Those of use from the telecom world recoginze this as "backhoe fade" and ARPA has conducted considable research on the effect of fiber optic cable to attrace backhoes in the wild...
ARPA Science Research Funding News Today......
ARPA to Fund Network Reliability Research
Washington, DC -
The Advanced Research Projects Agency of the DoD announced today they are funding a three-year effort to improve the field reliability of fiber-optic communications networks. The program is aimed at reducing network outages from damage to buried fiber optic cables caused by construction machinery. Many telecommunications outages are caused each year when machines called "backhoes" dig-up underground fibers, cutting them and causing massive service disruptions.
This phenomenon is commonly referred to as "backhoe fade" and the uncanny ability of the construction backhoe to locate buried cables will be the focus of this effort.
Dr. Zweiback Gimfizel of the Marginalia Institute of Technoplasty has been designated Principle Investigator on the project and held a news conference today and described the proposed line of research.
"We are taking a page from the biologists who discovered
the magnetic organ in the brains of homing pigeon. This
organ senses the earth's magnetic field and allows the
pigeon to track its location.
"In like manner, our research will focus
on identifying the specialized organ structure within
the backhoe that can somehow sense the location of glass
fibers."
"The hope is that if this fiber-seeking mechanism can be
identified, measures can be developed to disguise
telecommunications cables, thereby creating "stealth"
fiber bundles which will not attract the attention of
the rampaging backhoes."
In another unrelated statement today, ARPA announced the creation of the Remote Autonomous Rodent Program which will work on developing specialized weapons systems for attacking the underground communications systems of adversaries. In recent theater actions, modern fiber-optic communications systems have proven quite resilient to traditional attacks and require new techniques to disable them.
Dr. Gimback Zweifizel of Hardly Yardwell University was designated Principle Investigator. In a prepared statement, Dr. Zweifizel noted that this work program was funded for three years and was to produce a field demonstration of a working system. Other details of the project are classified.
Sure, most users don't use their broadband to full capacity. There's a huge different between a backbone internet connection and a consumer grade line. The entire consumer broadband business model is built on the concept that giving a very large number of consumers high speed access will work if only a small number of those users are generating substaintial demand at any one time.
He also misses the fact that current providers have adopted the asymmetric line speed model in an attempt to curtail peer to peer and hosted content by consumers. This artifical cap will slowly erode, as we've seen in FTTH and some cable offering already.
Also overlooked are emerging trends in smart houses, automation, video monitoring and tele-presence, all of which assume the easy availability of cheap, fast consumer bandwidth at the core of their business model. Other applications, such a remote medical diagnostics and imaging will also generate more usage and will be encouraged by employers and medical providers.
The entire premise of this article is biased from the outset. It really seems like he wrote the entire item to support a preconceived conclusion. Or perhaps it's another case of the media intentinally stirring the pot...
I can't tell the two apart anymore, both MS and Symantec are behemouths that appear to cause many more problems for users than they actually appear to solve.
Use fresh, already cool outside air? In HVAC terms, you are referring to what's called an "economizer". These are not uncommon (and will save money for your typical building. Adding the necessary ducting, filtering and control hardware will add to the intitial cost, however.
For a datacenter, economizer options are not popular. Why? As a general rule, outside air is generally considered too dirty and too humid to be worth using on valuable data center equipment.
This entire issue is very much about reduced gov't and reduced taxation vs. increased gov't and more taxes.
State and local policiticans see VoIP is an easy mark for more tax revenue. But it's only taxable if they can control the entire telephone and long distance business thru state level regulation. So don't underestimate the determination here, both of these issues greatly increase the power of local politicians.
Since VoIP is only used by businesses and a few not-too-vocal consumers, it's an popular and easy mark to tax right now. And the common man sees lots of taxes on his home phone bills, so it's only fair that everyone else pay taxes on their phone calls, right?
The monopoly ILEC's see taxation as a matter of reducing competitors' advantage and controlling the growth of VoIP for smaller customers.
They are late to the party on VoIP and want to use taxes as a means of reducing competition for their POTS based services. It's also seen as a way of narrowing the playing field. More taxes means more regulation, more lawyers, and more barriers to competition.
I, for one, am amazed at the number of well written and interesting weblogs I've found. Yes, many are tedious and uninteresting, but I continue to find new and interesting material. I just wish I had to time to read more and continue to learn.
But I wonder: where do these people get the time and ambition to write these weblogs? And if they are spending so much time writing, plus have a job, where do they get the time to actually have a life?
Valid comments about making config and changes. I come from the days when all configuration was routinely done at a command line man-machine interface. It works fine, but did require training. Today we have solid but totally proprietary (and expensive) web or PC based graphical configuration systems, often requiring a separate PC just for programming.
A Webadmin type interface for Asterix would go a long ways toward making the product more acceptable to end users.
As for uptime, telco CO switches and PBX's, I've installed quite a few. Most are incredibly reliable due to rigid controls in design and testing, but I've seen lots of software and hardware problems that caused minor and/or major problems. Getting these software bugs documented and acted upon by the vendor generally took weeks or months before a new relese came out, and the end user generally paid dearly for the upgrade to fix what should have worked in the first place.
Not to mention the cost (and delays) of adding new features. Or the total lack of interoperability of telephone sets from different vendors.
VZ has gone to a lot of effort lobbying Congress, the FCC and state PUC's to link the deployment of their news fiber networks in such a manner to severely restrict access by their CLEC competitors.
Some ISP's using VADI controlled acess may have (overpriced) wholesale services offered to them, but the competition is only token. What's really telling is that their will be no true UNE based access allowed for really dangerous competitors: the CLEC's and DLEC's, who VZ really wants to put out of business.
Verizon is building an all new fiber optic cable plant for FIOS. Even the connection from the street to the premise will require installation of a new fiber optic drop cable and a new premise equipment box.
If you are located in one of the three ex-GTE areas TX, CA or FL currently under build-out and Verizon has been installing new cable ducts using underground rodding equipment, you are likely in the service area. In my area, near Tampa, they installed the ducts down the street in early July. I have not been able to get a map of the service areas from Verizon, but I was able to get verbal confirmation that service will be installed in most of the county over a period of two years.
I intentionally purchased a home in the FIOS service area this year. I've been following the progress of the project closely. I called and ordered FIOS about two weeks ago. A Verizon contractor installed a new fiber optic drop cable to my house last week. I'm slated for installaion of 5mb FIOS service tommorrow. Then all I have to do is get an ethernet cable out to the equipment box and I'll be in business.
(Sidebar: Verizon sales told me that the installation tech is supposed to configure my router and PC, but there's no chance he'll get any chance to touch my systems.)
Recent stories in the local newspaper here in Tampa quote Verizon officials as saying that Cable TV services will be offered as soon as a satisfactory cable franchise agreement can be completed with the city.
Based on comments from industry insiders, I expect a halfway decent basic offerering to compete with the local incumbent (Bright House Networks, nee Time Warner Cable), with a heavy emphasis on premium services, pay per view and view on demand.
What Microsoft will do that Apple has not, is have these products over-distributed thru mass market consumer electronics retailers. This will bring these players to the mainstream consumer.
Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Circuit City and consumer electronics website will feature these devices in large, prominent displays supported by lots of ads. There will be lots of discounting and maybe even some loss leader deals, perhaps some package deals with discounted downloads and/or other items.
That's what MS's marketing and merchandising savvy did for PC's and software. It brought the products to everyone and prices dropped as volume increased. Once the market was "made", more devices from other vendors come forth to compete and prices dropped further.
Sure MS made a bundle, and so did a lot of other vendors. But consumers got a product that they wanted. Not a bad tradeoff if you ask me.
When users find out that they can easily buy the applications software they want, that Linux is easy to use with minimal crashes and at far lower cost.... then there will be a backlash.
So far, we still aren't anywhere close to this being the case. Developers need to release a lot more well known applications and desktop Linux has got to become a lot more dummy-friendly. Yes, current releases of Linux are better than ever, but until this occurs, it's all speculation if Linux will ever have a chance at the average joe user's desktop PC.
Maybe they really do have lost techie souls wandering the streets and clogging the homeless shelters on the Left Coast.
From here in Cleveland, it just doesn't appear to be the case. We're still having a tough time finding anyone to hire with real skills, a working brain and a work ethic. I've got three open positions for Linux sys admin, C and perl hackers at 40-50k/yr and can't fill them.
Slashdot Mirror
Those of use from the telecom world recoginze
this as "backhoe fade" and ARPA has conducted
considable research on the effect of fiber
optic cable to attrace backhoes in the wild...
ARPA Science Research Funding News Today......
ARPA to Fund Network Reliability Research
Washington, DC -
The Advanced Research Projects Agency of the DoD announced today they are
funding a three-year effort to improve the field reliability of
fiber-optic communications networks. The program is aimed at reducing
network outages from damage to buried fiber optic cables caused by
construction machinery. Many telecommunications outages are caused each
year when machines called "backhoes" dig-up underground fibers, cutting
them and causing massive service disruptions.
This phenomenon is commonly referred to as "backhoe fade" and
the uncanny ability of the construction backhoe to locate buried
cables will be the focus of this effort.
Dr. Zweiback Gimfizel of the Marginalia Institute of Technoplasty
has been designated Principle Investigator on the project and
held a news conference today and described the proposed line of
research.
"We are taking a page from the biologists who discovered
the magnetic organ in the brains of homing pigeon. This
organ senses the earth's magnetic field and allows the
pigeon to track its location.
"In like manner, our research will focus
on identifying the specialized organ structure within
the backhoe that can somehow sense the location of glass
fibers."
"The hope is that if this fiber-seeking mechanism can be
identified, measures can be developed to disguise
telecommunications cables, thereby creating "stealth"
fiber bundles which will not attract the attention of
the rampaging backhoes."
In another unrelated statement today, ARPA announced the creation of the
Remote Autonomous Rodent Program which will work on developing specialized
weapons systems for attacking the underground communications systems of
adversaries. In recent theater actions, modern fiber-optic communications
systems have proven quite resilient to traditional attacks and require
new techniques to disable them.
Dr. Gimback Zweifizel of Hardly Yardwell University was designated
Principle Investigator. In a prepared statement, Dr. Zweifizel noted that
this work program was funded for three years and was to produce a field
demonstration of a working system. Other details of the project are
classified.
This writer's conclusions make no sense.
Sure, most users don't use their broadband to full capacity. There's a huge different between a backbone internet connection and a consumer grade line. The entire consumer broadband business model is built on the concept that giving a very large number of consumers high speed access will work if only a small number of those users are generating substaintial demand at any one time.
He also misses the fact that current providers have adopted the asymmetric line speed model in an attempt to curtail peer to peer and hosted content by consumers. This artifical cap will slowly erode, as we've seen in FTTH and some cable offering already.
Also overlooked are emerging trends in smart houses, automation, video monitoring and tele-presence, all of which assume the easy availability of cheap, fast consumer bandwidth at the core of their business model. Other applications, such a remote medical diagnostics and imaging will also generate more usage and will be encouraged by employers and medical providers.
The entire premise of this article is biased from the outset. It really seems like he wrote the entire item to support a preconceived conclusion. Or perhaps it's another case of the media intentinally stirring the pot...
I can't tell the two apart anymore, both MS and Symantec are behemouths that appear to cause many more problems for users than they actually appear to solve.
Use fresh, already cool outside air? In HVAC terms, you are referring to what's called an "economizer". These are not uncommon (and will save money for your typical building. Adding the necessary ducting, filtering and control hardware will add to the intitial cost, however.
For a datacenter, economizer options are not popular. Why? As a general rule, outside air is generally considered too dirty and too humid to be worth using on valuable data center equipment.
Firefox, a version 1.0 product, has minor defects?
OMG, I demand a full refund now!
(But I sure am glad that people smarter than I am are able to inspect the code, find and expose the bugs before disaster strikes.)
And IE worms are the gift that keeps on giving...
This entire issue is very much about reduced gov't and reduced taxation vs. increased gov't and more taxes.
State and local policiticans see VoIP is an easy mark for more tax revenue. But it's only taxable if they can control the entire telephone and long distance business thru state level regulation. So don't underestimate the determination here, both of these issues greatly increase the power of local politicians.
Since VoIP is only used by businesses and a few not-too-vocal consumers, it's an popular and easy mark to tax right now. And the common man sees lots of taxes on his home phone bills, so it's only fair that everyone else pay taxes on their phone calls, right?
The monopoly ILEC's see taxation as a matter of reducing competitors' advantage and controlling the growth of VoIP for smaller customers.
They are late to the party on VoIP and want to use taxes as a means of reducing competition for their POTS based services. It's also seen as a way of narrowing the playing field. More taxes means more regulation, more lawyers, and more barriers to competition.
I, for one, am amazed at the number of well written and interesting weblogs I've found. Yes, many are tedious and uninteresting, but I continue to find new and interesting material. I just wish I had to time to read more and continue to learn.
But I wonder: where do these people get the time and ambition to write these weblogs? And if they are spending so much time writing, plus have a job, where do they get the time to actually have a life?
Valid comments about making config and changes. I come from the days when all configuration was routinely done at a command line man-machine interface. It works fine, but did require training. Today we have solid but totally proprietary (and expensive) web or PC based graphical configuration systems, often requiring a separate PC just for programming.
A Webadmin type interface for Asterix would go a long ways toward making the product more acceptable to end users.
As for uptime, telco CO switches and PBX's, I've installed quite a few. Most are incredibly reliable due to rigid controls in design and testing, but I've seen lots of software and hardware problems that caused minor and/or major problems. Getting these software bugs documented and acted upon by the vendor generally took weeks or months before a new relese came out, and the end user generally paid dearly for the upgrade to fix what should have worked in the first place.
Not to mention the cost (and delays) of adding new features. Or the total lack of interoperability of telephone sets from different vendors.
VZ has gone to a lot of effort lobbying Congress, the FCC and state PUC's to link the deployment of their news fiber networks in such a manner to severely restrict access by their CLEC competitors.
Some ISP's using VADI controlled acess may have (overpriced) wholesale services offered to them, but the competition is only token. What's really telling is that their will be no true UNE based access allowed for really dangerous competitors: the CLEC's and DLEC's, who VZ really wants to put out of business.
Verizon is building an all new fiber optic cable plant for FIOS. Even the connection from the street to the premise will require installation of a new fiber optic drop cable and a new premise equipment box.
If you are located in one of the three ex-GTE areas TX, CA or FL currently under build-out and Verizon has been installing new cable ducts using underground rodding equipment, you are likely in the service area. In my area, near Tampa, they installed the ducts down the street in early July. I have not been able to get a map of the service areas from Verizon, but I was able to get verbal confirmation that service will be installed in most of the county over a period of two years.
I intentionally purchased a home in the FIOS service area this year. I've been following the progress of the project closely. I called and ordered FIOS about two weeks ago. A Verizon contractor installed a new fiber optic drop cable to my house last week. I'm slated for installaion of 5mb FIOS service tommorrow. Then all I have to do is get an ethernet cable out to the equipment box and I'll be in business.
(Sidebar: Verizon sales told me that the installation tech is supposed to configure my router and PC, but there's no chance he'll get any chance to touch my systems.)
Recent stories in the local newspaper here in Tampa quote Verizon officials as saying that Cable TV services will be offered as soon as a satisfactory cable franchise agreement can be completed with the city.
Based on comments from industry insiders, I expect a halfway decent basic offerering to compete with the local incumbent (Bright House Networks, nee Time Warner Cable), with a heavy emphasis on premium services, pay per view and view on demand.
What Microsoft will do that Apple has not, is have these products over-distributed thru mass market consumer electronics retailers. This will bring these players to the mainstream consumer.
Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Circuit City and consumer electronics website will feature these devices in large, prominent displays supported by lots of ads. There will be lots of discounting and maybe even some loss leader deals, perhaps some package deals with discounted downloads and/or other items.
That's what MS's marketing and merchandising savvy did for PC's and software. It brought the products to everyone and prices dropped as volume increased. Once the market was "made", more devices from other vendors come forth to compete and prices dropped further.
Sure MS made a bundle, and so did a lot of other vendors. But consumers got a product that they wanted. Not a bad tradeoff if you ask me.
When users find out that they can easily buy the applications software they want, that Linux is easy to use with minimal crashes and at far lower cost.... then there will be a backlash.
So far, we still aren't anywhere close to this being the case. Developers need to release a lot more well known applications and desktop Linux has got to become a lot more dummy-friendly. Yes, current releases of Linux are better than ever, but until this occurs, it's all speculation if Linux will ever have a chance at the average joe user's desktop PC.
Still... it _could_ very well happen.
Maybe they really do have lost techie souls wandering the streets and clogging the homeless shelters on the Left Coast. From here in Cleveland, it just doesn't appear to be the case. We're still having a tough time finding anyone to hire with real skills, a working brain and a work ethic. I've got three open positions for Linux sys admin, C and perl hackers at 40-50k/yr and can't fill them.