Last-Mile Fiber Optic
Johnny Mnemonic writes "The newsletter "The Town Paper" tracks the development of "traditional" new developments--developments with integrated shopping, parks, and that are pedestrian friendly. Their recent issue has an article that describes a new community in Issaquah WA that has, among it's interesting features: a wired LAN in every home, free community Intranet, and a choice for a fiber optic connection. It is probably no coincidence that Microsoft is planning on building 3 million square feet of office space there. How much is a pre-wired house worth to you? What will this do for community building?"
A pre-wired house isn't worth much, to a geek like me. To someone else it's probably worth a lot.
The reason? Well, being a geek I would want my wires in a very specific configuration just for me. I would be pissed off about having the jack in the wrong part of the wall. I wouldn't like having to modify my computing to match the house. I want the house to match the way I like to do things. Ideally I would have one room of the house with many computers in it and many cables. I would have an office with one computer in it, wired. Every other room in the house woul be accomodated by a single WAP.
If it's expensive fiber or a configuration I have to adapt to, rather than one that adapts to me I wont like it.
Non geek people would love it though, if they can get it to work.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!