Let’s get one important terminology straightened out first. This new network that we’re talking about is what the Info-communications Development Authority (IDA) calls our Next Generation National Broadband Network, often abbreviated to Next Gen NBN, and sometimes further to NGNBN. This NGNBN is our new Fibre-to-the-Home network project, and it is part of IDA’s IN2015 masterplan.

NGNBN is a name made up by IDA. People from other parts of the world will know what ADSL and Cable means, because they are standard industry terms. NGNBN is a Singapore thing.

My apologies if this is starting to sound like an IDA presentation with all the fuzzy high-level talk mostly uninteresting to techies… but it is important to understand (if you don’t already know) some overall structure so that you can appreciate how all the bits fall into place later.

Our NGNBN is made up of several layers:

1. The passive network layer, comprising the dark fibre that reaches into the customer premises (e.g. homes).
2. The active network layer, comprising the actual network switching.
3. The retail services layer, where service providers come in to sell customers network access.

Layers of Network

Network people like layering. The physical network medium, as you already know, comprises optic fibre. The optic fibre that reaches your home is single-mode fibre. Two cores of single-mode fibre is terminated in a Termination Point (TP) in your home. The TP is a small box (125mm x 80mm x 20mm) with two SC connectors. (I know, to network engineering people, this sounds oversized, but the reason is that the TP box includes a reel to take up some excess length of fibre cable.)

All the dark fibre cables from customer premises are aggregated into a Central Office (i.e. Telephone Exchange). There are 9 such locations:

• Tuas
• Jurong West
• Bukit Panjang
• Ayer Rajah
• Ang Mo Kio
• Orchard
• East (it’s at French Road)
• Bedok
• Tampines

Active network switches are only deployed in the Central Offices. As you know, single-mode fibre can carry signals far enough. But, are you wondering, how is it possible to have so many fibre cores from customers individually terminate into a Central Office?

The answer is in the optical technology used – GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) [see Wikipedia]. Unlike Gigabit Ethernet on fibre (e.g. 1000BASE-SX or 1000BASE-LX), GPON transmits and receives on the same fibre core. Furthermore, a single core of fibre from the Central Office can be split up to 128-way toward the customer-end. In order words, a single fibre core at the Central Office is split 128-way toward the customer-end, ultimately terminating in 128 termination points (or 64 customer TP boxes, since each TP in the NGNBN design has two fibre termination points). The splitting can happen much nearer towards the customer end, such as in the MDF room within the customer building, and is accomplished with passive optical splitters.

At the Central Office end, the fibre core connects into an Optical Line Terminal (OLT). The customer-end will have a patch cord from a port on the TP to an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) or Optical Network Unit (ONU). The OLT at the Central Office is where the active network infrastructure begins. The optical distribution from Central Office to customer is entirely passive.

The OLT and ONT (or ONU, but I’ll just omit mentioning ONU for the rest of this post) terminate their respective ends of the passive optical network. The OLT-ONT can provision a variety of native services, including IP-over-Ethernet. The OLT interfaces upstream with service providers’ network services, and presents those native services to the customer at the ONT.

OLT to ONT Connection

As mentioned earlier, a single OLT port connects to multiple ONTs. Downstream traffic is transmitted on one wavelength, and upstream traffic is transmitted on a different wavelength. This means that downstream traffic from the OLT is seen by all ONTs, and all ONTs share the same upstream channel to transmit traffic.

Each ONT processes only the traffic is addressed to it, even though it can see all the traffic on that shared optical medium. Encryption is used to prevent an ONT from reading traffic addressed to some other ONT. Upstream traffic from the ONTs are time-division multiplexed on the shared optical medium.

The GPON standard (ITU-T G.984) permits several bit rates, so I’m not sure what bit rate our NGNBN has adopted. However, the industry has converged on 2.488 Gbps downstream and 1.244 Gbps downstream. This bandwidth has to be shared by all the ONTs. However, the OLT controls the optical medium and allocates time slots to ONTs. Each ONT can be provisioned with different downstream and upstream bandwidths, enabling service providers to sell different tiers of services to customers.

GPON also permits Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation (DBA) where the OLT can grant additional time slots to ONTs depending on its bandwidth demand.

Layers of Separation

Remember how networks are naturally layered, and how the NGNBN design is also layered? Well, this layering is a key foundation to enabling competition. Here’s how the NGNBN layering works:

• Wholesale Wirelines (Layer 1 Open Access): This passive optical network starting from the TP at the customer end, and the passive dark optical fibre leading up to the Central Office. The operator at this layer is the Passive Infrastructure Company, or NetCo. OpenNet is the only NetCo at this time. It’s possible (although not in the NGNBN plan) for there to be several NetCos, either operating exclusively in different geographic regions, or competitively in the same locality.
• Wholesale Bandwidth Services (Layer 2 and Layer 2 Open Access): This is the active network infrastructure, starting with the OLT in the Central Office. The ONT in the customer premise is part of this layer too. The operator at this layer is Active Infrastructure Company, or OpCo. Nucleus Connect is the first OpCo awarded by IDA. SingTel became the second OpCo in September 2010.
• Retail Services: This is the layer that provides services that customers actually buy, including Internet access services, Voice-over-IP telephone services, IP television, etc. Commercial and industry customers may even have access to a new breed of services such as CCTV networks, telemedicine, etc. The operator at this level is known as the Retail Service Provider (RSP). Right now, there are several RSPs. You probably already know who they all are… SingTel, StarHub, M1 and SuperInternet.

The way the NGNBN has been engineered thus enables a lot of flexibility and room for competition. You can buy services from different RSPs. Although there are multiple OpCos, you as a customer probably don’t get to choose OpCos directly since it will depend on which OpCo the RSP connects to. (But it is technically possible for RSP to connect to multiple OpCos, and offer customers the choice of OpCos.)

So in principle, right now, since there are two ports on the TP box, you could connect two ONTs from two different OpCo, and from the ONTs, buy multiple services from a variety of RSPs. This probably sounds rather unnecessary right now, because all the RSPs just basically offer Internet access services (some value added with telephone and/or television services), but there could well be a whole new breed of services in future.

Just so you know, the initial NetCo OpenNet is owned by SingTel (and several other partners), while the initial OpCo Nucleus Connect is owned by StarHub. So you’ve got to wonder if there is really fair competition? Well, the answer is that OpenNet and Nucleus Connect are contractually obligated to provide fair non-discriminatory services to upstream providers.

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I think, very reasonably, a normal user who actively uses data on-the-go for things like web surfing, push email, social networking, maps navigation, photo uploads, occasional tethering, will very easily consume 500MB to 1GB a month. Plans that bundle just 1GB of traffic is cutting it too close for comfort. If you are going to do music and podcast downloads, 1GB of traffic isn’t going to be enough.

I have a rather good deal on my Broadband on Mobile plan that I don’t want to give up just yet. It’s $22.42 for 50GB of data. The only downside is that the bandwidth is limited to 1Mbps download and 384Kb upload. It’s too slow. But it is good enough for mobile Internet access on-the-go. At home, and in the office, I can switch to other speedier Internet access.

This $22.42 for 50GB plan is no longer offered by SingTel. The new Broadband On Mobile 1000, as it is known, bundles only 30GB of traffic. Actually, 30GB is sufficiently generous at this time. The problem with this new plan is that it is not offered as a Value Added Service. Yes, that means you need to get a separate 3G modem dongle, and it leaves your mobile phone without a data plan.

As a value added service on top of your mobile voice plans to use with your mobile phone, SingTel’s closest offer at $19.90 bundles only 1GB of data. At $29.90, you get 10GB of data. These plans come with 7.2Mbps download speed. That’s good speed. But it will be a difficult choice between 1GB data (too little) and $29.90 (too expensive).

M1 also separates their data-only plans (to be used with 3G modem dongle) and their Value Added Service data plans (added on top of mobile voice plans). The highest end plan costs just $16.05, but only 1GB of traffic is bundled. Download speed for this plan is 7.2Mbps.

At StarHub, the best data plan you can get as a Value Added Service costs $19.90 with 1GB of traffic bundled. Download speed for this plan is 7.2Mbps.

It seems like the Value Added Service data plans from all three telcos are almost the same. Yeah, talk about differentiation and healthy competition to give customers more choices.

The best plan is if you are already signed on to some old plan. I’d have expected that as time goes on, the mobile broadband will get cheaper and cheaper. On the contrary, it seems it has now become more costly than before. What is up with our three telcos?

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My MaxOnline contract has expired (for some time actually) and I’ve been evaluation re-contract options. One alternative I was exploring was to switch to M1′s new fixed broadband service. It is basically a no-frills package that gets you about the lowest $/MB bandwidth. For users with specific broadband requirements, jumping to a new provider always raises the important questions of whether the new service will work for them?

Since the old days of SingNet ADSL which required users to install a program on their PCs to “dial-up” their broadband connection, I’ve been rather cautious about exactly how a broadband service will work. It will be a show stopper for me if a software needs to be installed to dial-up a broadband connection, and the said software only installs on Windows. What if I use Linux, or Mac OS X? What if I want to plug in a wireless router?

Okay, back to the problem with M1 Fixed Broadband. I’ve asked around, and waited for guinea pigs to sign-up. There are two show stoppers for me.

The first is that your broadband access requires login through a captive web-based login portal before you’re able to get normal Internet access. This is similar to how Wireless@SG works, as do many other wireless and broadband networks intended for mobile ad-hoc internet connections. But hey, this is fixed broadband! There is nothing mobile or ad-hoc about it. Your cable modem is fixed. In fact, M1 still requires you to register the HFC MAC address of your cable modem to activate the broadband service.

If you’re thinking it might not be too bad if all you had to do is to login once and be online forever, you’re mistaken. Login sessions last 24 hours. So you have to re-login every 24 hours.

The web-based logins make it inconvenient to run “servers”. Now, I’m not saying I want to run a public Internet website from my home. But I do want my home PC to be accessible, so that I can grab documents, photos, and various other files from anywhere else. I keep my data at home, and I want my data to be accessible from anywhere I go. There are many other reasons why people would want to do something similar too: Check on webcam at home, stream music from home, etc.

Yes, of course, we could write clumsy scripts to do auto re-login. But I think M1 should wake up and realize the stupidity of what they’re doing.

The second issue is of graver concern. It seems M1 interferes with your web traffic. From what I am told, M1 tries to do some magic to reduce the quality of images on webpages that are delivered to you, so that pages load faster and bandwidth is saved. At the same time, they insert a whole bunch of messy javascript into the HTML web content, so that when you mouse over the images, the original image content is downloaded.

As a matter of principle, I find this totally unacceptable. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons to modify content. For example, web proxy servers routinely insert a header line in the HTTP response to tell you of their presence. But it is a whole lot different to actively interfere with the actual application data, to transform it, to mutilate it, and to inject data that did not exist in the first place.

This could be a “value added feature” on a very limited bandwidth network for a mobile device with limited processing capability. But excuse me, we are talking about broadband cable service with speeds up to 100Mbps, with computers having plenty of memory and processor power.

Incidentally, I have heard many various complaints about various applications being blocked. For example, MSN Messenger doesn’t seem to work. I’m not sure if these are just temporary glitches or intentional attempts by M1 to disable other application traffic on their network. You can certainly read a lot more complaints about M1 Fixed Broadband by Googling around.

It seems M1 Fixed Broadband is like taking several steps back in the technology evolution.

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My blog posting had simply been a comparison between the new M1 Fixed Broadband offering and StarHub’s MaxOnline.

At this time, StarHub is no longer offering the Apple Time Capsule promotion which they had in September. Might as well, I guess, since I don’t really need the Time Capsule anymore now that I have a Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus to run Time Machine on. The Time Capsule promotion would have been a distraction, because Time Capsule looks cool and even though I don’t really need it, it makes me keep wondering if there are any good reasons why I should still get it. Like having 802.11n, for example.

There’s nothing new with M1 Fixed Broadband offers now. On the StarHub front, there is a new Sony Giga Juke 80GB HDD Micro-Hifi freebie that claims to be worth $699. That ought to make it more attractive than the old Time Capsule freebie (supposed to be worth $489).

I don’t really need a 80GB HDD Jukebox. But it does look nice too. I wonder if it is really worth $699? One could buy a PC for $699. What’s so great about this Juke Box?

Since my Linksys WRT54G wireless broadband router recently died on me, I might now want to consider taking up the D-Link DIR-615 802.11n wireless broadband router offered with the Hubber Bonus. It is claimed to be worth $159, which would be more attractive than taking up the $88 subscription rebate.

It’s kind of getting rather annoying that there are no compelling offers nowadays. I am tempted to go for M1′s rather no-frills offer, but I’m hesitant after reading and hearing reports about problems with their broadband service.

I wonder if anyone has comments to share about the Sony Juke Box and D-Link’s DIR-615?

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My wife and I have been wanting some kind of recording capability for some time, because we don’t have any VCR or DVR at home, so all our TV watching has to be in realtime. This is really inconvenient, of course, and so we ended up missing lots of programmes.

StarHub used to actively promote the HubStation. Depending on the contract, you could get the HubStation for free, or you could pay about $197 to own the box. Nowadays, it seems StarHub is neglecting their cable TV customers. There are no offers or promotions for the HubStation anymore. Now, I’ve got to pay $8.56 a month to rent the box. The good thing is that there is no contract. The bad thing is, after 24 months, I would have paid over $200 in rental, and with that amount of money, I could already have owned the box.

The HubStation is a revolution in watching TV. You can pause real-time live TV, so you can take a phone call and not miss anything on TV. You can rewind real-time live TV, so you can replay something you missed. You can browse and choose what shows to record from an online programme guide. Gone are the days of programming separate DVRs or VCRs where you either wind up setting the wrong time, the wrong day, or the wrong channel. The online programme guide is also convenient, it gives you a synopsis, running time, and other useful information.

Of course, this is not like a startling revelation to me. I know what interactive can do. I know what the HubStation can do. It’s just strange why we didn’t get it sooner.

The picture quality I get from my TV is now better with the HubStation. This is probably the benefit of moving to digital TV signals (as opposed to the RF analog signal previously). Oddly, the audio level is significantly lower. While the audio level as OK with my TV volume set at 19 previously, I now have to bring it up to 25. That is even with the HubStation’s volume max’ed out.

The other 2 of the “3-in-1″ features of the HubStation are uninteresting. You get free unlimited use of 1Mbps bandwidth broadband Internet access. There is no upgrade plans available for the HubStation. So, if 1Mbps is not enough (and it probably isn’t enough for most people), you’re going to need another broadband Internet access anyway, so having the 1Mbps on the HubStation isn’t very useful. To use the phone functions on the HubStation… well, you need an IAD, and also you need to pay for the feature. Sounds like a fine print designed to catch you unaware and get you to pay more.

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On the surface, the M1 packages are quite competitively priced. I’m currently using MaxOnline Premium (12Mbps). Let’s compare this with M1′s 15Mbps plan over a 24-month contract.

With StarHub, if I take the promotion with the Apple Time Capsule over 24 months I’ve to fork out $1756.56. Less $88 if I take up the Hubber Bonus for subscription rebates. The Time Capsule is supposedly worth $489. So the net cost for the MaxOnline service itself comes up to $1179.56.

With M1′s 15Mbps fixed broadband, $50.70 (for existing M1 customers) over 24 months will cost me $1216.80. There’s also a $32.10 activation fee not yet included. It comes with a cable modem too, which is probably worth about $90. So the net cost for this M1′s service is $1126.80. Also, bear in mind that this is for 15Mbps, versus StarHub’s 12Mbps.

If you adjust to a per-Mbps per-month basis, StarHub’s cost is about $4.10, while M1′s cost is $3.13. Furthermore, M1′s 15Mbps plan offers 512Kbps upload speed, better than MaxOnline Premium’s 384Kbps.

Sounds like M1′s offer is better? Of course there is the $32.10 cost to switch (the “activation fee”), and I believe M1 doesn’t offer digital voice.

I’ve not explored all the StarHub promotions of course. The Hubber Bonus, also offers better valued items such as a D-Link 802.11n wireless router (which is worth $159 but why would I want that if I take up the Apple Time Capsule promotion). Perhaps there might be something from StarHub that works out better.

Has anyone tried M1′s Fixed Broadband?

Update: I’ve learnt some things about M1 Fixed Broadband. Read about it.

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First, the domain was awarded demerit points for being a “.sg” domain. As if the whole world is made up only of “.com”, “.net”, “.org”, “.edu”, etc domains? Com’on, there are so many other country-level TLDs in the world. How can you assign demerit points simply because we are not from the US?

Next, more demerit points because my authoritative domain name server took more than 200ms to respond. The test server is in the US. Hello, did you know it does take over 200ms on average for a round trip packet from US to Singapore? It’s about 300ms ping response, for example, from StarHub Maxonline to MIT.

Then, even more demerit points because one of my authoritative servers was thought to be an “Open DNS”, which means it will respond to recursive queries. This is bad only if your DNS for *.somewhere.com will answer queries from other people (outside your own network) for names outside your domain. But my authoritative name servers do support recursive queries because it wants to answer for sub-domains within my domain! It isn’t an Open DNS, it’s just being helpful to answer for my domain and all sub-domains!

After summing up all the demerit points, we score an “F”. The scale starts at “A”, I’m not sure where it ends. I imagine there isn’t anything worse than “F”.

How did I come to know about this ridiculous report from DNSStuff.Com? Well, a certain MNC sent an email to my helpdesk to complain that their mail server couldn’t send email to my domain. Their mail server indicated a “DNS error” when trying to send email to us. They then produced the DNSStuff.Com report that showed we scored an “F” and thus suggested our DNS was broken. After over a week and countless email bouncing between too many people, they are still reproducing the same report as if it were the Gospel truth. It says you scored an “F”, therefore it is your Fault. F is for Fault.

I was just thinking, if your mail server is experiencing a DNS error, shouldn’t you check your mail server’s DNS server? I.e. the DNS server that your mail server talks to? Anyone with basic troubleshooting skills should understand the need to probe systematically from known facts, such as where the error is occurring. How can you make a wild guess, conclude with some irrelevant evidence, and then throw the problem to someone else?

I shan’t name this large and well known MNC, but I don’t believe their technical staff were so incompetent. I suspect their network engineering staff simply didn’t care, and their server administrators were simply trying to assign blame to someone else. They’re probably thinking that we are Singaporeans, thus it must be our fault. No need for any sound technical reasoning. Just assign the blame.

They are probably thinking if there is a world larger than the United States… it doesn’t matter, because the world revolves around the United States.

Many years ago, when I visited the US on a technical study trip, we shared our broadband experiences in Singapore with some of their people, including next-generation network engineering people from companies like MCI. That was 1997. In 1997, we already had ADSL and cable broadband across most of Singapore. When we mentioned this to some of their next-generation network people, they stared at us with puzzled looks. Then they asked, “You’re talking about an upcoming project?”

No. We are talking about what’s happening “now”. They couldn’t believe us. In fact, they re-phrased their question a few times, as if suspecting that we couldn’t understand English. They couldn’t believe a tiny country like Singapore could roll out broadband on a national scale.

Of course, there must be many other Americans who are not so short-sighted. I’m just unfortunate to run into those who are seriously myopic.

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Alamak, someone needs to inform iZZinet, the Malaysian operator of this new mobile broadband service, what 4G is. For a start, check out the Wikipedia definition. Oh no, iBurst, the technology that iZZinet uses, is classified as pre-4G. The “4G” service sold by iZZinet operates at a mind-boggling 1Mbps downlink speed. Yes, that’s right, 1Mbps. Anyone wants to guess the downlink speed for a modest 3.5G technolog humbly known as HSDPA?

The Wikipedia idea of 4G expects convergence of voice, data and multimedia streaming on a wireless IP based network. From what I can gleam about iBurst, it seems to only carry data. (Of course you could then build VOIP over it, etc, but that is not an integrated solution incorporated into iBurst.) Other iBurst operators, such as the iBurst in Australia, doesn’t even make any reference to 4G. Possibly, the real speed of iBurst may only be down to 150Kbps (according to Angus on Goozeberry), with similiar speed complaints from iZZinet users (MyPDACafe).

ArrayComm, the people behind iBurst, should be credited for developing an innovative mobile broadband technology that was cool at that time. It’s probably the marketing types further downstream who have turned it into 4G.

For now, I think 3G (and 3.5G if you will) works sufficiently well. It would be nice to be faster, but just about anything and everything would be nice to be faster. Speed is never enough.

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