The Fool wrote:
>
> > From: Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> > On Sun, Oct 27, 2002 at 05:21:11AM -0600, The Fool wrote:
> >
> > > This wouldn't be necessary if the local-phone monopolies would
> install
> > > fibre optics right up to the home like they should have done.
> >
> > While I would also like to see a fiber going to each home (it would
> > be good for my career!), I have to point out that it isn't as simple
> > as that. Mainly, it is expensive. Laying and hooking up the fiber is
> > expensive, fiber optic transceivers are expensive, and the supporting
> > hardward for the neighborhood network (optical switches, routers) is
> > expensive. If most people aren't willing to pay more than $50/month,
> > then it will take a long time for the fiber to be installed.
>
> Those are mostly one time costs. The only part of the phone network that
> isn't fibre is the twisted pair that goes to homes.
Yes, and do you have any idea what sort of a pain it is to run more
cabling of any sort to a home in a subdivision that was built in the
1980s? That's the only thing I have any personal experience with in
terms of the original infrastructure being inadequite, and boy, was that
a pain to deal with.
Since the main branches that they could branch off from were not on our
side of our street, the phone company had 2 options: 1) dig a trench
across the street, or 2) dig a trench through the yard of a neighbor
whose property backed onto ours. And the neighbor whose yard was going
to have to be trenched for this had done some pretty elaborate
landscaping in their backyard (and it was gorgeous), and the phone
company had to make sure everything was gotten back to the way it had
been. The neighbors held the whole thing up a week or two, trying to
stop the phone company from digging up their yard, and wouldn't budge
until someone's lawyer pulled out the law that let the phone company do
that sort of thing.
The labor costs and the costs to return the landscaping to something
approximating its original condition made the cost of the actual copper
wire laid seem like nothing. So they laid more extra capacity than we
and the house next door could possibly need. (And it turned out that we
*did* end up using all but one or two extra pair, IIRC. There's nothing
like having 2 128K ISDN lines for one house to use up copper pairs.)
Re-doing the last 50 feet everywhere with fiber instead of copper would
be a real pain in the tuckus, and would be expensive. I'm not sure who
ate the cost of the trenching (it wasn't our household, it was either
the phone company or my employer that was wanting to get the ISDN
installed for my telecommuting connection), but if it was the phone
company, they're not going to want to do that *everywhere*. (If they
were the ones that ate it, they probably recouped it charges for the
first 128K ISDN line over the course of 3 years, and if not, the 2nd
128K ISDN line the 3rd year probably helped a lot.)
Now, if there were enough demand, they could probably work out an
installment plan to have customers *wanting* the fiber all the way up to
the house to pay for it over a period of some months, but at the moment,
folks are doing well enough with copper that there isn't that demand
now.
Julia
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