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Fiber Optic vs Copper
pcnetworx1 writes "Recently companies, such as Verizon with their FIOS service, have begun to migrate from legacy copper to fiber optics. Corning (admittedly one of the largest fiber optic cable makers) is running an article which explains why it is actually cheaper to go for the fiber optics."
Fiber is a step above copper with respect to infrastructure security. While this doesn't have implications for everyone plenty of businesses and government agencies require that level of security.
They also said that the price for installing fiber and the price for installing copper are now similar. This is news. Fiber used to be plenty more expensive to install than copper.
Funny how a fiber optic cable making company forgot to include that in their analysis.
They're talking about high-bandwidth installations, and talking to business people. I doubt these people are interested in hack jobs the grandparent describes, especially since it's a sure way to say goodbye to your high bandwidth (tens of gigabits or so).
Everything you wrote is contrary to my experience with fiber optics.
Changing fiber connectors is not expensive. It takes more skill then crimping copper, but it is not hard. It requires some specialized equipment but it is nothing outrageous. Changing the connector types should not be an issue. All infrastructure fiber should be terminated in a patch panel with a pigtail used to connect the hardware (servers/switchs/etc) to the patch panel. Fiber is somewhat fragile so once infrastructure fiber in in place it is best if it is not touched.
I am not aware of any shop replaceing GBICs every other week, every other month, or indeed ever. In my experience fiber transcievers have been more reliable then copper. At any rate Cisco GBICs aren't that expensive. Through Google I found multimode transcievers for $180.
Any shop that ran copper 10 years ago is running new copper now to take adavantage of 1Gbit/s. Those shops will be running new copper again in 10 years. Fiber shops are using the same old fiber with new switches. When 10Gbit becomes affordable fiber shops will switch over to that.
At my last shop every 24 devices had a 1Gbit/s fiber link to the fiber plant. This density was choosen to keep the copper runs short. Most switches are not full so there are actually fewer then 24 devices per fiber. There are 4-6 dark fibers for every fiber in use. This gives room for spares and future growth. That may be excessive, but the cost of fiber is cheaper then labour. It is a great setup.