Broadband Delayed By Fiber Optics Shortage?

Dozing asks: "Like many folks out there I live in the middle of nowhere and I can't even dream of DSL and two way satalite just doesn't look that enticing yet. Lucky for me my cable company has been planning to offer cable modems for quite some time and they have finally started rolling them out. However, for the past several months they have been telling me that my fat pipe is delayed due to a national shortage of fiber optic cable. I spend a lot of time reading slashdot and other technology related sites and this is the first I've heard of this shortage. Does anyone have anymore information on what the status is on our fiber supply?"

Comments

Might depend on circumstances.

[human bean]

There are long lead times for some kinds of fiber cable, especially those that are designed for colocating with arial power lines.

A lot of operating companies are having problems getting diggable right of way, especially in environmentally sensistive areas. This leaves little choice but to use the existing poles and towers.

High-count fiber is in short supply.

[Bistronaut]

I work at a company that designs conduit for some major telcos, and I know for a fact that high-count fiber is on about a 2-year back-order. If you want low-count fiber (only a couple of strands), you can get it easily, but most companies only want fiber with counts in the hundreds (it cost's about the same to put it in the ground, so why waste time with low counts).