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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?"
This is a pretty good plan--the "last mile" has always been the slow point in internet connections.
This will also do wonders for the local economy; having built-in fiber will be a massive attraction to tech businesses. I daresay we'll be seeing a lot more of this sort of thing from now on.
This is a very common thing in Washington, especially in Issaquah. I'm not sure if I've visted this location, but I went to one like it in the same area... they had a little courtyard type deal with a little cafe, a couple restaurants, a grocery store, and a video rental place. There is also complete excersize and sports facilites, a community garden, a large playground, etc. The tie-in with Microsoft only makes sense... nearly everyone that lives there is somehow involved with them.
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Did someone try this around the turn of the century with the works even being paid in company script to be used in company stores?
Of course, it seems more cost-effective to just blanket the area with Wi-Fi...
:)
Just picking! I know what you meant!
Blanketing the area with Wi-Fi misses the point behind this....ie:easily upgradeable last mile delivery. Current Wi-Fi speeds are great for small areas, but shared 11Mbit (or 54 or whatever) will only last so long. Fiber, however, has nearly unlimited capacity, for all intents and purposes.
Put Wi-Fi in, and you'll be replacing it in 5 or 6 years due to larger bandwidth needs. Use fiber, and in 5-6 years you'll STILL be thinking how to saturate that link. Oh, and BTW, Cat 5 hasn't been around since '86
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
On the first month of home sales, Red Hat should offer fresh boxed copies of Linux (yes, with the usual support) to each new resident. Just drop off the promotional crate with the sales agent; it's just like some laundry detergent, barbecue briquette or furniture coupons that other subdivisions offer their new home-owning residents.
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I always wondered why urban comunities didn't have all the wiring and fiber available to the residents
1. Retrofitting the buildings is expensive - it is not just a matter of running fiber to buildings -- ethernet jacks need to be put into rooms in apartments and cabling needs to be arranged. Who will manage the wire closet, etc.
2. Not everyone wants/uses the service, so landlords are not necessarily going to spring for the cost
3. Residential services are not where the money is
Large apartment buildings next to eachother would probably find it cheaper to have one large connection into the complexes and hire a network technican
You don't know many apartment operators, obviously. Even the large companies (mostly REITs) are extraordinarily conservative operators who do not change their ways of doing business easily. Especially post-bubble, most are likely to look at other amenities first, such as security, fitness centers, etc. Putting in technology infrastructure, which will likely involve additional costs, is not going to be an easy sell.
I think some bigger aparment REITs may have been doing deals with some of the CLECs in the 90's, but I just don't see a tremendous desire by internet companies to chase the consumer in this manner. They just don't pay enough, and fiber infrastructure isn't exactly cheap.
I can see this model working in some local environments, but as a business model, I can say pretty comfortably that there just is not much money there to be chased when you are talking about mega bandwidth to residences. Some people would pay big bucks, but most folks would say fuck it and go with the ILEC's $45 DSL or the cable company's $30 plan. Nobody will make money (today) selling fiber connections for $30 or selling $300 fiber connections to residences.
Remember -- it's all about the "Profit!!"
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
- when somebody switched on Kazaa, everyone's connection came almost to a standstill
- we had to wire the house ourselves to make it cost efficient
- somebody had to maintain everything
To me it seems like the biggest problem in an apartment complex or neighborhood would be the last issue. Who maintains it? For us, it was essentially somebody's job to tend to it (just like it was somebody's job to wash dishes on Sunday morning). Anybody know how this happens in these cases we're talking about? Is there a benevolent net admin (dictator) or do people pay a fee to some 3rd party?