduce more services on the network.

But just because they build a wireless network running on their towers does not mean that they are selling internet services. Because if they are talking about opening the network to ISP’s and banks to use their network, then technically they are just a pipe and not the source of data. Countless businesses in PNG have Wide Area Networks in place, even the banks with their ATM’s is a form of a data network, but they are all not selling data transmissions. All internet still ultimately comes from Telikom, it then goes to the ISP’s then on to banks, big companies, us etc. So I imagine that will be the same here in that data running off the Digicel network will have been initially bought from an ISP.

If on the other hand Digicel buys an ISP licence to sell internet access, then I can definitely see a war erupting. Even if they are acting like the current ISP’s by buying internet off Telikom first, I can see the ISP’s jumping up and down about this because they will be disadvantaged by Digicel’s reach, (but that will be another argument and we’ll cross that bridge if we get to it).

So what is this SDH?

Synchronous Digital Hierarchy is a data/voice transmission standard that was developed to allow for a more efficient transportation of voice calls along, say for our case, Digicels transmission towers. Which means you should think of SDH as a generic and all-purpose transport container for moving both voice and data, because the basic format of an SDH signal allows it to carry many different services because it is bandwidth-flexible. The main advantages of it are as follows:

1. High transmission rates
Transmission rates of up to 10 Gbit/s can be achieved in modern SDH systems. SDH is therefore the most suitable technology for backbones, which can be considered as being the super highways in today’s telecommunications networks.

2. Simplified add & drop function
Compared with older systems, it is much easier to extract and insert low-bit rate channels from or into the high-speed bit streams in SDH. Which means cheaper and faster access for say banks linking to the system if they were to use it for their ATM’s

3. High availability and capacity matching
With SDH, network providers can react quickly and easily to the requirements of their customers. For example, leased lines can be switched in a matter of minutes. The network provider can use standardized network elements that can be controlled and monitored from a central location by means of a telecommunications network management (TMN) system.

4. Reliability
Modern SDH networks include various automatic back-up and repair mechanisms to cope with system faults. Failure of a link or a network element does not lead to failure of the entire network which could be a financial disaster for the network provider. These back-up circuits are also monitored by a management system.

5. Future-proof platform for new services
Right now, SDH is the ideal platform for services ranging from POTS, ISDN and mobile radio through to data communications (LAN, WAN, etc.), and it is able to handle the very latest services, such as video on demand and digital video broadcasting via ATM that are gradually becoming established.

6. Interconnection (yes that’s the one, the big question on our minds)
SDH makes it much easier to set up gateways between different network providers, like (yes you guessed it), Telikom. The SDH interfaces are globally standardized, making it possible to combine network elements from different manufacturers into a network. The result is a reduction in equipment costs for everyone from Telikom to GreenCom to Banks etc.

[For techies out there, you can download more details here]

So what’s in it for us?

Well better, efficient banking systems hopefully, so that we can use EFTPOS cards in small towns without the system ever going down. Maybe accessing internet in the villages, so that PNG can finally get on board the information superhighway in a BIG way. Internet on mobiles, iPhones, ringtones and so on and hopefully all at prices that don’t send us to the poor house.

By Emmanuel Narokobi

Well not really like little robots taking over our phones, but rather a software called Android. But before we get to that, a little background story telling. The development of software applications in computers have been driven by 2 major schools of thought. Proprietary software and Open Source software. Whichever side of the fence you’re on it has no doubt always been a heated debate and none other than Microsoft (aka The Evil Empire) has always had to defend itself against people saying that it’s source codes being kept a secret hurts the development of software because it is not able to be more customisable, especially since they have a monopoly on desktop software. Open Source evangelists on the other hand argue that software should be customisable (such as LINUX) so that people can get exactly what they want out of a software program instead of being force fed an application that they may not entirely need.

Now having said that about software on PC’s you can’t go past the thought that the software on mobile phones must and will have to go through the same debate in terms of it’s development to make mobiles more user friendly and well just simply more useful all round. Why shouldn’t I go past that thought you may ask?

Well simply because 1 billion people are on the Internet, but nearly 3 billion people have a mobile phone, making it one of the world’s most successful consumer products. So it goes without saying then that building a better mobile phone would enrich the lives of a countless number of people across the globe. The major Operating Systems (OS) on smart phones today are Microsoft’s Windows CE and Symbian, but where would we be without Google having a go at this too? Enter Andriod, Google’s offering for an OS to challenge and hopefully expand the usefulness of the gadgets closest to our pockets and purses each day.

As you can expect though, the better software applications perform on mobiles then the further Google will be able to expand their advertising. What would be great though would be if their advertising could somehow off set the costs of some of the features we may have access to on the phone so they are free as on the internet. Again, I have no clue when PNG will see any of this technology in use, but the features shown in the video below are very intriguing nevertheless.

See also comments by Micorsoft’s Steve Ballmer.

Sep 6th 2007 From The Economist print edition

Telecommunications: The idea of sending information through the air in the form of flashes of light is being given a high-tech makeover

WHEN most people switch on a desk lamp, they usually want a little extra illumination. But not John Goodey, an engineering student at Oxford University. When he flicks the switch and turns on his lamp, a sensor on his desk downloads music tracks digitally encoded within tiny flickers in the lamp’s light. The music is then relayed through a pair of nearby speakers. This unusual set-up offers a glimpse of a future in which light, rather than radio waves, is used to send information. The concept, known as optical wireless or free-space optics (FSO), promises better security and higher data-transfer rates (up to 10 gigabits per second) than existing radio-based communications technologies, says Dominic O’Brien, a leading engineer in the field and Mr Goodey’s research supervisor at Oxford.

FSO is already used in a few niches: to connect networks in nearby offices without having to string cables between them, for example. But plans are afoot to extend the idea into a number of new areas. For example, the subtle flickering of car headlights and tail-lights could be used to transmit speed and braking information to other vehicles, to help prevent collisions. Traffic lights could alert cars when they are about to change, or broadcast the latest congestion update to waiting vehicles. In the home, FSO could be used together with interior lighting to provide extremely fast internet downloads. Since light does not travel through walls, there would be no need to worry about neighbours snooping on your e-mail, or piggybacking on your broadband connection.

Futuristic though this sounds, FSO is by no means a new idea. Soldiers in ancient Greece used polished shields to send battle orders to each other over vast distances in the form of flashes of sunlight. More recently, so-called “heliographs” have been used to relay military signals in a similar way. And it is only in the past ten years that the British navy has phased out its use of Aldis lamps to convey Morse code signals from ship to ship. Yet just as this old analogue technology was being retired, its new digital counterpart was making its debut. In the past few years a small number of companies, such as Terabeam, LightPointe and Cablefree Solutions, began offering businesses point-to-point optical systems that could send data between buildings.

These early optical systems were capable of sending information at a rate of hundreds of megabits per second (Mbps), but customers usually wanted only about 10Mbps, says Stephen Patrick of Cablefree. Back then the attraction was not speed but convenience, he says. Advocates of FSO like to say it has the speed of a fibre-optic link, and the convenience of a wireless link. It is easy to set up: simply hook up infra-red laser transceivers on top of two buildings and then align them. “The cost to install is very low,” says Mr Patrick.

There is no messing about with radio-spectrum licences or digging up roads, and FSO can also bypass prohibitive planning restrictions. In places where transmitters are not allowed on roofs, for example, indoor FSO transceivers can simply send and receive data through closed windows. FSO is also secure: the only way to intercept the signal is physically to intercept the beam.

As a result, hundreds of businesses, hospitals and universities are already using FSO. City skylines are not criss-crossed with grids of laser beams because it is all done using invisible infra-red light, says Mr O’Brien. Today’s technology can transmit data up to 4km (2.5 miles) at speeds of 1-3 gigabits per second (Gbps).

Telecoms operators are starting to take an interest in the technology as an alternative to the microwave-radio “backhaul” links that are used to link mobile-phone base-stations to operators’ core networks. FSO’s main drawback is that bad weather, such as rain or fog, can interrupt the signal. But Mr Patrick notes that microwave links are also prone to atmospheric interference. Provided FSO is set up over relatively short distances—say several hundred metres—it is a reliable technology, he says.

There is no need to worry about bad weather when using FSO indoors, of course. But maintaining a line of sight can be a problem for a laptop that is being carried around within a home or office. One solution is to use a diffuse light source rather than a laser beam, says Mr O’Brien. Using the natural reflectivity of ceilings and walls, a transmitted infra-red signal can be received by any number of receivers within a room. But this approach reduces the pace at which information can be transferred. “Most of the light doesn’t go where you want it to,” says Mr O’Brien. Nor is it possible simply to crank up the power of the source beam, because infra-red light at high intensity can cause eye damage.

So Mr O’Brien has been working on a ceiling-based system that tracks where a receiving device is, and then sends it a signal using several laser beams from a directional transmitter. He has built a prototype that runs at 300Mbps, nearly six times faster than today’s typical Wi-Fi links and reckons that speeds of up to 10 Gbps are feasible. That is not to say that Wi-Fi is obsolete. Instead, the two technologies may end up being used together: Wi-Fi as the uplink, and FSO for the much faster downlink.

The long-term hope is to transmit data using visible light emitted by indoor lighting. In Japan the Visible Light Communications Consortium, made up of industrial giants such as Sony, Toshiba and NEC, is pursuing just that goal. FSO is not possible with existing indoor lighting because incandescent bulbs cannot switch on and off fast enough. But that is not a problem for white light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which are expected to become far more widespread in the coming years, because they use less energy and are more versatile than incandescent bulbs. The combination of LEDs and FSOcould then be used to provide internet coverage throughout a home or office. Could it be lights out for radio networking?

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By Emmanuel Narokobi

The first thing that came to mind with the above technology was for banking applications. How many times have we been shopping and after we’ve heaped everything onto the counter the checkout chick tells us ’sorry system is down…’ Clearly it must be a bandwidth problem, but beyond banking think of just plain communications:

or, for us sports fans and just for developing the sports industry so that it can be supported effectively by broadcast advertising, see below: