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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."
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.