Telecom Solutions - What a Difference 7 Years Makes

I have been very fortunate in my lifetime to have been able to travel to Europe several times. As my career path took me into the world of telecommunications, I was always curious about the systems in place where I visited and how much they compared to ours in North America. What I saw 7 years ago shocked me into hysterical laughter - situations like the ones pictured below were commonplace.

 

 

I had been planning a family trip to Italy and was excited to use this theme for my blog. Imagine my surprise... 

In previous visits, telecom cables - sometimes mixed with power cables - were draped from window to window, resembling bunting, coiled into bundles and tacked to an outside wall or just lying on the sidewalk waiting to be tripped on or run over by car or pedestrian. As much as I looked for these outside plan nightmares on my recent visit, I could not find a single instance. What happened during the time I had been here? 

Well, a couple major things had happened - both of them interconnected, pun intended. In one word - data, and especially high speed data. We here in North America have become accustomed to instant access to information via our laptops, smartphones, and tablet devices. We need them to perform even the most basic tasks now - tasks we never would have thought of doing on these devices 15 to 20 years ago. In Europe, these services existed only in the domain of big businesses and government, certainly not ordinary citizens. That has changed and the countries that have embraced technological advances have made huge strides. I was amazed that every airport I visited had free Wi-Fi, something you do NOT see in most US airports, as well as many free mobile hot spots. There is even a name for the new look of the people using devices as they go through their day - iFace. Stand in front of a mirror and look down at your device and just move your eyes to see in the mirror what you look like. They used to be called double chins :) 

There is a second factor in the mad rush to technology. All of those cables dangling around were made of copper. Not only did copper become a very expensive commodity - and therefore subject to rampant theft and loss of services - it was not a good media for high speed data. Enter fiber optic cable - capable of carrying unlimited amounts of data over a strand about as thick as a single hair. So, decisions started being made about what to do in this situation - replace the copper to bring service back quickly or plan for an intensive fiber optic network build? As I mentioned in my previous blog regarding Smart Cities, many countries and municipalities teamed up with telecom, datacom, and broadcast service providers to design a buried network that would carry all of the traffic and build it at one time, causing huge disruption to streets and customers, but only once. These fiber networks also carried traffic, street lighting, irrigation, and security systems. The result is an amazing view of beautiful cities as they were intended to be viewed - without the obstruction of unsightly cables. And, and added bonus of instant data availability. On one stop in Lyon, France, there was evidence of a sense of humor as the communications tower below was made to look like a replica of the Eiffel Tower. 

I thought I would be disappointed not seeing all of the rats nests and gloating about our superior infrastructure, but instead I just enjoyed the beautiful views. Just don't get me started on the Autostrade - where the standard driving speed is 81 MPH...I aged five years on those drives. 

-Suzanne Beck
VP Business Development
Telecom Solutions - Telamon Corporation