Data Communication in Wired Networks

Data Communication Business in Wired Networks.

A Business Analysis.  by  Abraham Paul  MD/CEO Future Groups (India) FCOMNET (UAE) Why Innovations centered in Mobile telephone Business?  

• Telephone develops a special relationship with its owner. Mobility ensures more closeness. The main push is due to Mobility and the sudden found freedom.

In business sense, Mobile technology opened out higher scope of quick business growth.

  - Quicker time to market and brake even.  

- More money made in end user terminal business than in access n/w and  systems.  

- Less rigid than conservative standards in terms of QOS and overall life cycle of H/W & S/W. Compromised QoS  initially is generally acceptable in wireless networks though may become becomes major consideration later.

Evolution of ETSI for  GSM standards pushed  Wireless technology and dampened development in wired services.

• ITU had been not very active in between and no much development happened in neither the fixed network or its interworking with IDN  / IP networks. 
• After CCS7, there is no much advancement in CITT in advanced signaling needs like CCS8 and so on.

Wired Networks are not fully exploted yet.  Fixed network have more scope for cheaper bandwidth of higher QoS.

• Technology for converged networking starting from user premises, in the access loop network and switching pipes are readily available.
•   Analogue to digital and  UDI to TCP/IP conversion is possible right at the user’s  device to compress transport in limited bandwidth.
•  FR in the access network and Voice over ATM and IP-over ATM and in the switching systems and MPLS in the network would do the trick for Packet switching of converged service contents. 

 Like any other business, Telecom business also succeeds by playing with the volume. For building volume the commodity must be Acceptable, Available and Affordable for the general public. 

• For the time being 2.5G, 3G etc are too expensive for the telecom Service provider to implement and make it available and affordable for the common man, hence offer poor usiness viability.
• While expensive products cannot gather enough volume to make the business viable,  why not give currently wired telecom users internet access at cheaper rates. If monopoly service providers cannot do this, better to un-bundle of local loop to open up its better usage.

Issues related to un-bundling local loop. The legacy systems cannot handle the high data call volume in CS mode. Telephone traffic is the product of incident Call attempts and the Average holding time AHT of the calls.

While AHT of a voice call is around 1 to 2 minutes, the AHT of an internet call is at least 20 times of AHT of voice calls. It means that, if 25 % of the Telecom subscribers are using Internet during the busy hour, the switchingsystem need 5 times call handling capacity. So the usage is discouraged by making the internet access costly.

For the same reason, un-bundling to allow other Service Providers to use the local loop is not practical. This brings out opportunity for other Communication Service Providers like TV channel providers to encroach into Internet access business in the form of IPTV etc. Becuse of the limitations of exisitng copper pair connectivity,

Fibre to Home FTH will become more advance end link for industrial, business and high data user subsribers.  

Converrgence of Wired and Wireless nsetworks and systems. In due course, sooner than later, there will happen convergence of wired and wireless netwworks as the discriminating factors on both, access network and switching sytems are becoming common. Optical fibre cable for back bone and distribution  and WiFi / WiMax for end links will become the order of the day.    

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