Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Bowdon]

I just found this video while surfing around youtube. I'd read a few times online about BT were going to go to full fibre decades ago. So watching this presentation was very interesting.

1985: The case for full fibre to the home - Peter Cochrane, CTO BT
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EVWdpAJPAQ[/youtube]

Filmed in 2006 at the 21C Global Summit, then BT CTO Peter Cochrane talks about the 1980's proposal to use fibre optic all the way to the home and why, in the end it took 30 years to be approved. For anyone involved in telecommunications or engineering this is an incredible presentation.

[burakkucat]

Thank you for finding that video. I shall watch it with interest.

[Chrysalis]

Not watched it, but am I far off the mark that it was related to competition concerns?

[Bowdon]

Not watched it, but am I far off the mark that it was related to competition concerns?

It was more about people being stuck in their ways and being reluctant to change. The technology was there, and even the business case.

[licquorice]

I think you will find it was more to do with the lack of competition concerns from Ofcom.

[sevenlayermuddle]

I’ve not watched the entire video so I may regret contributing, but from similar material I’ve seen elsewhere... it doesn’t sound like the 1980s proposals had much in common with today’s goals for FTTH.

I’m not sure packetised voice was even on the radar.  I remember attending an ISDN seminar late 1980s when somebody in the audience suggested using packetised voice, dismissed by the presenter as a ‘dumb’ idea.   Did 1980s fibre carry voice as PCM?

[licquorice]

Yes, in early years multiplexed as PDH and then latterly SDH. Early fibre systems were 140Mb/s and 565Mb/s PDH, 140Mb/s PDH systems carried 1920 PCM voice channels.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Not watched it, but am I far off the mark that it was related to competition concerns?

He doesn't mention it exactly, but what I read in the past was it was going to happen right up until the government decided to privatise BT.

He does mention however that poltitics and regulation were the reasons why it didn't happen, which in reality was the privitisation of BT and that the government wanted cable companies to be built and compete, which would never have been practical had BT gone ahead as their technology and infrasructure was light years ahead at the time.

[licquorice]

The laws of unintended consequences strike again!