Alcatel-Lucent

We’ve seen the future and it’s (still) copper

Alcatel-Lucent is promoting a commercial broadband-over-copper solution. Its new equipment design will deliver better broadband speeds with standard VDSL2 (stands for Very-high-speed Digital Subscriber Line 2) plus vectoring. Alcatel-Lucent says its vectoring approach helps to boost speeds significantly. The telecom giant is letting communications service providers know that the future is copper, still. Now, though, it’s a future with better data speeds and capacity, capable of broadband speeds of 100 Mbps and beyond.

Alcatel-Lucent fourth quarter 2010 earnings

Alcatel-Lucent delivering on its 3-year transformation journey

Further strong market & company improvement expected in 2011

Key numbers for the year 2010

• Revenues of Euro 15.996 billion, up 5.5% year-over-year
• Adjusted gross profit of Euro 5.572 billion or 34.8% of revenues
• Adjusted operating income of Euro 288 million or 1.8% of revenues
• Operating cash flow of Euro 851 million
• Net (debt)/cash of Euro 377 million as of December 31, 2010

Interference:

While high-speed technology can theoretically reach transfer rates exceeding 100Mb/s, it has not been broadly implemented in the access network because of the limitations of copper as a medium. Copper suffers from electromagnetic interference both from ambient environmental factors and from the signals transmitted over the other wires bundled in a shared cable. This interference dramatically reduces the signal quality and the practical distance that a faster signal can travel.

Research Reports

The analysis of some technical research reports are discussed below.

• SAN JOSE, Calif. — For making possible the global phone network — and with it 976 numbers, home-delivered Chinese food and “Larry King Live” — the world owes copper wire a debt of gratitude. Copper wire, though inexpensive and ubiquitous, has had a klutzy reputation as a relatively crude transmission medium. It was expected to give way to snazzy, speedy and expensive fiber optics for the next communications revolution — that of high-speed data exchanges between computers.
• “Use of copper in last mile communication cannot be completely removed in telecommunication but as technologies such as GEPON, FTTH gain popularity fiber would gain far bigger share as preferred medium in last mile connectivity,” concluded Tamhane.
• Mylaraiah JN, country technical manager at Tyco Electronics once said about the price of copper and fiber cables that:

Market Analysis of Copper Cables

Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) Cables Projected to Have the Highest Growth of All Copper Cables Used in Structured Cabling Systems (SCS) ^{// 12.05.2011}

HUMMELSTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA — FTM Consulting, Inc announced that its latest study, “U.S. Structured Cabling System Copper Cabled Forecast”, examines and forecasts the three major types of copper cables: UTP, STP and Coax. Frank Murawski, President, said, “STP cables are expected to have the highest growth, at 26.4%, over the next five years. The total copper cable market for SCS is forecast to grow from $4 billion in 2011, at a 20.8% rate, to more than $10 billion by 2016. Most of this growth is driven by existing installations upgrading from early Cat 5 UTP cabling plus the need for copper cable in new networking applications, such as VOIP or data centers. The pie chart shows the distribution of the three different copper cable types for 2011 and 2016.”

The study provides quantitative data on the following:

• How large will the shielded cable market be compared to UTP cables?
• Cat 6 versus Cat 6a — what will be the larger market in the future?

Five-year forecasts to 2016 include:

• UTP and shielded cables by plenum & non-plenum — by categories;
• Coax cable by plenum & non plenum & cable types;
• Future technology outlook — examines copper cable beyond 100 Gbps; 400 & 1000 Gbps.

UTP cables are expected to continue to dominate the market, with a 92.6% share in 2011, increasing to a 95.6% share in 2016. STP cables, even with their high growth rate, are expected to capture a minor share, from 2.2% in 2011 to a 2.8% share by 2016. This includes the anticipated TIA standard for Cat 7 and Cat 7a STP cables. STP cables are viewed as a niche market product for those smaller installations needing higher bandwidth than is available with

UTP cables, but due to financial considerations are reluctant to upgrade to fiber cabling. Coax cable is projected to decline, as the primary cabling application of security video camera networks evolves from coax cable to high-performance UTP cable, which is capable of supporting the video signals.

Detailed forecasts for copper cable can be found in this study, as well as copper cable usage beyond 100 Gbps, using multiple lanes of 10 Gbps or 25 Gbps UTP cables to support 400 and 1000 Gbps over limited distances in the future.

Copper Infrastructure

The copper infrastructure not needs to be changed while upgrading the technology. However, there are alternatives to fiber being developed for commercial use within the next year or so. Most of the world’s existing wire-line access infrastructure is still copper-based. By exploiting that copper infrastructure, network operators might soon turn to these developing technologies to provide residential customers with the bandwidth they need. The alternative, fiber optic, is only available to about 20 percent of U.S. businesses, according to Carl Grivner, president of XO Communication, while the existing copper infrastructure is available nationwide.

•  “Advances in copper technology deliver speeds many times faster and at lower cost than ever envisioned during the early 2000s when fiber was considered the only mechanism for broadband access,” said Grivner in a letter published Monday in The Hill, a political newspaper.
• “Companies like mine deploy Ethernet over Copper, delivering speeds up to 45 Mbps where we have access to this vital–and existing–infrastructure.