[GRLUG] FiOS -- NOT

[Bob Kline]

On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam at whitemice.org
> wrote:

>
> > Which has dramatically higher customer-per-square-miles
> > Probably a factor, but AT&T and Comcast
> > say they have fiber to the street, and then
> > twisted pair to the home.  How much would
> > it cost to run fiber that last distance?
>
> A LOT!  Fiber installation and splicing is an order of magnitude more
> labor intensive - and sensitive to error - then copper.
>

Some more.  It depends on the
kind of fiber.  Single mode.  Multimode.
The hardest to work with - single mode,
because of the tiny core diameter - is not
necessary for the final drop. Tools for
splicing fiber have been around for 30
years and more.  I'll agree that it takes
a little more training to splice a fiber than
to deal with coax, but not dramatically
more.

The canonical cost for twisted pair to the
home has long been about $2,000, on
average.  Much of that is labor.  Had
fibers been run to the home or building
been done during construction, rather
than as a retrofit, the difference in cost
would probably be very nominal.




> And there is little or no benefit for last hop fiber;  it will just be
> more expensive to repair or install.  100MBps service can be delivered
> over short hauls with copper.
>

Even long hauls.  Comcast, for sure,
has the technology to combine cable
channels,  to provide up to 160 Mbps
or so.  I don't know whether that is a
limit of any physical kind, or just cost.


>
> > > > Moffett believes the end of FiOS expansion means that cable
> > > > companies will lose fewer subscribers, starting next year.
> > > With Comcast cutting of analog service market by market I think the
> > > shedding of customers will continue.
> > To?  Someone here said AT&T U-verse is not widely available.
>
> Define "widely".  Numbers I have been told indicate it is available to
> the majority of residents within Grand Rapids city limits and the
> immediately adjacent municipalities. [Note: "residents", not "area"].
>
> > I called Comcast late last fall and the person said it would "roll
> > out" 22 and 50 Mbps services in Q1.Q1 is over in a few days.
>
> I have no knowledge of what Comcast offers.
>
> > You can get a "business service"
> > at each of those rates, for a mere
> > $100 and $190 a month, respectively.
> > FiOS was about $35 a month for those
> > rates.
>
> It would be very interesting to see real-world benchmarking of such
> services;  but I've not seen any [you'd need to connect each service to
> the same place - which would be expensive - otherwise your tests
> wouldn't be comparative].  On the other hand I'm pretty confident that
> paying for "50MBps" would land squarely in the "waste of money" category
> as I doubt you will get any substantial improvements of real-world
> performance once you past 10MBps.  You rather quickly run into
>

Why 10 Mbps?


> constraints [very possibly administrative] on the remote.
>

It's chicken and egg.  In 1980 I
had a 300 bps modem.  A "Cat,"
with the handset cradle.  Today
I have an actual 16 Mbps - under
many conditions anyway.  More
bandwidth has always found uses,
and nothing I know says some kind
of optimum speed has been passed
already.  Maybe optimum in terms
of bang for the buck using the old
twisted pair technology.

How to build a faster Internet?
One suggestion:

http://omnibus.bobanna.com/akamai/

   -- Bob


>
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