Actually, the incentives for the telephone company to replace copper
pairs with fiber throughout their service area (urban or rural) are
there - the outside copper plant is aging rapidly and becoming an
expensive nightmare to maintain. I suspect the maintenance cost per
cable mile of copper is significantly higher than that of fiber. I have
been away from the telecom business for a number of years, but I suspect
that the point is rapidly approaching where conversion to fiber isn't an
option, it is a necessity. The other problem for the telcos is that the
number of customers for POTS service is decreasing daily, which makes
the cable maintenance cost per customer that much higher - and the rates
the telcos charge are regulated and based on very basic cost per
customer numbers.
At one time, terminating customer fiber was a complex and expensive
chore, but advances in the hardware have made working with fiber not
much more complex than with copper. And fiber has the potential
capability far beyond that of either copper pairs or coaxial cable. One
other feature of fiber is that it is almost impossible to illegally tap
into a customer's data stream, something unique to that media. Copper,
co-ax, and radio, on the other hand are ridiculously easy to tap.
Mike
b_s-wilk wrote:
"Eric S. Sande" <[email protected]> escribió:
I don't understand why Verizon has chosen to go with only FIOS.
I think I tried to explain this at some point. I'll try it again.
We get a greater rate of return from an all optical network, frankly.
Yes it costs more to deploy and not everyone will choose to take
it. That is called "take rate". We obviously want a high "take
rate".
Yes, the rate of return may be better for FIOS deployment in
metropolitan areas, but in less populated areas, we may never see fiber
installed.
That's where incentives are needed. I know you're conservative, but do
you object to tax incentives and subsidies to bring the US up to speed
with other developed countries so we can compete educationally and
industrially?
Which are the other technologies that can provide competitive speeds
[20-50Mbps] and are financially viable? Microwave? WiFi? FIOS may be
your choice, but it's not going to happen around here for a long time,
if ever, and I have no plans to move to DC in the near future.
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