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Flexible Optic Fiber Promises Cheaper Last Mile

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the bend-me-shape-me dept.

bn0p writes "Ars Technica has an article on a Korean company that has developed a low-cost, flexible, plastic optical fiber that could bring cheaper 2.5 Gbps connections to homes and apartments. While not as fast as glass fiber, it is significantly faster than copper. In related news, Corning recently announced a flexible glass fiber that can be bent repeatedly without losing signal strength. The Corning fiber incorporates nanostructures in the cladding of the fiber that act as 'light guardrails' to keep the light in the fiber. The glass fiber could be as much as four times faster than plastic fiber. Neither fiber is available commercially yet, but both should help with the last mile problem when they are deployed."

7 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Cabling expense by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Physical cabling, of any sort, is cheap if you're already digging trenches etc.

    If you don't have other reasons to dig trenches etc, then wireless is typically far cheaper because the installation costs are zero.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
    1. Re:Cabling expense by nmg196 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > wireless is typically far cheaper because the installation costs are zero.

      Err, no. Wireless is very expensive to install. Even more expensive perhaps than mobile phone networks (mainly because you need 50-100 times more access points than you need for mobile phones (due to the very low transmission powers the standard permits).

      Why do you think that there are almost no cities with city-wide wireless access, years after the technology became prevalent? Most people have problems getting WiFi working in their house - let alone trying to get it to work for a whole town without all the channels massively overlapping. Municipal WiFi won't take off until the standard (perhaps a NEW standard) allows higher transmission powers and a larger frequency band for extra channels.

  2. no they won't by EjectButton · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not in the United States anyway, our "last mile problem" has a lot more to do with entrenched telecom and cable companies with regional monopolies than any sort of fiber bendiness.

    1. Re:no they won't by calebt3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Those monopolies only exist because they have the government's blessing. You can bet that they will be broken up shortly if the legislators find out that they could be getting their pr0n faster. Unless maybe those monopolies give enough bribe money that the legislator can pay for a 2.5Gb connection without thinking twice.

  3. Will this matter? by tsotha · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't think the cost of the actual cable will change the equation very much. I've been out of it for more than ten years, but even then you could get fiber for less than $1/foot - I assume it's even cheaper now. I have to believe most of the cost lies in planning, getting permits, and digging trenches.

  4. Invest for the long-term by r_jensen11 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What I don't get is why we seemingly refuse to invest for the long-term in the United States. Sure, some companies do, generally the smarter ones. But when it comes to public infrastructure, politicians haven't found a way to inform the public that by spending 2x as much now, we're saving 20x as much over the next n years.

    I know that technology evolves at a rapid rate, but if we invest more money now and use the same amount of energy* now (compared to doing investing less money and the same amount of energy), then we can use the energy that's left over from not having to double our efforts next year for other causes.

    *energy here is refering to human capital.

    1. Re:Invest for the long-term by Belial6 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Unfortunately, fiber would be just as bad of a long term decision. How about conduit. If instead of just allowing builders to lay wire, they should run conduit under the roads, and right up to the house, and that the conduit is owned by the city/county. The city/county could then rent the last mile to anyone that wants to offer data services. We could actually have competition in the telecom and cable tv industry. If this were done in new construction or during times when major reconstruction is already in progress, the cost would be dramatically less than than trying to do this in established neighborhoods. I would bet that once people started seeing the benefits, you would see demand for retrofitting older neighborhoods with conduit. This would also turn the last mile into an on going revenue source for the cities/counties.