Telecommunications/connectivity to and within Iceland

Transcription

1 Telecommunications/connectivity to and within Iceland Speaker: Jón Ingi Einarsson General Manager of RHnet, the University and research network of Iceland 1

2 Overview For the Icelanders the direct communications with the outside world did start through a submarine cable and later on through radio/ wireless. We will look briefly at that history and finish by the present state of affairs and mention a couple of future prospects. Also some details or overview of the cabling infrastructure will be given. 2

3 3 Long distance communication possible across an ocean? The first real breakthrough was in 1858 when the first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid (although it failed about three weeks later). This was done by two steamships as there was no ship available that could carry the whole cable, but to some it showed that this was possible. But others were not impressed and some reasoned that such a long cable would only be able to offer very slow communication speed. The picture is of Agamemnon, one of the steamships used to lay the cable in 1858 and shows a whale crossing the cable as it is layed. This caused a slight tension aboard as this was not anticipated.

4 Connecting the continents through Iceland? In 1854 a word came to Iceland that a man named T.P. Shaffner was interested in the laying of cable from Copenhagen to America, through Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland and he did make some surveys, but Others though it best to cross Siberia, the Bering Strait (82 km), to Alaska. Work on this route was started. 4

5 1866 A telegraph cable across the Atlantic 1866 is the year that the two continents were connected together, this time with an improved cable and the only ship able to carry the whole cable (about 5000 tons). The ship in question, Great Eastern, was launched in 1858 and was by far the biggest ship afloat. One of its designers was I. K. Brunel, that many consider as one of the greatest engineers of that era. With each project he expanded engineering technique beyond anything known or imagined (John Lienhard at University of Houston). I. K. Brunel beside the Anker chains of Great Eastern 5 Drawing of Great Eastern

6 A landmark telegraph cable: Across the Atlantic in

7 The first telegraph cable across the Atlantic The first big step in the laying of submarine cables, in essence a giant step considering the state science at the time. Understandably many thought this was impossible. This drawing is supposed to be from a meeting with Cyrus Field on the 8 th of May 1854 when the New York, Newfoundland and London Company was founded. Cyrus Field turned out to be the biggest driving force of this idea (project), even though much of the money, ships and all of the cable came from Britain. 7

8 Few highlights in the history of submarine cables 1849 A telegraph cable between the UK and France (Broke down 8 days later) 1851 International telegraph service by coaxial undersea cable in the Straits of Dover 1858 The first transatlantic telegraph cable (Failed in three weeks) 1866 The first commercially successful transatlantic telegraph cable 1877 Experimental transmission of telephone over the Atlantic telegraph cable (Failed) 1884 San Francisco-Oakland cable telephone service started 1943 Coaxial cable with repeaters (in the UK) 1956 TAT-1 (the first transatlantic telephone cable) 1964 TPC-1 (the first transpacific telephone cable) 1988 TAT-8 (the first system that deployed optical fiber over the Atlantic) 1989 TPC-3 (the first transpacific optical cable system) 1997 FLAG (the first investment joint cable system) FLAG: Fiber-optic Link Around the Globe 8 Originally taken from Alan L. Varney: radio_timeline-3.htm See also:

9 About 40 years later the Icelanders isolation was finally ended: The first telegraph cable to Iceland came in In 1904 an agreement was made with the Danes and the Great Northern Telegraph Company about a telegraph cable to Iceland and telephone line from Seyðisfjörður in the east of Iceland to Reykjavik. The cable would link Lerwik, Shetland Islands Torshavn, Faroe Islands and Seyðisfjörður, Iceland. It should formally open the 1st of October The cable came to shore at Seyðisfjörður on the 18th of August 1906.

10 Iceland connected to the wider world by telegraph cable 1906 The steamer Cambria, a specially built cable laying ship, that was used in laying the first communication cable to Iceland. The picture shows the ship at Lerwick, Shetland Islands in (Error in picture text.) 10

11 The development between 1906 ~ 1950 a short overview 1906 The first telegraph cable to Iceland. Telegraph service opened to abroad from Seyðisfjörður. Telephone and telegraph service service from there to Reykjavík. Landsími Íslands (the national telephone company) established The wireless station in Reykjavik, Reykjavík radíó oftskeytastöðin í Reykjavík, Reykjavík radíó, established. Morse is used in all communications The telephone system now finally a ring around the country Telephone service to ships and boats through wireless MW (medium wave) The first automatic telephone exchanges in Iceland oprerational Telephone service on wireless SW (short waves) to abroad opened. The telephone and postal service merged into one company: Póstur og Sími A service to establish a connection between ships and a telepone user on land set up Radio communications in service of international airplaine traffic started. Morse code is used Telephony on SW to N-America. Partly from:

12 Another landmark cable in 1956: TAT-1 the first telephone cable across the Atlantic. It was not possible to transmit voice across very long cables until it was possible to insert amplifiers regularly within the cable. (Consider bandwidth, attenuation and noise.) Even though the transistor had been invented in 1947, tubes were used as the amplifying element in the first telephone submarine cables. 12

13 The development in Iceland 1951 ~ 1986 a short overview 1951 Voice communications to aeroplanes Scotice, a telephone cable between Iceland, Faroe Islands and Britain Icecan, a telephone cable between Iceland, Greenland and Canada The state television RÚV starts to broadcast in September that year RÚV starts to broadcast in color! 1980 The earth station Skyggnir opened for service. Telephone connections to abroad now go through satellites. Users can dial directly to numbers abroad! 1984 The first digital telephone exchanges set up and eleven years later all the exchanges were digital The laying of fiber optic cable around Iceland commences All telephones in the country connected to an automatic telephone exchange. Masts carrying telephone cables have mostly dissapeared as the cables were put in the ground. (The precursor to GSM): The NMT mobile telephone system established Source:

14 14 The first telephone cables to Iceland were connected in 1962 and SCOTICE, 1962 The old cable from 1906 failed on the 9th of January 1962 and was not used thereafter. SCOTICE became operational on the 22nd of January 1962 and offered initially 24 voice channels. ICECAN, 1963 As seen previously telephone connections to and from Iceland had been available on SW since 1935 (1947 to USA). Icelanders owned nothing in these cable systems, except the landing station for the cables in Vestmann Islands. To facilitate the laying of these cables, the Icelandic government made an agreement with The Great Nordic Telephone company, offering exclusive rights for telephone connections from Iceland for 25 years. Another vital element was an agreement with ICAO, as the number of flights across the North Atlantic were continually increasing.

15 15 Connections through SCOTICE og ICECAN I spite of these cables the telephone connection to abroad was not too secure. A number of incidents/failures were on these cables, especially in the beginning, both by fishing vessels and icebergs around Greenland. Sometimes both were down at the same time. Radio links were used as backup. But with these cables the cost of telephony to abroad was somewhat reduced and the use nearly doubled each year. Soon the number of channels on the cables were too few to meet demand. In 1973 a group was formed by the initiative of Póstur og Sími to explore the cost of a new cable between Iceland and Faroe Islands. Another group was also formed with the task of examine the cost of establishing earth station in Iceland capable of communicating through satellites. Results were available in 1974 and the latter option was considered more economical.

16 16 The connections to and from Iceland: The earth station, Skyggnir After some discussion with the Great Northern an agreement was made in 1977 on building an earth station and its ownership. (The Icelanders wanted most to own it themselves.) The earth station was formally operational on the 6th of October The station was given the name Skyggnir. Even though the number of telephone calls increased 100% in its first year of operation, for the first time the demand could be met. The ease of use was increased as the users could now dial directly to abroad and that was also cheaper than calling a human operator at the switchboard and have him/her place the call.

17 The development between 1986 ~ 1994 a short overview 1986 Connection to the Internet : When the Marine Institute connected to the European Unix network (Eunet). The connection was at first 300 bits per second and the Marine Institute and the University of Iceland were connected together Research institutions establish a union, SURÍS The running of SURÍS was moved from the Marine Institute to the computing department of the University of Iceland (RHÍ) and the international connectivity was moved to NORDUnet. NORDUnet is a joint collaboration by the Nordic National Research and Education Networks (NREN s): Forskningsnettet in Denmark, Funet in Finland, RHnet in Iceland, Uninett in Norway and SUNET in Sweden, and operates a world-class Nordic and International network and einfrastructure service for the Nordic research and educational community. More info at: The fiber optical submarine cable, Cantat-3, opened for traffic. The mobile telephone system, GSM, opened for service. 17

18 In 1994 the first optical cable connected to Iceland: The CANTAT-3 submarine optical cable 18 Canadian Transatlantic cable no. 3 - CANTAT-3

19 CANTAT-3 more info The length is about 7500 km Number of regenerators : 89 Regenerate the signal as it travels through the cable. This was the last cable across the Atlantic that used this technique, optical amplifiers and WDM were the next evolutunary steps for the optical fiber. Total capacity 5000 Mb/s = 5 Gb/s Operational in 1994 Owners: Teleglobe (An Indian company buys Telegleobe in the summer of 2005 *) Deutsche Bundespost British Telecom Telecom Denmark Síminn 19 *Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited, VSNL. India's leading provider of international communications and Internet services." Now renamed to TATA Communications. Cables from around 1990

20 20 CANTAT-3 The connection to Iceland was to Vestmann Islands ( Heimaey ). Submarine optical fiber was layed from Westmann Islands to the mainland. To enhance the security a microwave link was also established between Heimaey and the mainland. A radar was also set up to follow the sea traffic around CANTAT-3.

21 The development between 1995 ~ 2004 a short overview All telephone centrals digital. Consequently some new services were offered The company Post and telephone ( Póstur og sími hf. ) formally established as a limited company Breiðbandið becomes operational. Telephone services seperated from the postal service. Landsími Íslands Inc. begins operation. Competition within telecommnunications opened up. TAL Inc. sets up a GSM a mobile telecommunication system Internet in Iceland Inc. (Intis) increases its connection to USA to 45 Mb/s New legislation on telecommunications come into force where each household ar should have at least 128 kb/s (ISDN) available. TETRA system becomes operational. Reykjavik Internet Exhange (RIX) established The Icelandic research and educational network (RHnet) formally established the 24th of January. The University -_Hospital, several research institutions and all the universities in Reykjavík connected together with a ring connected fiber optic network with gigabit transmission capacity. a new fiber optic cable layed across the highland to Akureyri Og Vodafone established through a merger from TAL Inc. and Íslandssíma Inc. New legislation on telecommunications come into force where there is no longer necessary to have a special licence to offer telecommunications services, but are now able to use general licences Farice fiber optic cable formally opened on the third of February

22 Yfirlit yfir ljósleiðaralagnir Lína.Net á höfuðborgarsvæðinu 22 Part of Gagnaveitan fiber structure in the Reykjavik area

23 23 Overviev of sites connected to RHnet few years back

24 24 Fiber layout of Tengir Akureyri

25 FARICE : A new fiber optic submarine cable 25 On the 12 th of September 2002 a preparatory group was formally made to look into the prospect of getting a new fiber optic cable to Iceland. The group or company got the name FARICE. The founders were: Landssíminn Telefonverkið P/F Icelandic monetary fund.. RHnet Inc. Fjarski Inc, Kall P/F (Færeyjum) SPF P/F (Færeyjum) Lína.Net Inc. TAL Inc.

26 26 Overview over FARICE Biggest shareholders: Ísl. ríkið, Landssíminn, Faroese Telecom, Og Vodafone Main Supplier: Pirelli Submarine Telecom Systems Technical Consultant: TDC Consult System Reach: City-to-City Points of Presence: Reykjavík, Tórshavn, Edinburgh Business Concept: Carriers carrier Landing Point in Iceland: Seyðisfjörður, on the East Coast Landing Point in the Faroes: Funningsfjørður Landing Point in Scotland: Dunnet Bay on the North Coast Overall Length: 1,407 km Technology: DWDM Number of Fibre Pairs: 2 Number of amplifiers: 14 Capacity: Up to 360 Gb/s per pair Laying of Cable: June-Aug 2003 RFS Date: End 2003 Total cost: > 40 m From a talk by Páll Jónsson on Farice 27/08/2003

27 The FARICE cable A picture of a cable similar to the one that was used for FARICE. The difference between the two is the amount of armouring that is in place as a protection from the possible external forces. 27

28 The Greenlanders first fiber optic submarine cable: Greenland Connect. Opened for traffic in Mars Total capacity is: 2x48x10Gb/s = 960 Gb/s 28

29 The Greenlanders first fiber optic submarine cable A slightly different drawing of the cables between the countries, The red line shows the Greenland Connect. 29

30 The latest fiber optic cable to Iceland: Danice At the end of the summer of 2008 a new cable was destined for Iceland, this time from Denmark (Blaabjerg). It would use the same landing site as Greenland Connect on Landeyjarsandur. This new cable has four pairs. Each pair has Gb/s channels. The total capacity is therefore: 4x128x10Gb/s = 5120 Gb/s, or about 5,1 Tb/s (Tera = ) The laying of the cable was not finished until in the summer 2009 and it was ready for service later that summer. 30 Picture from:

31 The cable landing site for Danice og Greenland Connect at Landeyjar Danice landing at Landeyjar 31

32 Overview of the present cables to Iceland (So in the year 2009 Iceland had for the very first time a reasonable connectivity!) Danice: 4x128x10Gb/s = 5,12 Tb/s Farice: 2x36x10Gb/s = 720 Gb/s Greenland Connect: 2x96x10Gb/s = 1,92 Tb/s The cables to Iceland. The situation since

33 Overview of the present fiber ring around Iceland 33 From a talk by Sæmundur E. Þorsteinsson at Míla

34 A new possible cable to Iceland: Emerald Express Target for operation in Iceland Q Planned system capacity is four pairs. Each pair designed for 100 cannels and each channel 100Gb/. Total capacity then: 4x100x100Gb/s = 40Tb/s 34 See more on:

35 Possible projects in the artic region ROTACS: Russian Optical TransArtic Cable System 35

36 Possible projects in the arctic region (2) 36 See more on:

37 37 Thanks for listening!

38 Attenuation curve of a fiber 38 38