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Copper Wire As Fast As Fiber?
Krishna Dagli writes to tell us that a new consortium of hardware vendors and phone companies have banded together in order to try for fiber optic speeds over copper wiring. From the article: "To avoid interference, current DSL implementations use static spectrum management that is built for a 'worst-case' scenario. Most actual phone lines would allow for far better performance, and DSM technology will allow each DSL connection to be regulated in real time by the hardware based on measured crosstalk and on current data needs of each customer. The end result could be DSL connections that top out at 100Mbps or more."
It's not likely we'll see this very soon. As soon as Ma Bell gets their hands on this, they'll blunder it as usual and blame everyone else for their problems... If they are successful, you can bet that you'll get high download speeds, but will be locked up with that lovely 256k uplink. Oh, you want more? That's a 'business line', you get to pay triple!
By increasing the capacity of copper to (best case) 100Mps they are only prolonging the inevitable. Fiberoptics has an upper limit that is immensely higher...
We had a new second telephone company come to town to compete with Verizon / Adelphia. They started pulling their own fiber (this was a year before Verizon announced FIOS. Of course Verizon still hasn't announced FIOS for our town.)
The freakin PINHEADS only offer 1Mb or 2Mb internet - via FIBER. Heck, DSL in this area is as fast or faster.
DSL technology already exists that can offer higher speeds over longer distances than Verizon (and most other ILECs) currently support, but verizon (and other ILECs) just won't deploy it. Instead, they continue to install obsolete technology.
The price of copper has gone from $0.25 a pound to $3.50 a pound in the last 5 years.
The copper -vs- fiber debate almost ended in 2000 because fiber is such a superior data transmission medium.
The copper -vs- fiber debate is completely over for new installations.
The material cost is on par now, and the primary cost of the installation is not the material but the labor.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Copper and fiber - much better for security purposes than wireless; but most of us don't really need the added protection. Wireless encryption should be able to make my data harder to steal than it's worth in most cases. I'd like to take this opportunity to tell both the telcos and the cablecos to diversify their network divisions - that physical connection is becoming as useful as the human appendix (except for certain special cases).
Does anyone else kinda feel like this is planned??
.... Wireless, Fiber ... Ok, lets see how much R&D money we can soak out of the Government for studying this.... (4-5 years later) ....... Well, it looks feasible from an energy/electrical standpoint, however the amount of man hours needed to putting a fiber grid in place is whats gonna kill us. Ok, let take a look at our existing infrastructure. Hey, I know, how about we see what we can theoretically push over our existing infrastructure. That way, we don't need to pay for all the man hours of laying new fiber-op cable....
/dawns a aluminum-foil hat
//not always, just when monopolies come into play
Look at it from this perspective: It's the late 90's/2000, ISP's are taking off, Internet is chugging along.... Where is the future of home Internet
Yea, this seems a little bit behind the times IMO. DSL has been around, what 10~ years?? This screams of upper management either having their head up their ass, or this was sketched on the drawing board 2 months into the Internet blowing up. OR, its the off chance that the Gov. said no to the deal as it would screw up certain behaviors going on in the POTS.
Next time you claim something runs at Fiber Speeds, make sure it hits at least 1Gbps, please.
Disagreeing with me does not mean you get to mod me troll.