TSTT unveils model smart home

[shaneelal]

TSTT unveils model smart home
Published:
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Mark Lyndersay


TSTT’s Gervon Abraham, far left, demonstrates the features of the telecommunication company’s gigabit Internet connection at the Legacy Housing model home to CEO, George Hill, far right, Minister of Public Utilities Nizam Baksh, to his left and TSTT chairman Everard Snaggs. Photo: Mark Lyndersay

At an upscale gated community in Chaguanas yesterday morning, TSTT unveiled its pilot project for gigabit connections to the home. Each of the houses in the Legacy Housing Development will be wired using fiber optic cable that will carry an Internet connection clocking in at 1,000 megabits of data. It’s a speed that acting CEO George Hill struggled to make real for the audience in attendance. First, he explained that the speed was “equivalent to downloading 100 million characters of text in one second”.


Then, he noted that it would be possible to effortlessly stream “five high-definition videos at the same time on a 1Gb connection while still having room to email and surf the web”. Finally, he suggested that the connection was “equivalent to using 100 DVD players at the same time”. It’s a big pipeline to the Internet and changes the discussion about connectivity from how fast to what do I do next? It’s a question that the residents of Legacy Housing will be exploring during a trial of the service that’s expected to run for at least six months.

During that time the residents will report on their use of the service and experiences with it, a process that will guide TSTT on creating packages that will be offered to the public. The telecommunications company demonstrated the service, which incorporates much of its QuadPlay initiative, to Minister of Public Utilities Nizam Baksh during a tour of a model home at the housing community which has been wired to demonstrate an ideal deployment of hardware connections to the massive pipeline.


TSTT has now prepared its infrastructure to deliver gigabit Internet connectivity to 10,000 homes in Trinidad, 70 per cent of which are located in the north of the country. The company plans to increase the number of homes eligible for the service to 40,000 by the end of 2014. TSTT had no pricing for the service, noting that it would create its packages for the public after studying the results of the Legacy Housing project.



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The well-connected home
Published:
Monday, February 3, 2014
Mark Lyndersay


TSTT’s Damian Ali, right, explains the health monitoring system (foreground) installed in a room at the model house of Legacy Housing Development to Minister of Public Utilities Nizam Baksh, left, and TSTT chairman Everald Snaggs. PHOTO: MARK LYNDERSAY

Last Wednesday, TSTT launched its Gigabit Community Project, which combines a pilot programme and research initiative that puts a fully symmetrical gigabit connection into upscale residential households at Legacy Housing Development in Chaguanas.

It’s a bold move, but one that the company is handling with measured language. Despite the bold declaration by TSTT’s chairman Everald Snaggs that “gigabit capacity development throughout communities in T&T is an area of major focus for us at TSTT,” the company’s officers explain the project in more moderate terms.

In terms of infrastructure, 10,000 homes in T&T are ready for the direct fibre-optic connections that gigabit connectivity requires, though the company noted that having the cabling available doesn’t guarantee that gigabit speeds will always be possible on every fibre-optic connection.

A gigabit connection runs at 1,000 megabits, or ten times the speed of the fastest current connection in T&T. It’s also the first connection to be promoted as symmetrical, which means that upload speeds are supposed to be as fast as downloads.

The first 10,000 homes are mostly in the northwest of the island, but 30 per cent of the connections run to Bel Air in south Trinidad and Orchid Gardens in central Trinidad. That’s part of the infrastructure upgrades that the company has been pursuing over the last four years. TSTT hopes to have 40,000 homes ready for fibre-optic connections by the end of 2014.

Legacy Housing got the nod for the pilot project at least partly because it was under construction and at the launch, still was, with concrete being poured at several sites within the development while nattily-clad guests made their way to the model home that serves as the proving ground for the technology deployment.

That allowed TSTT’s technical teams ready access to the underground ducting on the site and the homes, built with future technology in mind, proving very easy to wire.

Underground ducting is best practice for a fibre-optic deployment and HDC developments are compliant. TSTT hopes to have discussions with developers working on current sites to win space in their duct pipes.

Tobago won’t be left out of the development loop either. A new fibre-optic-cable link to the island was laid three years ago, and the company is evaluating sites there to establish another gigabit community.

Gigabit communities are a useful developmental benchmark for nations catching up with the global pace of broadband deployment, but they are not the only one. A nation’s capacity to participate in digital networks is better measured by the number of connections per capita that run to ten megabits or better.

In his address last week, TSTT’s acting CEO George Hill described the project as a first in not just T&T, but also in the English-speaking Caribbean. It’s all part of TSTT’s new five-year strategic plan, one pillar of which is the provision of broadband service to 95 per cent of the population.

“We have a number of tools and pipelines through which we can provide that,” said Hill, “and a gigabit Internet connection is just one of them.”

Of the Legacy Housing pilot project, Hill noted that it’s “both a trial and a partnership in understanding the product.

“We will design packages to suit lifestyles as this project helps us to understand better how customers make use of the capacity.”

The project will run for at least six months.

“TSTT had a leading role in telecommunications in the region,” Hill said, “and we want to get back to that as soon as possible.”

http://www.guardian.co.tt/lifestyle/201 ... ected-home

[KURMAman]

guess the house will be disconnecting often...

[pete]

Hey TSTT, how about giving us 5Mbit for the same price as the shiddy 2Mbit we have now?

[JoKeR1980]

daiz nuh duane house?

[redmanjp]

gigabit internet from tstt

i bet they giving u gigabit speed to THEIR server- while the actual speed to the rest of the internet go be like 5mb

btw when I saw the title I thought it would be like being able to remotely turn on/off lights and other appliances

[skylinechild]

gigabit internet from tstt

i bet they giving u gigabit speed to THEIR server- while the actual speed to the rest of the internet go be like 5mb

^^^ THIS

[cinco]

lawl
TSTT still buying internet from FLOW?

[2NR Smurf]

This is just a house with really fast internet....not a smart home..

[cinco]

btw legacy is adjacent to the telephone exchange. dont expect that speed anywhere else

[sMASH]

Go home tstt, you're drunk

[sMASH]

Go home tstt, you're drunk

[Sky]

First, he explained that the speed was “equivalent to downloading 100 million characters of text in one second”.

Thas not 800Mb? Or my maths bad? Anyway that's the TSTT promise. The full gig won't be had.

[dean_spleen09]

TSTT has now prepared its infrastructure to deliver gigabit Internet connectivity to 10,000 homes in Trinidad, 70 per cent of which are located in the WEST of the country.

fixed

[AllTrac]

This is just a house with really fast internet....not a smart home..

exactly!

i was expecting bluetooth locks and event viewer for the fridge

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

This is just a house with really fast internet....not a smart home..

same thing I was thinking. Maybe they were really showing the benefits of having a high speed internet connection on your smart-TV.

with a regular connection to the internet you can have the ability to open and close electric gates, garage doors, door locks, turn lights on and off, check security systems, regulate air-conditioning, stream HD movies at multiple locations in the house, control the entire house with your smart-phone, tablet or laptop.

www.control4.com


THAT's the beginnings of a smart home.

[RIPEBREDFRUIT]

guess the house will be disconnecting often...

I Agree - hell bmobile cannot even address complaints about known places in the country where their cell reception is almost non-existent........... and whilst hundreds of complaints pour in they ignore and dismiss them.

[maj. tom]

First, he explained that the speed was “equivalent to downloading 100 million characters of text in one second”.

Thas not 800Mb? Or my maths bad? Anyway that's the TSTT promise. The full gig won't be had.

well you have to add a start and a stop bit to each 8-bit character transmitted. and then maybe a parity bit as an accuracy transmission report. So each character is 10-11 bits transmitted, but a character stored would be 8 bits.

[Toilet Cleaner]

Oh the irony

[KURMAman]

imagine a tstt smart house.... about to pay my grocery bill on my newly imported $30000 GE internet rdy fridge..
* Connecting to HiLo*....*enter visa card #*....*dials up*.... *verifying numbe....*.... *disconnects*......

...........yeahh....

[Garrett Inside]

This is just a house with really fast internet....not a smart home..

same thing I was thinking. Maybe they were really showing the benefits of having a high speed internet connection on your smart-TV.

with a regular connection to the internet you can have the ability to open and close electric gates, garage doors, door locks, turn lights on and off, check security systems, regulate air-conditioning, stream HD movies at multiple locations in the house, control the entire house with your smart-phone, tablet or laptop.

http://www.control4.com


THAT's the beginnings of a smart home.

Are we sure we want to be so connected to the Internet to this extent?
I feel cyber hacking for theft, will be very popular with homes as soon as this tech becomes the norm.

[RIPEBREDFRUIT]

What frequencies does bmobile use as apposed to digicell for the cell networks?

[redmanjp]

btw legacy is adjacent to the telephone exchange. dont expect that speed anywhere else

this! who knows dem prolly run ah normal LAN cable on a gigbit switch to the computer and do a speed test to a server at THAT exchange

[Jade_Inc.]

So, I heard that blink is piggy backing on flow's fiber optics to give GB connection. Is this true?

[neexis]

TSTT has now prepared its infrastructure to deliver gigabit Internet connectivity to 10,000 homes in Trinidad, 70 per cent of which are located in the WEST of the country.

fixed

Icacos and Cedros is west too.
Even more west than where you thinking

[Michael Knight...]

So, I heard that blink is piggy backing on flow's fiber optics to give GB connection. Is this true?

[SmokeyGTi]

brb, going to buy 99 dvd players..

[Swisha]

bump

didn't want to start a new thread, but is anyone using smart locks on their doors like the Kwikset Kevo or the August smart lock?

[mark2.0]

All dem ting go geyh yuh kancar!

[SMc]

What would Ragde Coomar do?

[K74T]

Raj against the Kumar