Telecom Informer
by The Prophet
Hello, and greetings from the Central Office!
It's extremely humid in Osaka, where I'm currently located. It's Expo 2025, and the world's turmoil is a world away. Expo is about showing the world at its best. This year, it's a celebration of technology, sustainability, and global culture. It's a truly magical place, where the entire world comes together, and it also happens to be very interesting from a telecommunications perspective. This is the first large scale demonstration of the IOWN 3.0 network, and as you might expect, NTT is taking center stage.
If you're wondering what IOWN is, it's short for the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network. It is led by IOWN Global Forum (iowngf.org), a trade association that is working to create standards for next-generation networking. The association was founded by NTT, Intel, and Sony in 2019. These days, it's reaching critical mass with 140 members so far, from research institutions to software companies to hardware manufacturers. There are some ambitious goals: lowering power consumption for data transmission by 100 times, growing data transmission capacity by 125 times, and lowering end-to-end latency by 200 times. While early on there was a lot of marketing puffery and vague hand-waving, we're well into the "functional prototype" stage here at Expo and there are real legs underneath this. Critically, while Huawei is not a member of the IOWN Global Forum, they have publicly supported the concept (especially its emphasis on photonics for faster data transmission). This is important - Huawei is the world leader in telecommunications equipment manufacturing, having long since surpassed everyone else with nearly one third of the global market share.
Why is something like IOWN not only exciting, but necessary? We long ago reached the technological limitations of what copper can deliver, and this goes a lot deeper than telecommunications. It extends to everything in computing and communications. "Photons are faster than electrons" is the unofficial slogan, but it's also a remarkably simple concept. At its essence, IOWN aims to replace every electrical connection carrying data with an optical one. And, like many things involving IOWN, when you peel the onion you will be surprised how deep the rabbit hole goes. We think of optical connections as today's fiber optic networks.
However, you can use optical connections anywhere you can transmit data (think everywhere we currently use electrical connections for this).
Consider a motherboard. Currently, there are PCB traces, which use electrons to carry data. The idea is so ingrained that we even call this kind of equipment "electronics." With hyper-miniaturized photonics, it could be possible to use photons to carry data. With enough miniaturization, it could even be possible to do so inside of a silicon chip! Replacing today's electronics buses with photonics is as far as IOWN 3.0 plans to go, but the next version (post 2029) aims to create photonics-integrated microprocessors. And when you start to wrap your head around just how many scenarios this enables, you may just spend the next week daydreaming about the possibilities.
It really is wild when you think about it, but IOWN doesn't stop there. ("Wait, there's more!" should be their other unofficial marketing slogan.) IOWN completely re-imagines how networking operates as well, envisioning protocols that are specifically designed to support the applications running over them. Rather than everything being IP-based in the future, IOWN enables multiple protocols simultaneously running over the same optical connection, each optimized for specific application performance and resiliency. And when you really think about it, this makes a ton of sense.
TCP/IP is clunky, high overhead, has a ton of legacy security problems, and is not well suited for - arguably - the majority of applications running on it. It was in the right place at the right time with a head start when the Internet started to get popular, but as it turns out, foundational protocol choices end up being really sticky even if not especially optimal. Witness SS7 and the hilarity that ensued with allowing every questionable VoIP provider in not-exactly-a-country locales run by warlords the same authority on the global telecommunications network as AT&T.
So, in a nutshell: If the vision of IOWN is realized, everything from microprocessors to networks gets (much) faster and uses (much) less power by shifting from electrons to photons. A whole set of standardized interfaces and APIs are created. New application-based protocols, which replace TCP/IP, are created - and designed for instant fail-over and resilience.
The whole stack, for all seven layers of the OSI model, is hyper-optimized for low latency photonic transport. And physical infrastructure is "fiber everywhere" to support this. It's an incredibly ambitious, decades-long vision, but so was the global telecommunications system when it was in the early stages. And honestly, it's about freaking time that someone has a vision beyond trying to continue milking the copper cow, which long ago stopped giving milk and can't even moo anymore.
The IOWN 3.0 standard isn't envisioned to be rolled out until 2029, and given how ambitious a change this is to current standards, this is likely to be an "equipment is available" versus a "globally deployed" date. Right now, it's very much a prototype, and that is what is running at Expo 2025. But it's still absolutely wild what scenarios this enables, and there are some pretty fun technology demos.
One demo enables remotely driving a robotic tractor located about 1,600 kilometers away from the Expo venue. This might not seem like a super complicated problem on the surface, but it requires a ton of bandwidth for high definition video. Latency has to be super low because you're actually steering a giant machine; response has to be reliable and can't be sluggish. And you need spatial awareness which is another tough problem - this has to be calculated and communicated in real-time, and also with incredibly low latency. Surprisingly, everything works. It's one of those scenarios that is "almost there" with traditional IP-based networks, but fully there with IOWN and it's incredible to witness in action.
Similarly, as any teledildonics aficionado will likely tell you, remote haptics using current technology are fun but imprecise. Take high latency (especially variable latency) out of the equation, and it becomes a lot more precise. NTT has set up a series of prototype public videophones with haptics around various Expo venues and the Osaka airport. These videophones are capable of transmitting touch with a high degree of precision, which is only possible with both the low latency provided by the IOWN network and a specialized haptics protocol. I can only imagine the future possibilities - combined with AI, you may never need a human partner again.
Expo only happens for six months once every five years, and it ends in October. I personally think it's the best thing in the world. If you have never been to Japan, you'll be surprised how easy it is to navigate these days with modern map applications and mobile-based translation tools (you can take pictures of menus and signs to read them, and easily use text to speech to help with translation).
It's still Japan - everything is more complicated than it needs to be. There's a confusing Expo website with an inscrutable appointment system. You are expected to pay cash everywhere, except places (like Expo) where cash isn't allowed at all, and you're expected to automatically know the difference. Everyone will glare at you if you dare to talk on a mobile phone in the subway. Still, go. You'll get a glimpse of the future of telecommunications, as well as how the world is evolving. It's the first time in a long time that I have been optimistic. The next generation is really exciting. Emerging countries are demonstrating global leadership. I think the kids are going to be all right.
See you in Japan!
Demonstration public video phone with haptic capability, powered by IOWN 3.0 prototype
Concept public video phone with haptic capability, one of many around Osaka and Expo