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TIME Europe, March 23, 1998
Instant Internet
Faster networks are on the way
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It would be the biggest classroom in the world: students in Switzerland, Japan, Canada and Siberia sharing a virtual lesson on the World Wide Web, seeing and hearing each other in real time.
Even though some would be using low cost equipment, the students would be able to control their communications platform more effectively than most TV stations can coordinate their telecasts. Students could alternate controlling the network, turning audio, video and data feeds into a mosaic of talking heads, charts and graphs, creating the feeling that up to 20 scattered groups are gathered in one room. The technology exists. New software developed at the Technical University of Madrid can juggle signals from different networks, operating systems, and compression tools, allowing students to build virtual unified networks. But the system requires at least two megabytes or more to run well. Most Europeans are lucky if their stretch of the information superhighway permits speeds of 64 kilobytes per second.
Until this changes, it will be difficult to introduce some of the state-of-the-art services envisioned for the smart homes of the future (see cover story). But help is on its way. Service providers in Europe will soon offer a range of options which will enable consumers to download images in seconds rather than minutes.
ASYMMETRIC DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINE
About 20 different telecommunications companies across Europe are testing a technology with the daunting name of asymmetric digital subscriber line, or A.D.S.L. It permits rapid transmission of big stacks of data over ordinary copper phone lines. Deutsche Telekom will be among the first to launch the service, with plans to announce a full-scale commercial roll-out during the CeBIT trade fair. Telekom will target advertising agencies and small businesses at first and eventually offer the high-speed services to a wider audience.
Other operators with A.D.S.L. plans include France Telecom, which has been testing in Brittany and Paris for the last two years; Norway's Telenor, which is testing video-on-demand in Oslo; and British Telecom, which has linked over 2,000 homes and businesses in west London to test multimedia and interactive services. A.D.S.L., which can handle speeds of up to 6 megabits but currently operates at around 1.5 megabits, is designed for teleworkers and businesses who can't afford to wait for a connection to the Internet. In the U.S., A.D.S.L. services are available for as little as $50 per month. In Europe it is expected to be expensive because there's no bandwidth sharing — the user literally owns the whole line.
CABLE MODEMS
Hitching a ride on your TV's cable connection can offer speeds of around two megabytes per second. It's cheaper than A.D.S.L. but has drawbacks of its own. Because the consumer shares his television connection, and hence his Internet connection, with about 200 other individuals, the capacity available to any one customer inevitably drops when others are using the service, thereby slowing things down. Still, the service has proved very popular where it has been tested in the U.S. and in France. About 20 cable operators, including the U.K.'s NTL and United Pan-Europe Communications in the Netherlands, are expected to launch cable modem services this year.
SATELLITES
By offering faster data transmission than so-called integrated services digital network (I.S.D.N.) phone lines and at a reasonable price, satellite broadcasters like Societe Europeenne des Satellites (SES), the Luxembourg-based operator of the Astra satellite system, could become a big driver of Internet services. Although initially this technology will only offer speeds of around two megabytes per second, from early 2000 consumers can expect to see satellite service speeds of up to 38 megabytes — fast enough to download a 90-minute movie in seconds.
POWER LINES
Perhaps the most intriguing approach is to use the cables which deliver electricity to home and office. While other access technologies require a complete revamping and rebuilding of infrastructure, domestic power lines can be used just as they are. "The electricity distribution grid is the world's largest full-coverage cable infrastructure...all we do is add a base station in the network and a box in the home," says John Laycock, director of Network Enterprise Development at NOR.WEB DPL Ltd., a 50-50 joint venture between Nortel Networks and United Utilities PLC in the UK. NOR.WEB expects to make the first commercial offers a few months from now.
Seymour Park Primary, a public school in Greater Manchester, in the U.K., is the first testbed. There 12 computers are connected to the Web by utility power lines, which deliver Internet access at speeds of up to one megabyte per second — ten times faster than today's fastest dial-up modem. "The new system means information arrives virtually instantaneously," says Jenny Dunn, a teacher at the school. In spite of all the new technologies on the drawing board, it will be a while before the rest of us have that kind of access.
With reporting by STEVEN ZWICK
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