1. France Telecom R & D, engine testing in the future of Internet 2. An innovative technology transfer for a high-speed 3. 3 - Broadband, a major issue for years to come With the technical expertise and the innovative power of France Telecom networks group enriched regularly with the latest technology. The work of France Telecom R & D focuses on the improvement of transmission capacity Internet networks in response to the explosion of Internet traffic and new services that may be available from these networks. The project VTHD (Really Very High Speed) is the cornerstone of innovation at France Telecom in the area of broadband Internet.
1 - France Telecom R & D engine in experimentation with the Internet of the future
Anticipating the needs of increasing speed networks, France Telecom R & D began its early experiments in the field of applications and IP networks and second generation. Its objective is to accelerate the development of Internet technologies New Generation through action unifying in this area with major players in the world of research and industry.
By 1999, France Telecom R & D has initiated internal draft VTHD for an initial period of two years and is associated INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique) and Groupe des Ecoles des Telecommunications (Telecom Paris, ENST Brittany, INT, Institut Eurecom). The experiment, a first in Europe, has been labeled by the RNRT (Réseau National de Recherche des Telecommunications) July 7, 1999, which gives it a major national or even European.
The project is to deploy an experimental network of the Internet at very high speed with a wide geographical coverage, comparable to the most advanced in this field, combining bandwidth capacity and quality of service. The objective is to develop technological bricks that will be necessary for the deployment of Internet and intranet networks of the second generation. The viability of these solutions is evaluated in the context of interactive services and advanced applications.
France Telecom R & D has already established a world record in this area in 1999 reaching to get a rate of one terabit per second over a distance of 1000 km, using a conventional optical fiber. By way of illustration, it is possible with such a speed to transmit the contents of 100 encyclopedias of 28 000 pages each in one second.
In this context, the draft VTHD allows parallel:
* Validate or adapt the Internet protocols flow control and congestion to the environment of a network at high speed,
* Experiment with engineering tools bandwidth and traffic to manage a transportation infrastructure Internet services platform,
* Contribute significantly to a federation efforts for next-generation Internet.
2 - An innovative technology transfer for a high-speed
With the network VTHD, transfer over the network backbone (the main network) is potentially 40 gigabits per second (Gbit / s) or the equivalent of 625 000 telephone circuits. To achieve this flow, France Telecom has used a technology called multiplexing of wavelengths. It allows the use of multiple wavelengths to move information in parallel in a single optical fiber. One of the major attractions of this technology is to allow the gradual increase transmission capacity of fiber by adding progressive wavelength. But the flow of information transfer depends not only on fibre optics but also routers (switches networks) and interface cards between fibres and routers. For the VTHD network, France Telecom has therefore been no need to install new fibre optics: she simply installed on its network equipment last generation, gigarouteurs capable, via a laser, ship on a fiber colossal amount of information, the order of 2.5 Gbit / s per wavelength.
The backbone network consists of 8 points of presence for interconnection sites located in the Paris region, to Grenoble, in Lannion, Caen, Nancy, Rennes, Rouen, and the technology of Sophia-Antipolis. The access points are STM4 type SDH or Gigabit Ethernet, for a core network-type IP / WDM nx2, 5 Gb / s (n is the number of wavelengths multiplexed in fiber, up to 16). The flow accessible to the end user can reach 800 to 900 Mbit / s.
With such a flow, the VTHD network is able to ship a computer to another within a few seconds the content of a CD-ROM complete full text and images, or disseminate real-time video images on the big screen with an excellent definition. The technique can also ensure a stable flow and the confidentiality of data carried. The guarantees of service quality have been developed to meet the expectations in terms of safety and reliability.
3 - Broadband, a major issue for years to come
The process of constant innovation and anticipation of future needs pursued by France Telecom R & D allows France Telecom have now ultra-performance networks nationally and internationally in the field of voice, data and multimedia. All of these networks, with an excellent quality of service and able to satisfy all customers, however, are facing a growing need for increasing flow.
The growth experienced by the Internet for several years and its transformation into commercial infrastructure have increased the status of Internet data network to that of university communication infrastructure overall. This development raises many technical problems, including notably an exponential growth in traffic carried by IP networks.
The growth data is now the major phenomenon in the telecommunication environment. Some 150 million people are connected to the Internet in the world and their number increases by over 60% per annum. Besides the number of Internet users, the volume of data per user is progressing steadily.
The corporate market is particularly concerned by this trend of growth. Today, more than a French company in two is connected to the Internet. Intranets are spreading and becoming an essential element of internal communication of the company. Companies are also using more and more services to high value-added integrated voice / data / multimedia and requiring a high transmission capacity. All these factors contribute to intensify the need to develop networks to higher speeds.
May 11