In last week's post, I covered bandwidth requirements for the U.S. Ignite test bed network. You will remember that U.S. Ignite subscribers should have approximately 100 Mbps or more of symmetric, non-blocking bandwidth. Once this network is in place, meaningful research on advanced applications can be conducted by academia and entrepreneurs alike.
Since the GENI network and state of the art access equipment supports 1 Gbps symmetric traffic between subscriber and head-end with ultra-low-packet latency, there are many types of new applications that are feasible in U.S. Ignite research. We know that there is specific interest in telemedicine applications that allow rural or housebound residents to take advantage of remote specialists or allow senior citizens to live longer in their own homes without dedicated personal assistance. We also know that applications are needed for energy efficiency and smart living in conjunction with the Smart Grid initiative. Tele-education and tele-justice are also applications that have received a great deal of discussion recently.
The applications that I find even more intriguing are those that have yet to emerge because existing network facilities were unable to support their traffic requirements. Glen Ricart from U.S. Ignite expressed interest in high frame-rate, high definition, uncompressed video. I created the following small, standard-definition video to better illustrate my point:
Based on the numbers from the video, it is easy to see the difficulty of transporting high-speed, real-time HD video traffic across a network. Researchers will clearly have to reduce pixels per frame, bits per pixel and/or frames per second in order to constrain the traffic to a 1 Gbps pipe.
What would you do with a 1 Gbps symmetric point to point connection to a business or residence? U.S. Ignite will be holding “application challenges” that will allow researchers and entrepreneurs an opportunity to submit ideas. Who knows? Maybe your idea will get funded!!
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About the Author
Buck Graham
Technical Marketing Manager
Buck Graham has been with Calix for over eight years and currently holds the position of manager of technical marketing. Prior to Calix, Buck was a network consultant with Sweden’s Ericsson Communications and was an evangelist of all-packet converged IP networks in the wireless and wireline communication industries. His career up to that point was highlighted by architecting large wide-area networks for Wal*Mart and Western Auto to support point-of-sale applications. Buck holds an MSc Degree in telecommunications from the University Colorado at Boulder and a BSc from the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD. He is author of a best-selling technical text on TCP/IP as well as a children’s book. Buck and his family live in Danville, a nice little town in Kentucky.
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