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Verizon To Pump $18B Into FiOS
larytet writes, "LightReading reports that Verizon will invest $18B into FTTH. The company says its fiber-based service will become profitable after four years, and expects by then to have 7 million customers using FiOS for Internet access." For perspective, have a look at Bruce Kushnick's book $200 Billion Broadband Scandal. His site has a page detailing phone company promises of fiber since 1993. We have been paying for these undelivered promises for years. By now we should have 86 million homes wired with FTTH at 100 Mbits/sec.
According to this article in my local paper, Verizon is planning on spending nearly $23b on FiOS and that's for about 1/2 their network. The $18b figure mentioned in the summary comes from discounting the $5b in projected savings from not having to maintain the aging copper physical plant. The linked to article sort of mentions this, but it's not real clear.
Well, I'm in the 'who cares' boat. My city is rolling FTTH RIGHT NOW. I'll be hooked up by next year, at the latest.
As far asw having 86 million people wired by now, have you not heard of the last mile problem. Laying the cable costs money. And takes time. After the dot bomb the telcos had to retrench for a few years until the market improved a bit.
The dot-com collapse was a big reason why there was a big delay in getting broadband to metropolitan areas across the USA. It's only within the last three years that landline broadband has been widely available in most larger cities across the USA. Most AT&T customers now have at least access to DSL broadband, and the cable companies have made broadband available to almost everyone nowadays.
You're fortunate that you don't live in a rural area where Verizon is busy trying to sell off their landlines. From today's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/technology/28ver mont.html
Unfortunately some companies, such as AT&T and BellSouth (which are becoming the same soon) don't get it. They don't seem to realize that the switch to fiber will be inevitable, and they are currently falling behind in this race for speed. In its current carnation, ADSL is not capable of handling Voice, Internet, and TV service, and while I have read that they have plans to implement VDSL, it will have its limits as well. It is good to see a huge company such as Verizon understand that they will need to make a huge investment, even though they have a control over certain markets and aren't really being forced to upgrade. In my area, SureWest has been running fiber in many parts of Sacramento, and they already offer 100Mbps fiber directly to customers houses. The CEO has admitted it will cost them a lot of money, and will be a slow upgade, but they have already been successful in their attempts. If a relatively small company like SureWest can compete in a market that has been controlled by AT&T and Comcast, then I'm sure it is possible in many other big cities around the United States. I have their service, and one thing that I find amazing is they can upgade to 1Gbps to their customers relatively easy by switching out line cards in their 4500 Cisco routers when it becomes necessary to keep up with or get ahead of the competition. The same can be done by switching to 10Gbps uplink from 4500 series to 6500 series routers that are connecting neighborhoods to their backbone. Now that is building for the future.
On a 100Mbps connection (12.5MBps) you would download a 700MB movie in 56 seconds. But to download an entire DVD, it would take more than five minutes. Over 100Mbps you can watch good quality live streams smoothly. Here in Estonia, some ISPs provide 15Mbps for users who want digital television. While it is smooth most of the time, it blurs when watching really fast action (for example some sports). On a 100Mbps connection I could receive full uncompressed frames with no problems.
Here in France most of broadband is DSL oriented. For 29.99 you get on a DSL : 25Mb/s, digital TV (more than 100 chans), unlimited call to european land line (and most majour countries), on-demand video, PVR-like features, ... nothing surprising anymore.
i on/presentation1.htm) or even FTTB (on Paris area, see Erenis http://www.erenis.fr/ )...
;-) Right, ...
...
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But since year 2000, some small ISP have lanched FTTH in Paris 15th district (Citéfibre http://www.citefibre.com/ 59/month for 30Mb/s symetrical, unlimited call to any france landline , digital TV) or other cities (like Pau see http://eco.agglo-pau.fr/Initiatives/PBC/presentat
Obviously some would says that Japan, Korea or Taiwan are still leading on FTTH
But this september, Free (Iliad Group registered on Euronext as ILD) the #2 on broadband market (#1 is FranceTelecom/Orange) has announed they will migrate their DSL customer to FTTH offer. Same price (29.99) for 100Mb/s symetrical bandwidth on a point to point full fiber infrastructure, services anticipated are : multi-tv-set full HD service (full HD sports show Rolland Garros or Tour de France will be hits next year !) and WiFi based mobile VoIP (your modem will become a public hotspot for any other subscriber roaming)
This means a 1G$ (1 billion euro) of investment on 6 years (mostly using cashmoney they got). The migration of DSL customer will start begin of next year by Paris and some other big surrounding cities and will then follow on any other disctrict where Free got more thant 15% of the DSL market.
For more details, please see :
http://www.journaldunet.com/0609/060911-free.shtm
(In French, so babelfish can be your friend)
Although I may have been successful in my deciphering, I believe FTTH is not a common acronym that most people (even on /.) have heard about. And no, I shouldn't have to chase a wikipedia link to figure it out. At least the submitter didn't use the much worse acronym FTTP, fiber to the premises (which I would have thought a misspelling of FTP).
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
This has been done in a small town about an hour from me, I think in 1999: Ashland Fiber Network The city got tired of being on the end of Qwest's lists for improvement, cause its small, spread out , and mountainous, and they did it themselves. Strung fiber all over town, you purchase your connection to the internet (and get to choose witch small town ISP to use for your email, support, and outgoing internet, etc) and choose who you want to get your TV from , and even which channels!
Very cheap, and blazing fast!
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
You can get the same package in most EU countries for half that, often with better bandwidth and it's been available for years. In France they are rolling out gigabit (2.5/1) connections: TV + phone + REAL broadband = $80usd
In the US I pay ~$90 for a crappy cable modem connection and basic cable (30 channels, half of them are the home shopping and religious junk channels).
The US is falling behind other developed nations. If it doesn't get turned around soon the US will be at a significant disadvantage economically and socially.
Their promises weren't written into the law, at least in Pennsylvania, but...
Verizon struck a landmark deal with the state of Pennsylvania in 1994 to provide 45MB/s Symmetrical Fiber to the entire state. Verizon recieved over $2 Billion from Pennsylvania but Verizon did not come close to meeting its agreement - wire 50% of PA with 45MB/s Symmetrical Fiber by the end of 2004. The state allowed Verizon to completely ignore the original agreement and keep all the financial incentives. http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/30544