Fiber to the People: Lessig, IEEE & AFNs

Codeine writes "Larry Lessig articulates some infrastructure observations based on work by the IEEE & Cornell AFN Institute regarding 'end-user-as owner' (EUO) advanced fibre networks."

Comments

Fiber to the people?

[addikt10]

First thing I thought was Metamucil

Re:Fiber to the people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael is just showing his communist leanings.

Re:Fiber to the people?

[nubbie]

Whoo.. glad I had my BANANA-ORANGE FROSTY this morning.

Re:Fiber to the people?

[FosterKanig]

Wow, everyone who knows you is very proud of you. Congrats.

Shame on the IEEE

[possible]

Lately they've been acting like racists and moral cowards. They proactively withdrew membership privileges and publishing rights for Iranian students and researchers. See also this article for an explanation.

Re:Shame on the IEEE

[Phoenixhunter]

Proactively because they do not want to have connections to a country that could be facing UN sanctioned trade embargos if they do not get their act straight on the issue of potentially producing vast quantities of weapons grade plutonium.

Re:Shame on the IEEE

[bronaugh]

That's kind of shocking considering what the IEEE stands for. The points made on shameonieee.org are good points; they're going against their own regulations to cover their ass, in typical cowardly I'm-afraid-of-lawyers fashion.

If you're so afraid of US law, why don't you relocate to, say, Germany or France or even Canada? If this is such a big issue, why don't you serve your members better by moving to the Free World...

Reminds me of a line from an old song... "You are living in the free world, and in the free world you must stay"

Dragging the nationality of their organization into the debate will not serve to promote their organization.

Re:Shame on the IEEE

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't get it. Often times, scientific and technical societies are one of the few ways that students in these countries can interact with the outside world. Students are usually in the vanguard of pro-democracy movements (as in China and in fact Iran too) and it's a *good* idea to keep communications open with them.

Re:Shame on the IEEE

[bronaugh]

It is not the role of a supposedly apolitical organization to get involved in politics. Traditionally, academia has crossed borders without restrictions; why should it be any different now?

By accepting people who are from such countries as Iran, you're giving them a window on the outside world; at least then they can see that perhaps their own country isn't a perfect world, and that other countries (like the US) aren't necessarily evil either. Broadening minds is a very effective tool; it works much better than blocking countries off so that everyone inside is narrow-minded and follows the government's line.

Hatred and isolation, on the other hand, are totally counterproductive.

Re:Shame on the IEEE

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Hatred and isolation, on the other hand, are totally counterproductive

That depends on what you're trying to produce.

Re:Shame on the IEEE

[bronaugh]

That depends on what you're trying to produce.

Umm. What can I reply to this other than "duh".

If you beat a dog and treat it badly, you will usually get a mean, ugly dog. If you mistreat people, you will usually get mean, ugly people. Is this a shocking revelation to you?

If you want to produce mean, ugly people, hate them, ridicule them, and isolate them. If you want to produce citizens of the world rather than of any particular nation, treat people right and accept them.

Re:Shame on the IEEE

[EinarH]

IEEE should not act proctively in a case like this. So far there are no UN sanctions against these countries regarding WMD.

IEEE took action to fulfill the U.S. Treasury Department trade regulations administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). This shows that:
1.IEEE is a organization that to a large degree is influenced by US policy and interests.

2. In this case the OFAC regulations could result in the opposite of the intended effect:
Restricting the ability for researchers in these countries to communicate with western researchers will only make it more difficault for them to do their job and participating in legitimate research. That could make some of them less sympatethic to western ideas and harder to find legitimate jobs.
And getting the information in these IEEE papers is not rocket science even in a banned country. I bet that Iranian researchers allready send money to Pakistan or Turkey so someone there can set up a false member account or copy the papers. And the OFAC regulations were constructed without Internet in mind...Today you can't expect published information to stay out of North Korea just becasue you no longer send it directly to them by mail.

IEEE's policy in this case is stupid and short sighted. In a *worst case* scenario this could lead some engineers and researchers to the governmental WMD programs instead of other work.

Re:Shame on the IEEE

[Brian Stretch]

Yes, normally you'd be right, but Iran is getting awfully close to building nuclear bombs, so doing ANYTHING that could aid that effort is frowned upon. Sometimes you have to sacrifice long-term projects when the short-term can get people killed. Whether IEEE participation has any effect on the Iranian theocracy's nuclear program would be a much better question.

China is already a nuclear power and moving in the right direction, plus with the possible exception of that one jet fighter pilot (whom the ChiCom government *swears* was outmaneuvered by the 40-year-old propeller driven American cargo plane fully loaded with crew and equipment) they're not suicidal. We can take more chances with them. If the Iranian theocrats aren't suicidal themselves they have a reasonably large suicide cult at their disposal, so I'd rather they not get ahold of anything remotely related to NBC technology if at all possible.

Re:Shame on the IEEE

[gfilion]

I'm presently considering sending this letter to the IEEE. Let me know what you think.

--------
What is happening between the United States government and the IEEE reminds me of the events that occurred when Phil Zimmermann released his cryptographic software Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) in 1991.

Let me summarize the main events for those who did not follow this battle. The US law would consider cryptographic software as "munitions" and forbid its exportation out of the US or Canada. Similarly as the matter that oppose the US government and the IEEE, this law was put in place for - admittedly vague - national security reasons. Because of this law, PGP could not be exported out of the US. Two important actions were taken to fight this restriction. First, groups of people filed law suits opposing this law. In 1999, after many years of debate, the government changed the law to allow the exportation of cryptographic software out of the US, before a ruling could be made by a judge. The second action was taken before the law changed, PGP International (PGPi), an independent organism was created in Europe to legally distribute an "international" version of PGP. The PGPi web site is still available at pgpi.org. The PGPi group found a hole in the law that would permit the exportation of cryptographic code in the form of a book, so the people from PGP published a book containing the whole source code for the cryptographic program. In Europe, the book was scanned and passed in an Optical Character Recognition software to reconstruct the program. You can read more on the monumental task accomplished by PGPi to scan the PGP book at http://www.pgpi.org/pgpi/project/scanning/

I believe that the IEEE should take similar actions in the matter that is opposing it to the US government. First, it should take immediate legal action against the law in question. I am certain that lots of very good lawyers would be ready to work pro bono for this cause. Also, the IEEE should sponsor, or at least endorse, an independent web site or magazine that would publish the articles that are censored by this law. A short summary of the articles and a link to the web site could be printed in the Spectrum magazine each month.

I have read well written articles saying that the IEEE opposes to this law, but to this day, I have not seen action action by the IEEE that would show its dedication to this cause. It is my belief that actions similar to these would send a clear signal that the IEEE clearly opposes to this law and is ready to fight it in every way it legally can.

Actions speak louder than words.

Guillaume Filion, ing. jr
IEEE member

Re:Shame on the IEEE

[CAIMLAS]

Around the time of the Plague in Europe (after it, IIRC), I seem to recall reading that there were political barriers between England and France in the field of academia. I seem to recall the differences having been religious in origin. (Something to do with alchemy.)

Re:Shame on the IEEE

[IM6100]

Reminds me of a line from an old song... "You are living in the free world, and in the free world you must stay"

I didn't know Fidel Castro was a songwriter.

Re:Shame on the IEEE

[josephpate]

I'd rather they not get ahold of anything remotely related to NBC technology if at all possible.

<Seinfeld>
What's the deal with those American devils and their harlot women??
</Seinfeld>

Still dangerous to work with fiber?

[Phoenixhunter]

Last time I read up on bringing Fiber to the small business/consumer environment, one of the biggest problems was splicing the cable, as the tiny filiments could easily become embedded in the skin, and by accidentally or otherwise looking into the fiber you could damage your retina....have these fundamental problems been resolve?

Re:Still dangerous to work with fiber?

[Anonymous Coward]

Resolution 1: Wear gloves and long sleeves. And pants. Or a suit of armor. Whatever it takes, just leave your flip flops and Ocean Pacific shorts at home.

Resolution 2: It's kinda like looking directly at the sun. If you are going to do it, well, that's Darwinism in action, isn't it.

Re:Still dangerous to work with fiber?

[BuckaBooBob]

Problems? Splicing a Fiber cable a Problem? Its about as much of a problem as electricity.. They both have possible dangers but that didn't stop electricity from catching on... As far as looking into a lit fiber... Umm... Why would you do that... Only multi mode fiber uses a wavelength that is visible. But still who in their right mind would run the risk of permanently damaging their eye by looking into a fiber when you have tools made to do with out risk to your self. Thats like a electrician using his tounge to test for voltage instead of a proper meter... When you look around a Fiber Termination Panel you see all sorts of warning about looking into the end of the fiber with/without magnifying lenses...

Re:Still dangerous to work with fiber?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I read up on bringing Fiber to the small business/consumer environment, one of the biggest problems was splicing the cable, as the tiny filiments could easily become embedded in the skin, and by accidentally or otherwise looking into the fiber you could damage your retina....have these fundamental problems been resolve?

Splicing cable can be harmful, but with proper training & equipment it's very safe. When I worked at JDS Uniphase, (when they had 12,000 people in Ottawa) fiber injuries were very rare. And stabbing yourself in the finger with a fiber isn't a very serious injury.

Unless you're dealing with very high power fiber lasers, the optical risk is very small. The human eye is extremely resistant to light at 1.5 microns, the most common wavelength. Anyway, safety goggles are very cheap.

It does cost a lot more to splice fiber than copper though. Almost anyone can work with cat 5e cable (i.e. I can) that will meet the specs. Fiber takes more time & training, therefore it's more expensive.

Re:Still dangerous to work with fiber?

[erice]

"Consumer" fiber optic systems are required to maintain eye safety. Usually, this just means low enough power so that if you do point a fiber at your retina, there is no dammage. That's that gigabit ethernet does. Around the time that 10Gb Ethernet was being developed, there were some proposals to have the system detect a fiber cut and shut down the laser. I don't know if this has been implimented.

Re:Still dangerous to work with fiber?

[michrech]

But still who in their right mind would run the risk of permanently damaging their eye by looking into a fiber when you have tools made to do with out risk to your self.

Probably the same pepole that need a tag on their hair dryer to tell them not to use it in the bath/shower. The warnings you see on varied products telling you not to do things are ONLY there because some idiot has already done so.

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[Pingular]

Larry Lessig articulates some infrastructure observations based on work by the IEEE & Cornell AFN Institute regarding 'end-user-as owner' (EUO) advanced fibre networks.

To that Stuntman guy

[coolmacdude]

Just because you decided to annoy the hell out of me by bitching about piracy during my legally paid viewings of the last 2 movies I went to see, I am going to download your next movie 5 times one I get my fiber connection set up.

Re:To that Stuntman guy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's especially annoying when you work in the industry, and know that the jobs for stuntmen, wardrobe, camera, carpentry, etc. are going away, not due to piracy, but because the producers are cutting costs and taking foreign incentives to shoot outside the US.

If they're going to blame job loss on something, blame it on the execs (who would have shot for cheaper elsewhere anyways.) Illegal copies are just a red herring - if copies ate into the profits of good movies, how did Finding Nemo set new records for the box office?

Personally, I think the industry should get a clue - if people are willing to spend an hour of computer time, and an hour of their own time, watching some crappy Kaaza version of a film that they weren't going to go to theatres to watch anyways, doesn't that point to a potential market for them to exploit? The next time a big movie comes out, USE Kaaza to sell a screener version of the movie, formatted for 4:3 at 320x480, for like $3.50 per download, starting the first Monday after the opening weekend. Consider any losses due to people seeing it as part of the marketing budget...

Re:To that Stuntman guy

[fermion]

The Matrix was the first popular film I have seen in quite a while. I paid my full entry to the movie. And then I had to sit there an hear some loser stunt man whine about hard he works and how dangerous the job is.

All I could think is 'you sir are a moron'. All jobs are hard and dangerous. Has he really ever been at work at three in the morning working hard to fix some problem to meet an immovable launch deadline, and i don't mean the whiny ass hollywood kind? Has he really ever been in front of a hundred kids a day, knowing that just down the street one of them beat up a teacher? Has he ever done an honest days work that involved more than fooling the masses? Well, many other people have, many other work hard, and many other people lost their job. And you don't see then wasting our time by whining during time that I paid to be entertained. It was like bring up Sally Struthers for save the whining men campaign.

I would think the industry would try to build up some good relations at blockbusters such as this instead of turning our stomaches.

And if you eat a lot of fiber on Christmas Eve...

[illuminata]

...he might even come to your town!

Mr Hankey loves this stuff. He'll be coming to my town every year now!

It can be done

[duvel]

I would welcome fiber to my home. It's not like it's technologically or economically impossible.

NTT and other companies have already been offering 100Mbs fiberoptic lines to homes in Japan for quite awhile now.

The best part is it's cheap, They usually cost a little more than $40 a month.

Of course, it's still twice the price of 12Mbs ADSL lines in Japan like Yahoo BB who offers 12Mbs speed for $21/month. Not that most people would know what to do with 100Mbs anyways (except for some stuff that RIAA doesn't really approve of).

Re:It can be done

[Anonymous Coward]

(except for some stuff that RIAA doesn't really approve of)

But the Japanese don't have to worry about that, now do they?

Re:It can be done

[littlerubberfeet]

The sound studio I work at would love cheap fiber. DSL is not avaliable, the cable company wants 3000 to run cable, and fractional T1 is expensive. Perhaps if fiber becomes arrives, it would be a viable alternative to courior services.

Re:It can be done

[SuperBanana]

would welcome fiber to my home. It's not like it's technologically or economically impossible. NTT and other companies have already been offering 100Mbs fiberoptic lines to homes in Japan for quite awhile now.

Siiiiigh...when are you people going to realize it's about POPULATION DENSITY? When you have 50 customers in one building- it's rather practical to run a T3 to them. If you have 5- no way.

Case and point- when I worked in south boston, we had a 256kbit T1 installed because it was the only option- no cable, no DSL because the phone company apparently ripped out all the copper in the area. Mind you- this is a 5 minute walk from DOWNTOWN FINANCIAL CENTER in Boston. Not the boondocks.

The Verizon engineer was beside himself over what it was going to cost them- they had to have 3 crew spend a week running fiber to us, installed $100k worth of equipment...and "even if everyone in your building bought two full T1's, we would never break even on this over the next 20 years". We were a 6-floor building, and one of two companies that could afford to have such a line- the rest were artists who hated our guts(incidentally, the only other guy was a high-on-himself content producer who tried to blackmail us into sharing our line by making a fuss when Verizon wanted to run the fiber cable across the ceiling of his loft space. Verizon told him to go fuck himself(and threatened to press legal action for violating state law), and he shut up and left us alone.

Right now, I live out in the burbs near boston. 30 minutes away. I have ONE choice in internet access save dialup. That would be the cable company. Our CO has been wired for DSL for many many years- at least 4- but you can't get DSL, because Verizon won't do it. If I were ONE town over, I'd have 10 DSL companies to choose from.

Even if Verizon did decide to flip on DSL in our town, we'd get about 1mbit down, 96kbit up- yes, you read that right- 96kbit up. Not much better that dialup, now is it?

As is right now, our cable company has in their AUP that we are "consumers" of an "entertainment service". We're prohibited from hosting ANY kind of server, but in particular any IRC, news server, or webboard. Yet they happily advertise work-at-home, kids-doing-homework-research type crap. One or the other please...

Re:It can be done

[KrispyKringle]

This is just a tad offtopic. Read the article.

Lessig's point, as tends to be the case with him, is not that fiber is good because its fast. He's not a technologist first and foremost (thankfully). His point is that shared-ownership is far better than corporate competition or limited monopolies (as is the current state in telecom).

He argues that the reasons to support limited monopolies (which clearly defeat straight competition) are limited, because they still result in monopolistic pricing, but that shared ownership by the consumer gives all the benefits of competition without all the reasons it's unfeasable for telecom.

RTFA.

Re:It can be done

[BuckaBooBob]

Well.. You seem to forget about population density... In the US on avg 1 square Kilomotere only has about 50 people... in Japan thats 1500.. So cost of infastructure is really easy to recoup where the US isn't as dense.

Re:It can be done

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that most people would know what to do with 100Mbs anyways

Not that you get the throughput indicated by the raw bit rate anyway. No more than you get 30 Mbps throughput out of your cable modem, or 8 Mbps out of your DSL. You're at the mercy of the operator and how much bandwidth they use on their backhaul. 2000 homes on one T1 is going to be slow, no matter what the access bit rate.

But number envy is great, isn't it? They're going to start installing gigabit fiber service in Japan next year.

Re:It can be done

[tzanger]

Perhaps, but I'd certainly settle for state-run cable/DSL with that same fibre running to every major subdivision instead of every house.

Re:It can be done

[Anonymous Coward]

Siiiiigh...when are you people going to realize it's about POPULATION DENSITY? When you have 50 customers in one building- it's rather practical to run a T3 to them. If you have 5- no way.

Case and point- when I worked in south boston, we had a 256kbit T1 installed because it was the only option- no cable, no DSL because the phone company apparently ripped out all the copper in the area. Mind you- this is a 5 minute walk from DOWNTOWN FINANCIAL CENTER in Boston. Not the boondocks.

It's not about density - Boston (like most US cities) is already very dense. It's about poor planning and monopoly extortion. Why did the phone company rip out all the copper? Did they leave empty conduits behind?

Re:It can be done

[Anonymous Coward]

Well.. You seem to forget about population density... In the US on avg 1 square Kilomotere only has about 50 people... in Japan thats 1500.. So cost of infastructure is really easy to recoup where the US isn't as dense.

Yes, population density in the ENTIRE US is less than Japan. But population density in the 10 largest cities (NY, LA, Boston, Chicago, etc) is VERY high, high enough to cancel any population density excuses.

Re:It can be done

[really?]

I think you are confusing advertising with reality.

There are quite a few outfits that offer 100Mbs here in Japan, _IF_ you live in the right area. I am 20 minutes out of Shunjuku - in Kawasaki city, 300 meteres out of Tokyo proper - and I can only get 1.5/.5 MBS ADSL. Mind you, at US$35.00 or so uncapped I am not complaining to much. (Yes I know I could get a better deal through YahooBB, but I would have to get a "telephone line" and I swore I would neve do that. Yes I am that pigheaded.)

Re:It can be done

[KD7JZ]

I hate comparison's to fiber or wireless deployments in Asia. The average Japanese family lives in an apartment of something like 650 sq ft. With density like that there are a lot of service business models that work that _absolutely_ won't work in the US.

Re:It can be done

[Anonymous Coward]

Cry me a fucking river. 1.5Mbps SDSL costs 10 times that much in the United States.

Re:It can be done

[Anonymous Coward]

Apartment size has nothing to do with it. The telcos here have newer stuff to do this with. It is much easier to run fiber/high speed DSL/cable when you have modern facilities. You also have to remember the Japanese way of business: sacrifice now to prosper later. They understand that the future of the company is far better than making a quick buck now (the American way).

Also, everything is run above ground due to earthquakes, population density, etc. Much easier to upgrade when you don't have to rip up the ground.

I guess I'm above average for living in a 1200 sq. ft. house in Yokosuka. I also have 10Mbit/2Mbit cable modem. I could have gotten 100Mbit fiber (because I live in a newer neighbourhood) but did not see the need.

Re:It can be done

[BuckaBooBob]

With high speed Internet cable in the area it should be somewhat near that all ready.. In Canada cities that have high speed Internet over cable have 1 fiber per 1500 homes or less on average where penetration is decent 25%+ of homes. What would make the most sense is to see State/Cities install fiber networks throughout the city and rent off fiber space to promote competition in the last mile for services. Right now Infrastructures are owned by companies that have interest in staving off competition... Once there is a fiber infrastructure in place that leaves the last mile up to providers I am sure you will see a higher level of service and greater competition once the majority of the cost of a infrastructure are up for lease.

Re:It can be done

[Minna Kirai]

Mind you- this is a 5 minute walk from DOWNTOWN FINANCIAL CENTER in Boston. Not the boondocks.

That actually makes it MORE expensive. In the heart of an old, dense, poorly-planned city, the effort required to install any new cable is orders of magnitude bigger than just ripping through an empty field in a backhoe. And being in the financial district meant that all the other people inconvenienced by the work are high-wage broker-types whose time is expensive to waste. (Meaning the city will soak you on all the permits and police overtime)

Maybe, Boston is actually the worst US city for additional expense to infrastructure projects- big or small. The extreme example is how they just built $400,000,000 worth of tunnel for $10,800,000,000 (a 27x multiplier) because of all the uninterruptable activity above the dig site.

If you want cheap fiber to your building, try someplace more amenable, like Chicago.

Right now, I live out in the burbs near boston. 30 minutes away. I have ONE choice in internet access save dialup.

I've got relatives living in such areas (128 region), and they've got two cable companies selling ISP service. The effective speeds to in-state resources are an impressive 300Kb/s.

Re:It can be done

[IM6100]

Copper goes for a pretty good price at the recyclers. If the phone company hadn't ripped it, and had just abandoned it, I'm sure some homeless folks would have helped themselves.

Re:It can be done

[thynk]

With density like that there are a lot of service business models that work that _absolutely_ won't work in the US.

I'm sure there are some business models that will work in Japan that won't work in the US. However, Fiber to the home isn't one of them. There are a number of PUCs that have run fiber to the home here in the US and are paying off the costs of laying the fiber early.

Population density might make it more expensive, but doesn't make it a poor business model.

Re:It can be done

[christooley]

Siiiiigh...when are you people going to realize it's about POPULATION DENSITY?

Would you mind explaining to me then why it is that in my mother's home town of 350 people in the boondocks of Rural Missouri, where the biggest town in 60 miles is less than 10,000 people, she can get 3 Mbit SDSL for half the price I can get ADSL in Austin, Texas (a supposed technology center)? Population density is not an issue at all. Thank your local ILEC monopoly for their laziness in upgrading their network, and inability to cooperate with CLEC's that are willing to upgrade. Verizon is second to none (though SBC holds a very close second) when it comes to poor customer service and poor attitude towards regulations that benifit customers.

The reason that this article is so helpful is because it proposes and economical way of taking the ILEC "out of the loop". When it comes to cross country back haul fiber there are suprisingly more players than their are in local loop, even though the infrastructure costs would seem to make you think otherwise. Competition is driving down the cost of large scale pipes rapidly and this would make them drop even faster.

The biggest problem I see is that this just adds one for thing for our City government to do poorly. Have you driven on your city streets lately? :)

Discussing this in Reykjavik

[Hjallli]

Coincidentally, I am working day in and out these days in finalizing a conference called Digital Reykjavik. There we will have several influential people speaking about the business of fiber to the home, who should run the networks the technology behind it and the effects it will have on society.

We will keep our site updated after the event with key points from the conference, hopefully something juicy.

Makes a certain amount of sense

[Wesley Felter]

Whenever the topic of municipal fiber to the home comes up, people start complaining that the city is wasting money on something that few people want. So let's make the network customer-owned; the people who want fiber will pay the $2,000 to get hooked up and everyone else won't pay anything. But if only 10% (or less) of people sign up, will the price per customer skyrocket?

Re:Makes a certain amount of sense

[BuckaBooBob]

You will need mass scale to help pay for the equipment that is needed to connect to and the infastructure to get it to that last mile...

Customer owned fiber would still need to terminate On his property and in a fixed manner that would reduce/eliminate the possibility for that fiber to be damaged.

So fiber will still need to be run past customer premise for connection.. so there could still be 1+ miles of infastructure that needs to be rolled out still.

Re:Makes a certain amount of sense

[bussdriver]

My city does the roads, and lets the car makers compete on them.
We don't have GM make the road than then insist you to only drive GM cars on it.

Cities should do the networks like they do the roads. Usage taxes help maintain the 'information superhighway'. Let the free market build the cars, gas stations, AAA, onstar, etc..

I do not need an ISP. I MUST pay them and I don't even like them. Our city would have saved more money in the long run doing it themselves than all that regulation waste. (including lawsuits, regulation boards, etc.)

Re:Makes a certain amount of sense

[blaberski]

On the surface that sounds like a good idea, and is rather tempting. But answer me this, do you want the same people that brought us the DMV and IRS to have control of you internet access?

Re:Makes a certain amount of sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you but where I live the service from the DMV and the IRS is way better than what I get from my ISP.

Re:Makes a certain amount of sense

[bill_mcgonigle]

Does your city own the electric infrastructure, the phone network, and the cable TV network too?

I'm asking. If not, why not, and how does that bode for the future of public internet?

Re:Makes a certain amount of sense

[llefler]

But answer me this, do you want the same people that brought us the DMV and IRS to have control of you internet access?

The people that brought me the DMV and IRS, also brought me the Interstate and Intrastate highway systems. While driving the gauntlet of orange barrels can be annoying, that's more an issue of past funding and future growth than any reflection of competence.

I don't believe the government protected monopoly and guaranteed profit that the telcos had for more than half a century spurred much innovation.

As far as local municipalities developing these systems; I would trust my city government. But I live in a small town (roughly 5000). I don't know that I'd have that same confidence in a larger community. But it's just as easy to point out horribly managed projects in the private sector as it is in the government.

Re:Makes a certain amount of sense

[IM6100]

Cities should do the networks like they do the roads.

Everybody uses the roads. In fact, before roads were maintained, people wore paths where the roads were later established.

Everybody doesn't use the Internet. Many people don't have that much interest in it.

'The Net is inevitable and is taking over everything' is just oh-so 1998.

Re:Makes a certain amount of sense

[thynk]

Everybody uses the roads. In fact, before roads were maintained, people wore paths where the roads were later established.

Everybody doesn't use the Internet. Many people don't have that much interest in it.

While not everyone uses the internet, everyone I know has a TV and a phone. Both of these services can be provided for over a fiber connection better than they can be over copper.

The argument that not everyone uses the net isn't a good reason to not lay fiber. Let's look at it this way, I no longer have a land line based phone in the house (swiched to vonage). Does this mean that the phone compnay should rip the copper from my house just because I'll never use it again? Since I switched from cable to a dish, should the cable company rip the copper from my house? What about the next person to live there? Having a good solid infrastructor in place is critical, even if it's not filled to capacity.

Re:Makes a certain amount of sense

[Red Rocket]

We don't have GM make the road...then insist you ...only drive GM cars on it.

If you really are a bus driver, you might be interested in this. Most cities used to have a privately-owned trolley system that was an excellent means of transportation for the people (I live in quite a small city and it did). GM (along with Standard Oil and Firestone) didn't really care for people to have access to quality mass transportation so they formed a holding company called National City Lines to buy up the trolley companies and shut them down. Of course, a lot of people still didn't own personal transportation (yet) so NCL was quick to supply GM busses rolling on Firestone tires and burning Standard Oil. So, in a way, GM is responsible for the way our transportation system is organized.

More detail here and here.

HS-I'll take Geography and Population for a block.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I would welcome fiber to my home. It's not like it's technologically or economically impossible.

NTT and other companies [japantoday.com] have already been offering 100Mbs fiberoptic lines to homes in Japan for quite awhile now. "

A show of hands, please. How many times have you seen the above statement?

Now how many times have you seen the answer "Geography and Population Density"?

Now don't everyone rush too quickly to answer.

I have 256k nowadays...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and don't have patience for downloading ISOs. Instead, I rely on magazine CDs to upgrade (which I do not very often).

Lately, though, Linux pace of development has been accelerating. Such scheme of waiting for magazines is becoming slow by contrast. For example, just some 15 days ago Openoffice.org 1.0x hit the newsstands, but I have downloaded 1.1 before because it's so much better. And people have been talking KDE 3.2 is sweet for what? 12 days?

If 10Mbps (common Ethernet) gets to my home, it's MandrakeClub for me. Or Gentoo, maybe. No way out. And I'm not talking about quality or freedom here: it will be so easy, it'll be a nobrainer.

-//-

Using Opera with Opera-Wonderland skin, and the quality of these smooth fonts, and the perfect page rendering makes me remember how far we came -- and I'm only in Linux for the last 5 years or so.

I raise a toast to all those GNU and Linux guys who came before me and made possible this wonder: Auld lang sein!

Another one for those who joined us more recently -- and to our success in 2004: may standards (web, file format and others) prevail!

Finally, allow me to wish for more peaceful methods of solving conflicts than those we have used.

Ah fiber.

[psifishdot]

Fiber keeps my downloads regular...

Re:Ah fiber.

[Anonymous Coward]

A piece of geek graffiti on the toilet wall at my old lab read:

logout
core dumped
wiping backend cache
buffer flushed
pipe error
packet returned

I expect others have seen similar variations on the theme.

Re:YOU ARE THE FAILED

[Anonymous Coward]

What part of 12 inches do you not understand?

The part where you used it in the same sentence as "GNAA member." That's inherently self-contradictory. YOU FAIL IT (AGAIN)

hmmm...

[ambienceman]

Isn't he the guy who wrote that book about the "commons" from a technological standpoint?

Still waiting for UTOPIA

[gbrayut]

I'm still waiting for UTOPIA which hopes to provide a wholesale network that provide FTTH services without using TAX money!!!.

MUAHAHAHAHA!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I already have fiber optics at my home! Go check out gcpud.org and look at the Zipp program. I live in Grant County, Washington, which is in the middle of buttfucking nowhere. However, the PUD made a killing selling cheap hydroelectric power to California during the power crunch (thank you Gray Davis!). Now they're laying fiber optic cable to everybody's houses! It connects to a gateway on the side of the house, and from there it's 100Base-T Ethernet. It's damn cheap, too. $30 a month for a static IP, just under $20 a month for a dynamic one. I'm running a webserver out of my house. It's got about a gig of digital video on it, and it serves it up plenty fast. You have any idea how much that would cost me to host online? I'm considering upgrading my webserver and charging for webspace. I could price it well below the standard and still make a killing!

FastWeb

[Anonymous Coward]

In italy you can have fiber access at 10Mbps.
see www.fastweb.it. I get flatrate internet and unlimited national phone calls for 85 euros/month.
You can spend a lot less depending on the service you need.

gigabit ethernet on fiber?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethernet requires an ack after transmission or it will rertransmit. In 10 Mbit the time is about 25 micro sec. and 100 Mbit it is about 5 micro sec. Would 1 giga-bit require an ack in 1 microsecond? This would limit it to total distances from one giga-bit card to another of about 225'. So now we have an OC48 or OC192 SONET connection close to the house. $40.00 a month sounds cheap.

Re:gigabit ethernet on fiber?

[Wesley Felter]

Ethernet does not use ACKs; what are you talking about?

Faster local loop != faster Internet

[erice]

I don't see a whole lot point to running fiber to the home until backhaul costs come down.

The speed of most consumer broadband services is limited by the cost of the backhaul, not the performance of the local loop. If my area, 6Mbps DSL is available for those who can afford it. It's the same wire and the same hardware at both ends. Most people stick with 1.5Mbps becuase that is all they can afford.

Re:Faster local loop != faster Internet

[Atragon]

That's great. In my area, 1.5Mbps ADSL is as fast as it goes, cable is also available, either 1.5 or 3.0 down. Upstream is the same as with DSL.

I would love even symmetrical 1.5, or better, 3/1. But in my area, there's no real incentive for ISPs to offer such packages in any form other than T-1s and above.

If I a) had finished my education, b) spoke japanese, and c) had the money to do so, I'd be bloody tempted to move there. Highspeed internet up here in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (the nation's capital) is a joke.

How?

[Atragon]

How would said homeless people remove copper wire that's presumably affixed at both ends, runs through small underground conduits, and at the junction points is presumably secured with locks?