Capping the Future - Future of Broadband in the US

[ian2000gsxr]

i wish fios would come here.. I am using a WISP since im out in the country. 1.5 down for 40 a month.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

is like costa rica $160 for a 4Mb / 1MB line and a static IP i pay $100 fort a 3MB / 512kb line now)

but at least we got 1MB upload.

 

[Neuromancer]

I work for a company that installs underground telephone systems. We have been installing fiber to the home for the last 3 years. Before that we we doing hybrid fiber/copper DSL systems.


To give you an idea of the costs and times involved, We recently did the small town of Menagha, MN and it's outlying areas. The town has a population of rougly 1000 people and there were about 600 homes involved in town and 300 or so outlying. We placed almost 100 miles of cable for this one job alone. Most of that(roughly 70 miles) was drops to the houses. This one job took almost 6 months to complete. Keep inmind that this area is all sand, which is some of the best soil to work in(as opposed to rock or heavy clays, which are most common.)We had a 17 man crew on this job. I believe the total cost rolled in at close to $3 million.When I hear people bitching about the cost and complaining about how long it's taking...I gotta laugh. People always want the best stuff for free.

Actually they have every right.

First of all there are thousands of miles of "darkfiber" already laid out (the state of west virginia for instance has more fibre optic cable laid (and unused) then the country of Korea (more then a quarter million miles of it).

You did mention that most of the optic cable you were running was to the house, but in most states its already on the pole... How many houses could your team do in one day? Judging from your numbers 180 days for 70 miles, 100' from pole to house.. .thats 20 houses a day for one team. (actually more as I am sure you didnt work 7 days a week)

Secondly... it was already paid for. So there is no cost.

In the mid 90's Clinton but forth a telecommunications act that gave enormous grants and tax cuts to the telcommunications industry inorder for 70% of the US to have affordable "broadband" internet by 2010

Note that I quoted broadband.

In the early 1990's broadband referred to internet equal to or in excess of 45mbps synchronous.

In 1996 the FCC went and redefinied the term to mean anything over 200K which is ridiculous. 200K is not fast enough to surf the web2.0 let alone stream video (it can do very bad audio streams though).

We were promised broadband and we will get it. With FIOS coming out the cable industry is upping their speeds too. We pay $33 dollars a month for 8Mbps cable with 1+ Mbps upload speed. Speedboost takes that to 16/1.5 Still not super high but its better, once FIOS hits my town I will be upgrading to that as well. And by 2010 I am sure we will have 45/45 available for under 100 a month

 

[Deadbot1_1973]

Neur0mancer.... the milelage of darkfiber quoted can be misleading. Often that mileage isn't the cable length, but the total length of all dark fibers in one cable...ie a 100 mile stretch of 144 fiber with 44 lighted fibers becomes (100 fibers x 100 miles = ) 10000 miles of dark fiber. As a teacher of mine once stated...statistics is the art of lying with numbers.
Edit:A pretty good explanation of Dark fiber on Wikipedia

Also, from real world experience, 100' from pole to house is optimistic at best. We rarely make runs shorter than 200'. It might only be 100' to the corner of the house, but we often end up going to a hidden location at the back of the house(after all, who wants an ugly converter box on the FRONT of the house) and around obstacles such as trees, landscaping, pools, etc... I would be fairly comfortable saying that our average distance from pole or manhole to the house is more like 350-500'. With 2 drop plows running in good soil we average around 30-40 houses per day. we only work 4 and 1/2 days a week( late start on Mondays and early on Fridays..trip time back and forth to the job location..)

Most companies we work for are offering 3 Mbit service. That is up to them to decide...we just put the cable in the ground.

As far as telcom acts and such... you have a computer and a state rep...time for an email to him/her.

As far as being paid for by those acts...my company often works for small indy telcos...not the baby bells. They receive funding from a federal program called Rural Utilities Service which a service of the USDA. You can blame greedy execs at companies such as USWest(now merged to become Qwest) who paid themselves huge "bonuses" for a lot of that lost money. As stated..time to start sending emails to your state reps andasking questions....I do.

 

[Neuromancer]

Neur0mancer.... the milelage of darkfiber quoted can be misleading. Often that mileage isn't the cable length, but the total length of all dark fibers in one cable...ie a 100 mile stretch of 144 fiber with 44 lighted fibers becomes (100 fibers x 100 miles = ) 10000 miles of dark fiber. As a teacher of mine once stated...statistics is the art of lying with numbers.

Also, from real world experience, 100' from pole to house is optimistic at best. We rarely make runs shorter than 200'. It might only be 100' to the corner of the house, but we often end up going to a hidden location at the back of the house(after all, who wants an ugly converter box on the FRONT of the house) and around obstacles such as trees, landscaping, pools, etc... I would be fairly comfortable saying that our average distance from pole or manhole to the house is more like 350-500'. With 2 drop plows running in good soil we average around 30-40 houses per day. we only work 4 and 1/2 days a week( late start on Mondays and early on Fridays..trip time back and forth to the job location..)

Most companies we work for are offering 3 Mbit service. That is up to them to decide...we just put the cable in the ground.

As far as telcom acts and such... you have a computer and a state rep...time for an email to him/her.

As far as being paid for by those acts...my company often works for small indy telcos...not the baby bells. They receive funding from a federal program called Rural Utilities Service which a service of the USDA. You can blame greedy execs at companies such as USWest(now merged to become Qwest) who paid themselves huge "bonuses" for a lot of that lost money. As stated..time to start sending emails to your state reps andasking questions....I do.

Thanks for the info on the statistics. 46% of all statistics are made up on the spot. Oh that brings up a question. I heard that they were coming up with new technology to e able to send more then the original 64 thousand colors down one pipe... is that still in the works? (Or was it being upgraded to 64k?)

As for distance out where you are at I suppose it could be much longer distances. I live in an urban area, (part of the New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore/Washington sprawl) most of the houses on my street are 25' from the curb (my house is 200 years old so its only 15' from the curb) thats where I grabbed the 100' foot estimation from.


As far as contacting hte state rep there is already a class action lawsuit claiming billions in stolen money and about a trillioin dollars in potential revenue lost for them hoarding bandwidth. But it would be a good idea to start up some grassroots organizations I suppose.

 

[Deadbot1_1973]

I don't know about the wavelength thing...I would have to talk to an engineer when i go back to work. I'm sure they are working on ways to be able to send more down one fiber all the time. Seems to me that being upgraded to 64k different wavelengths would be more realistic. I seem to recall that multimode fiber spec sheets from the reels talk about 12 distinct wavelengths....I'll see what i can dig up about it.

 

[imposter]

I am not complaining so much, i have a 30d/5u connection for only 40 bucks a month. but having fast internet kinda pointless when most computers in the united states are pirating stuff or super filled with spyware that they couldn't use a 1mbps+ line.

 

[Enablingwolf]

Another reason Time Warner sucks...

About a day ago, a mailer showed up in my mailbox. It was relating to the new channel lineup. They are moving most the channels up to the 101 and above. Most of them I can care less. A number are not to cool..

Right now I get digital cable with a few premiums and the OD's. But since the new tier level. I will have to pay for some channels I get for free now. My wife is not happy either. Two of hers are going to cost also. Oh, and HD channels will cost $5 also. Sports .. Yup another $5.
They are going to $5 customers to death. On top of the normal fees.

This is on top of me bieng a turbo customer that hardly ever sees the advertised speeds.

On, or around, March 4th, we will begin reorganizing our channel line-up to serve screw you better.
*denotes used to be included part of my package and no extra charge... there is a lot in the basic part.
Digital Basic -$5 *Science Channel *Military Channel * National Geographic * Biography
Choice Tier -$5 *DIY *SoapNet (My wife is mad on this one/)
Movie Tier - $5
Sports Tier - $5
HD Tier - $5
Spanish Tier - $5

 

[burningcpu]

I got fed up enough with the crap cable providers dish out that I cancelled everything but internet access. That was 4 years ago. Aren't 20 out of 60 minutes commercials on average? I mean, paying $60 a month for cable access and then spending a third of the time watching tampon ads is unacceptable. Even with something like TIVO the public is getting the shaft.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^ so very true, i am ready to ditch the digital cable here for satelite again.

I got it cause my g/f wanted some local spanish channels , but i am amovie man and most of their movies, suck, arent in english, arent in SAP as they advertise, where as DirecTV, now bought out by someone else, all movie channels were english, history channel was english and such, i know i should learn spanish but i like tounderstand what i am watching, not feel like i am sitting in school

 

[Deadbot1_1973]

A link to a pretty good site on Fiber Optics tech for Neur0mancer or any other interested peeps. It's a bit dated. as it includes no mention of the Newer Ribbon cable that we use.
Still haven't managed to find out anything about the number of wavelengths being used currently. The ribbon that we use is singlemode generally, so only 1 or 2 wavelengths on those.

 

[DomoRawks]

$70USD a month

Lucky if I can get 200kbyte downloads and 50kbyte uploads

Unlimited usage though.
Apparently the line from our house to the junction box round the corner is damaged, but no one will replace it.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

lol wont replace it, talk to your local companies or better buisness bureau, if it is affecting your speeds and service.... then some issues there

 

[Deadbot1_1973]

DomoRawks...make sure you are calling your telco's(or cable companies) service and repair line. Front office staff are often very lax about relaying work orders. Also depending on where you are at, it may be a seasonal thing. Up in the northern states it'd be hard to do right now, other than a temp line on top of the ground.
Edit: What company, may I ask?

 

[DomoRawks]

Sadly, I'm from the UK, not the US.
So, bugger all I can do, pretty common apparently,
I think the average actual speed on a 8meg download line is 2meg.

 

[theELVISCERATOR]

http://overclockers.com/tips01282/

The price of internet is ridiculous in the US, getting "8 Mbps" down from Comcastrophe for $70/mo, whereas you get 100Mbps fiber in Sweden for $50/mo. Verizon FiOS is Good News, but they've been a bit slow getting it out.

As Ed says, providers are just lazy and they know the government won't regulate. So us, the consumers, lose. And how about the lack of broadband to the poorer people? I think the $10 or $15 crappy DSL that AT&T makes a pain to sign up for (yet mandated by the FTC because of their acquisition of Bellsouth) should be made free, or at least to the more financially burdened.

How do we change the state of broadband in the US? Seems like consumers can't do anything to spur change. Maybe the market will pick up once more people have fiber... although that won't be until several years.

I can spit across sweden too.

It would be pretty easy to wire one smallish state to the teeth......a continent not so much...

 

[deathman20]

I can spit across sweden too.

It would be pretty easy to wire one smallish state to the teeth......a continent not so much...

Aye and sadly thats our huge issue. We are spread out far and wide which means huge money to wire sadly I know I'd love to get fiber out by me, and I know its in the area because new subdivisions get it but im less than 3 miles from it, and still well within city limits of at least 30k person town I'd love to see some of that fiber action.

 

[MadMan007]

The 'more spread out' argument only works when you're really talking about spread out areas. The US has plenty of densely populated urban areas that still have sub-par broadband.

 

[Enablingwolf]

The 'more spread out' argument only works when you're really talking about spread out areas. The US has plenty of densely populated urban areas that still have sub-par broadband.

Plus most places have plenty of overhead left on backbones. It is the last mile that is all clogged up. That part falls directly on the shoulders of the providers to the retail customer. The internet is doing just fine. It is the cheapskate greedy IPS's that refuse to upgrade the last mile. Which is actually the most expensive part.

I am less than 500 feet from a fiber trunk. Do I have fiber to my door. No way...

 

[petteyg359]

All the arguments about speed/cost in places like New Zealand and Australia and such have no relevance. Aus/NZ and geographically isolated spots have the infrastructure of getting the data across an ocean to account for. The US doesn't. The cost to "telcos" also is a lame argument. "Telcos" have been increasing prices without increasing services for decades, and they've increased quite a bit more than inflation has. The US government is owned by businesses. Nothing is going to change unless somebody makes a better business; hopefully Verizon will expand FIOS to more areas.