Future Broadband Access Networks : Trends in

user and service requirements

Lars Erling Bråten

, Isabelle Tardy

, Agne Nordbotten

Zsombor Elek

, Alla Morozova

Telenor R&D, B7D, 1331 Fornebu, Norway

Könyves Kálmán krt. 12-14 (Lurdy-Haus) H-1097 Budapest Hungary

NAVUS GmbH, Zeppelinstr. 2,D-88212 Ravensburg, Germany

Keywords. Trends, Rural and nomadic users, service requirements, wireless

access.

Abstract. The interest of the current study is to describe broadband trends in

Europe based on the work performed within the BROADWAN project. The

services and user experiences in broadband trials performed in Norway showed

that always on, high-speed Internet access for PCs is a very popular service

regardless of gender. The always-on feature changes the usage pattern of the

services and leads to new ways of using broadband, such as increased use of

music and movie downloading. For private users there is traffic all day and

surprisingly high traffic loads from midnight until dawn, with some reduction

during working hours. A small fraction of the private users dominates the traffic

volume, and for these users the traffic towards the network exceeds the

incoming traffic volume. Future user behaviour is expected to follow the trends

of the users currently classified as demanding. Broadband networks must have

capability to offer the individual user a capacity that can be asymmetric on

demand in both directions. A breakthrough for capacity demanding e-services

will require that the majority of users reach a certain activity level. Volume

growth of these more demanding services requires that a large fraction of the

population be connected to broadband. Additional key elements required are

confidence and trust in e-based services by handling security issues seriously,

overcoming the language barrier, standardised online payment methods and

solving copyright issues.

Erling Bråten L., Tardy I., Elek Z., Morozova A. and Nordbotten A. (2004).

Future Broadband Access Networks - Trends in user and service requirements.

In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Shaping the Broadband Society, pages 49-57

DOI: 10.5220/0001405200490057

 SciTePress

1 Introduction

Broadband is far more than high-speed networking: it is a technology that gives

growth impulses to the economy, creates more productivity and opens new markets.

The utilisation of broadband networks is regarded increasingly more important for the

development of the European society. Broadband services facilitate and may even be

absolute necessary to maintain and increase the everyday quality of life, irrespective

of living area. Business, organisations, education, health care, cultural, community

and national authorities are obtaining more and more benefits from broadband

networks. Service convergence is expected to include traditional communication and

broadcasting services as well as provision of Internet, music, video and games in a

multi-service high-speed network.

This paper presents some early results from the partly EU funded project

“Broadband services for everyone over fixed wireless access networks

(BROADWAN)” [1]. The scope of the project encompasses a total solution for

universal hybrid broadband access networks, including deployment guidelines and

planning software, with a focus on wireless access architectures and systems. The

results presented in this paper cover trends in user and service requirements with a

scope of five to ten year into the future.

The paper is organised as follows. Trends and driving forces in the development

of broadband to all in Europe are discussed in Section 2. User observations from trials

on hybrid broadband access performed by Telenor in Norway are presented in Section

3 followed by service requirements in Section 4, based on several user characteristics.

Finally, a set of conclusions is given.

2 Broadband Trends

Technology provides increased and new possibilities to users, network operators,

service providers and content producers. Availability of broadband access to

everybody has become a political goal of high priority and is considered a necessity

for the building of the information society expressed in documents like the e-Europe

plan. Broadband coverage is still rather low in Europe; for most countries less than 20

per cent and this is a bottleneck in the development of services like e-learning and e-

health with availability for all regardless of location.

The limited deployment of broadband access also sets a limitation on the

development of broadband interactions between individuals and groups of

individuals. The starting situation of today is broadly represented by data delivery

services from central nodes such as web and ftp, and interactions within and between

organisations. The main issue that gives the mobile domain strength is connecting

people. The same effect will start developing for broadband access when population

coverage, or more precisely, participation, becomes sufficiently high, anticipated to

be in the range 50 to 70 per cent. We may then see a development where authorities at

different levels can reach all citizens and communication between individuals and

communities will develop as point-to-point, point-to-multipoint and multipoint-to-

multipoint type of interactions.

The total number of fixed telephony lines has started to decline. The trend is now

that young people have a broadband connection and a mobile phone. IP telephony is

gradually being offered as part of the broadband connection, in particular by new

operators. With IP telephony there will be more flexibility. It will serve as both fixed

and nomadic, and mobile services like MMS can be adopted at a lower cost.

Combining audio and video opens up for development of a broad range of IP based

telephone services. With everybody having a separate IP address for the phone the

location based identity assignment is gone. 3G and 4G telephone services may be

very similar for the mobile and for the IP-based broadband networks.

Services such as Internet telephony (VoIP), TV in the form of IP multicast

(Broadcast on demand) and with audio/video services/traffic between individuals is

starting to take off. In the same period there will be a strong technological push

represented by

• Increased capacity and functionality of PC and storage systems in combination

with efficient high capacity in-house networking

• Capacity for advanced software packages for coding and decoding, editing and

even language translation will give new possibilities

• New digital devices like cameras, home cinemas, surveillance equipment will

become common and create traffic as well as making it possible to produce and

deliver content from any location

• New possibilities resulting from the use of IPv6 or other more advanced protocols

There is a significant difference between the Internet usage in Western and

Eastern Europe: By 2005 it is expected that half of the population in W-Europe will

have Internet access, whereas only 20 per cent of the Eastern European citizens will

be able to go online. Dial-up or modem is currently the most widely used Internet

access mode in the Central and Easter European countries. Broadband services could

close the gap between the developments of these two regions by providing affordable

broadband services also for less developed regions of Europe.

2.1 Development in wired broadband access

Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) technology has been available since 2000;

currently this is the fastest spreading broadband technology. The Internet bandwidth

parameters of the cable systems are similar to that of ADSL, however, it is very

different from ADSL from a service provision point of view. Cable can provide triple

play, including TV, data (Internet) and telephony. After a short operational period of

ADSL the capacity limitations became clear and ADSL2 and ADSL2+ were

introduced recently. With ADSL2+ downlink capacity is increased to 20-25 Mbit/s,

but for a coverage distance limited to about 1 km. This would allow ADSL to offer

also triple play delivery. The penalty of increasing capacity is a shorter coverage

range seen from the DSL access multiplexer (DSLAM). Very high rate digital

subscriber line (VDSL) operates over the copper wires in the phone line in much the

same way that ADSL does, but there are a couple of distinctions. VDSL can achieve

speeds as high as 52 Mbps downstream and 16 Mbps upstream. That is much faster

than ADSL. However, the performance in terms of transfer speed comes at a price;

VDSL can only operate over the copper line for a short distance, about 6-800 m.

Leased line and the fibre optic technologies are mainly used by corporate users

and backbone networks, not currently by private users or SME’s. In the long run the

fibre optic has future, as the development of the technology is very promising and

there is already a move towards the use of fibre connections also to the private user.

2.2 Wireless broadband access

The interests and needs of broadband users in remote areas may differ from those in

cities and more populated areas. The importance of teleworking, remote education

and remote health services are of higher importance here. Broadband fixed wireless

access (BFWA) is a good alternative to ADSL and interactive cable solutions,

especially in rural or less developed areas. An increasing demand for BFWA is

arising in Central and Eastern Europe, owing to the lack of any suitable wired

infrastructure.

Efficient wireless access systems ensure that everyone in Europe can get access

for broadband services within a reasonable time frame. Radio based solutions offer:

• Flexible and scalable on-demand capacity

• Coverage in areas not reached by wired solutions

• Stand alone solutions for full coverage

• Competition with established broadband wired technologies

• Simple extension to nomadic users

Radio access solutions can be adapted to varying population densities and user

capacity demands through use of different frequency bands. They can provide high

capacity for dense populations in the higher frequency bands (above 20 GHz) and

cover larger less populated areas at lower frequencies.

Local Multipoint Distribution System (LMDS) is a high capacity cellular

technology operating in the frequency range above 20 GHz. The advantage of

operation in these high frequencies is the large frequency bands and thus capacity

available. The LMDS technology was a first generation technology of BFWA.

The WiMAX-backed IEEE 802.16a standard for 2-11 GHz is a wireless

metropolitan area network (Wireless MAN) technology that provides broadband

wireless connectivity to fixed, portable and nomadic users. It can be used to backhaul

WLANs to the Internet, provide campus connectivity, and enable a wireless

alternative to cable and xDSL. It provides up to 50-kilometers of service area range,

allows users to get broadband connectivity without needing direct line of sight with

the base station, and provides total data rates of up to 280 Mbps per base station

sector antenna.

Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) are in many cases substituting cable

based LAN’s. Typical locations where hot spot service will be offered initially

include hotels, airports, supermarkets and similar places where demand for nomadic

broadband data services is high.

Free space optics (laser beam) allows theoretically the same transmission speed as

fibre optics. Transmitted trough the air, the weather conditions (fog) limits its capable

bandwidth and distance.

The satellite systems are used to broadcast TV and radio programs, but are also

used for communication and Internet transmission purposes. The interactive DVB-

RCS system was developed by adding a return channel to the DVB-S system.

Standardisation is right now under way to adopt the return channel (RCS) to the new

DVB-S2 standard providing higher throughput and thus reduced cost. An increased

volume in the broadband market is expected to justify new development including

user-to-user connectivity via one satellite hop and use of multibeam technology for

increasing capacity and lowering cost. It should be noted that the technology has

definite advantages when broadcast and multicast can be applied.

User observations from several trials on broadband access in Norway are in the

next section used as basis for home user characterisation.

3 Recent user observations

The first challenge for a sound development of a heterogeneous access network is to

estimate the needs and interests of the users under the assumption that the population

as a whole gradually will have broadband access connection as well as the ability to

use it. Estimating capacity needs involves a focus on the development of users groups,

which again requires segmentation. Development trends among users, specific needs

associated with availability and cost, the educational needs of society and individual

users and technology usage are all among the factors, which have influence. Some

trends are observed from ongoing or recent trials, other has to be anticipated, but a

first study of the existing development trends gives important ideas about near term

development trends.

The users of broadband access networks extend from individuals fixed and

nomadic users to commercial organisations and public authorities, with some acting

as both content providers and consumers of information. Base station feeder links for

3G mobile networks and wireless LANs are other categories of usage. Rural users and

users in less developed areas are of special interest to the BROADWAN project.

Available traffic and service data from trials as well as from operational

broadband systems give an indication on user behaviour and traffic development [3].

It should be noted that the trial data are often obtained under special and the

interpretation of the measured data is not always straightforward. The users in the

reported trials were all private users (families) with different high-speed Internet

connections to their homes.

3.1 Users and capacity

The first results are based on regular broadband service provision to apartment houses

in Oslo, Norway [3]. Each of 2242 apartments was equipped with 10 Mbit/s access

paying a fixed monthly fee independent of the traffic volume. The capacity

consumption towards the users as well as the information generated and transferred to

the Internet during 2-weeks is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Traffic and user groups, 2-week period [2]

Fraction of total / User group Traffic characteristics

Total volume (GB) From user/to user

Top 1 % 103 2.27

Top 5 % 41 1.83

Group 1 13 1.79

Group 2 0.5 0.47

Group 3 0.13 0.26

Group 4 0.04 0.18

Group 5 0.01 0.15

The total traffic volume to all users was 7.8 GB with an average data transfer speed

(throughput when using the services) of 7.8 Mbit/s. The average traffic per household

during this time period was 840 MB.

The table shows a situation where the users with low consumption volume have

the typical www browsing asymmetry, while the consumers of high volumes of data

show the opposite trend; outgoing traffic dominates. The total traffic is dominated by

a small fraction of the users. The information in this table reflects some of the

problems under discussion. Most of the users involved would do well with ADSL or

ISDN connections. These technologies, however, do not have the capacity required to

provide triple play type of services. The central question then is: how will service

offerings and users behaviour develop in the future. Data like this explains why many

users feel they are paying the bill for the demanding customer. It illustrates why many

operators have started to offer so-called low capacity or low volume broadband

connections at a lower cost. Whether this is a short term or a long-term market place

is an open question.

3.2 Time variability of traffic

There is a need for data illustrating how a user group like this evolves with time.

Looking into development there are several possibilities and phenomena to take into

account. Many of the users are beginners and there may be a need for education. A

breakthrough for e-services will require that the majority of users reach a certain

activity level. Availability and active use of equipment for music and video handling

will contribute to increased traffic. Volume growth of these more demanding services

requires that a large fraction of the population be connected to broadband.

A recent Telenor trial offering high capacity via VDSL and LMDS in another area

in Oslo, with a combination of dwelling houses and private houses showed that the

users could be very demanding when capacity is free. Figure 1 [3] shows accumulated

data traffic in bit/s for uplink, downlink and in total for a trial with duration of 33

weeks of 40 users connected to a local area Ethernet network offering triple play

services.

Fig.1. Accumulated traffic for 33 weeks

It is observed that accumulated traffic increases steadily throughout the period and

in particular that the traffic from the users overcomes the incoming traffic after about

20 weeks. There is no indication that interest in utilising the Internet services is lost

after a short period. The daily traffic also shows some variations as illustrated in

Figure 2 [3].

5 10 15 20 25 30

Number of weeks

1 ´ 10

2 ´ 10

3 ´ 10

4 ´ 10

5 ´ 10

detalumuccArebmunfostib

Accumulated PC traffic for all users

Up and downlink

Downlink

Uplink

Fig. 2. Average traffic variations during a day.

The variation in average traffic during a day is approximately 1:2, with highest,

and close to symmetric, traffic around midnight. Traffic volume is lowest and

asymmetry highest at about 6 in the morning. Thus there seems to be room for some

additional business activity during the day. The variation during a week shows the

same type of variation for every day but with highest traffic volume during weekends.

3.3 Discussion of results

The services and user experiences in the trials showed that always on, high-speed

Internet to PCs was the most popular service offered, regardless of gender. The

always-on feature changed the usage of the services and leads to new ways of using

broadband, such as increased use of music and movie downloading. The findings

suggest that users are more active when given always on access to the Internet as

opposed to access that is preconditioned. It was observed that traffic into the network

from the homes was far higher than in other Internet settings, indicating that access to

broadband access increases users utilisation of applications generating large amounts

of traffic. There is traffic all day and surprisingly high traffic loads from midnight

until dawn with some reduction during working hours. A small fraction of the private

users dominates the traffic volume, and for these users the return traffic exceeds the

incoming traffic volume. Thus the network must have capability to offer the

individual user a capacity that can be asymmetric on demand in both directions for

fixed connections.

4 Service Requirements

The general requirement to broadband networks is to support a wide variety of

services for the different user groups, some acting also as content providers. Example

services are e-health, e-learning, e-government and e-business, the latter enabling

business communications between enterprises and individuals at any geographical

location [4].

There are some key challenges to overcome before European wide utilisation of e-

services is common. The usage of online-card payment varies from country to

country. Systems for online payment by credit card have improved, removing one

100 150 200 250

minutes inter valsduring a da y

5000

7500

100 00

125 00

150 00

175 00

200 00

225 00

Ave ra ge PC traffic on up an

downlin

up and

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downlin

uplink

barrier to e-commerce growth. Techniques are still evolving, however, and goods

ordered online may in some cases still be billed utilising traditional paper invoices.

Development of electronic signatures may make e-commerce simpler, facilitating

secure authentication [3].

An important aspect is consumers’ trust and confidence in utilising e-services.

The users expect their privacy to be protected, including security mechanisms for

authentication, integrity, access control, and confidentiality. The security issues are

considered imperative to ensure take up of broadband services by the general public,

as transfer of personal and confidential information is a prerequisite for a waste

number of public and commercial services.

Although a large portion of for example music downloads have been violating

copyrights, legal and commercially successful download portals have been

established by for example Apple (Ipod).

In addition we have factors such as user friendliness of equipment and services,

language barriers and availability of broadband access to all.

5 Conclusions

Availability of broadband access to everybody has become a political goal of high

priority and is considered a necessity for the building of the information society.

Research on the Central and Eastern European countries showed that the

telecommunication market in the region is very different from that in the Western EU

countries and as a consequence specific measures have to be taken.

With all the new possibilities and the increased access network capacity users will

have different sets of possibilities. It is no longer just to learn how to log on, send an

email and find something on the WEB. There will be strong differences between users

as a result of ability and interest. The problem of today of providing broadband

connections is shifted towards the problem of educating the majority of a population

to use the technology both for its own interest and in the building of an e-Europe

including all of the population.

The services and user experiences in the Norwegian trials showed that the always-

on feature changes the usage of the services and leads to new ways of using

broadband, such as increased use of music and movie downloading. For private users

there is traffic all day and surprisingly high traffic loads from midnight until dawn,

with some reduction during working hours. Enterprises and schools have a short

intense user period during daytime. A small fraction of the private users dominates

the traffic volume, and for these users the traffic towards the network exceeds the

incoming traffic volume. This type of usage is expected to dominate in the future, and

future broadband networks must have capability to offer the individual user a capacity

that can be asymmetric on demand in both directions.

A breakthrough for capacity demanding e-services will require that the majority of

users reach a certain activity level. Volume growth of these more demanding services

requires that a large fraction of the population be connected to broadband. Additional

key elements required are confidence and trust in e-based services by handling

security issues seriously, overcoming the language barrier, standardised online

payment methods and solving copyright issues.

References

1 Internet page www.broadwan.org

2 I.Henne, “Fremtidsrettede brede aksessnett”, WLAN workshop, Oct.2003, Oslo.

3 Deliverable D6 of BROADWAN, “User and service requirements”, April 2004.

4 “eEurope 2005, an information society for all”,

http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/2005/index_en.htm