BIGFON

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BIGFON ( Broadband Integrated Fiber Optic Telecommunication Local Area Network ) was a system test to test broadband communication that the Deutsche Bundespost carried out from 1981 to 1988 in seven cities ( West Berlin , Hamburg , Hanover , Düsseldorf , Stuttgart , Nuremberg and Munich ).

aims

In each case, 28 to 50 participants were connected to the local public network via fiber optics. Around a third of the participants were companies. Ten test networks were set up by six different telecommunications companies or groups of companies in a technical competition for different concepts.

From 1984 onwards, the individual local networks were connected to one another using fiber optic cables . The first broadband integrated fiber optic long-distance connection (BIGFERN) with a length of 160 km and 60 fiber optics was put into operation in 1984 by the Deutsche Bundespost between Hamburg and Hanover. The signals were amplified every 18 km and converted optically / electrically and back again.

The aim of BIGFON was the practical testing of fiber optic technology for all telecommunication services and the first technical attempt for an integrated broadband telecommunications network (IBFN), within the scope of which also radio and television transmission as well as a video telephony network and the like. a. for the transmission of sign language for the deaf was installed. The technology was also used in 1985 when public video conference studios were used. Technical successor for the image or video telephony was the videophone , later users' own computer-based hardware and software for video conferencing.

There was a special attempt at video image transmission in Hanover in 1986 under the name MEDKOM, inspired by the local hospital sector for live transmission, e.g. B. during operations to enable remote consultations.

BIGFON goes back to the recommendations of the EKIK- Enquete-Commission ( New Information and Communication Technologies, 1981 to 1983), which had determined the necessity of setting up a broadband switching network in the form of a fiber optic network . It later emerged that the increased volume of messages for the entire local network, especially for moving images, was made possible more quickly by reducing redundancy in the transmission technology (more information in the same bit rate) than by expanding the frequency spectrum (broadband transmission) through the use of fiber optics Nowadays, the fiber optic penetrates through to the individual house connection.

The total cost was around 150 million  DM . According to estimates from 1984, the cabling in the Federal Republic of Germany with fiber optic cables would have cost 200 to 300 billion DM and would have taken around 30 to 40 years.

literature

  • Fritz Kuhn (ed.); Lonely, monitored, and unemployed: technocrats are transforming our lives . The Greens Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart 1985
  • Report of the Federal Government on the situation of the media in the Federal Republic of Germany. (PDF; 12.9 MB) German Bundestag, 1985, accessed on November 3, 2016 (printed matter 10/5663).
  • Karl Holz, Horst Nusser, Willi Schulz; Bigfon, laser: what is it? Nusser, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-88091-308-0
  • W. Haist: Optical Telecommunication Systems , Volume II: Applications. Damm-Verlag KG - Gelsenkirchen-Buer 1990, ISBN 3-87333-079-2
  • Richard Bauer, Rüdiger Schwerthöffer: Bigfon and Laser . 1st edition. Nusser, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-88091-384-6
  • Henning Dunckelmann: Video communication in broadband networks as a medium for the deaf: sociological research accompanying the BIGFON system experiment; Final report of a research project / Henning Dunckelmann. IZT, Institute for Future Studies and Technology Assessment. On behalf of the Deutsche Bundespost Berlin . IZT, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-929173-00-X
  • Michael Dörfler: New media: video text, teletext, cable TV, mailbox, pay TV, satellite reception, hi-fi reception, video disc, video telephone, cellular telephone, Bigfon, home robot; e. Publ. By PE, d. popular magazine for electronics a. Technology . 1st edition. Vogel, Würzburg 1995
  • New media teaching unit: cable TV, teletext, satellite TV, home terminal, Bigfon, video text, cabling, chips, etc. Cable, brutal videos . Computer; beautiful new world? / Didact. Laden Berlin e. V. DILAB, Berlin 1995

Magazines

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Philips: 565 MBit system with gradient fiber. In: Computerwoche . March 22, 1985, archived from the original on September 10, 2014 ; Retrieved May 26, 2011 .