Reading the news online before breakfast this (Saturday) morning I came across the PIEMAN project in Ireland. PIEMAN, or The Photonic Integrated Extended Metro and Access Network, is an EC funded project researching new broadband fibre optic technology.

The project potentially promises broadband fibre connectivity over distances of up to 100km in a single hop.  This would be a huge advance over today’s 25km (ish) for an ethernet circuit. I’d guess we turn down business on a weekly basis, because the customer’s site is too far from the nearest POP for a connection to be economically viable.

PIEMAN also introduces the idea of low cost 10Gbps connectivity, with many more users able to share the same broadband fibre. This makes the Government target of 90% penetration of 40Meg by 2017 seem very tame.