Demand More From Your Copper

D3 wrote in with a submission about fiber to the home, or the lack of it, and the reasons behind this, and ways to work around the Bells to provide high-speed access despite them. A pretty decent article, which actually goes beyond the Baby Bell PR-speak that deregulation is the solution to everything. Maybe at some point state and Federal regulators will realize that the Bells are the problem, not the solution.

Comments

Re:Why would we want it?

[mistcat]

I can tell you why I would want it. I work for the government as a contractor processing satellite data. The data files are HUGE, routinely over 250 megs a file, with 20+ files a day. A cable modem or dsl line simply doesn't have enough bandwidth for me to work from home effectively. Sure I can SSH into a box at work or whatever, but after all the tcp wrappers, ipchains, dns, etc, there is a noticeable lag when I work with things in X-windows. I don't know what minority of the tech population is also in my shoes, but for us fiber to the home would be great, and something I'd be willing to pay a premium for.

Re:Cost Cost Cost

[swb]

Also, DSL cannot run over fiber, so the most common low-cost solution is eliminated by fiber to the home.

DSL isn't a layer 2 encoding, its a layer 1 transmission technology. Saying it doesn't work on fiber is like saying I can't use a boat in the desert. It's true, but the boat isn't needed in the desert.

Fiber's sexy, but copper is cheap and in place

[roderickm]

Let's run through the typical "last mile" options:

• Copper pairs - aging, installed almost everywhere, with metropolitan runs below fifteen thousand feet or so supporting some form of DSL. Great for switched voice (POTS), not bad for midrange bandwidth data (DSL), not a lot of lang-term future possibility, but cheap and already installed.
  
• Coax cable - Almost exclusively controlled by cable television companies, more expensive than a simple copper pair but cheap enough to deliver to all but the most rural areas. Much greater bandwidth than POTS or DSL, also with low latency well-suited to voice or video calls.
  
• Satellite - Reaches nearly everyone in North American than can see the southern sky, nearly all fixed cost structure, and low marginal cost to add a user/subscriber. High latency, but huge bandwidth well-suited to broadcasting the same material to all users.
  

This article brings to light the fact that fiber to the curb just isn't practical now. My wife works for a company that attempted a speculative fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC) build for a neighborhood in Colorado, and the project (among other factors) sent her employer into Chapter 11. FTTC is sexy, yes, but it's just not within economic reach yet.

I've said for a couple years now that cable companies truly have the broadband advantage, but they waste their bandwidth to the curb by competing for television subscriptions. The massive installed base of coax has a much greater bandwidth than your POTS copper pair, but rarely is it used to its full potential.

Owners of huge cable plants will eventually let television delivery fall to satellite deliver (high latency, high broadcast bandwidth) while your everyday coax cable will be more used for low-latency, highly interactive bandwidth like voice and data. Satellite for broadcast, cable for interactive voice/video/data services, and let the POTS pairs finish off their remaining useful life.

If more folks would get reasonable about the realistic uses for fiber (long haul, high bandwidth aggregation circuits) by reading salient articles like this one, we'd more quickly be able to enjoy true broadband in many forms of delivery. It's just going to take more people in decision-making positions that realize the appropriate use of the technologies we have at hand.