Talk about getting screwed at high speed

[Bill]

Check this out:

http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm

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By 2006, 86 million households should have been rewired with a fiber optic wire, capable of 45 Mbps, in both directions. -- read the promises.

The public subsidies for infrastructure were pocketed. The phone companies collected over $200 billion in higher phone rates and tax perks, about $2000 per household.

The World is Laughing at US. Korea and Japan have 100 Mbps services as standard, and America could have been Number One had the phone companies actually delivered. Instead, we are 16th in broadband and falling in technology dominance.

Harm to the economy. Five trillion dollars was lost because new technologies and services that America would have developed, happened in Korea.

Municipalities around America are waking up to the fact that the phone companies failed to deliver and are now doing Wifi and fiber-based work-arounds.-

Fake and co-opted consumer groups, biased non-profit think tanks are now the major force in broadband regulation and policy. The book goes into groups like Consumers for Cable Choice...

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America has become such a stupid country. It's just fuckin embarassing.

[SirMoby]

The administration is focusing on a religeous agenda and history shows that science takes a back seat and hence our future economic growth. I've been saying since the first election that America will never recover from the Dubya years and only time will tell.

[T Pat]

Interesting article Bill, my son is a fiber optic cable splicer at an air force base in Northern Calif. he was telling me the newer housing divisions are having fiber optic installed and he finds it comical that their isn't a infrastructure in place for them to tie into, and he can't figure out why the telephone companies haven't been replaceing copper with fiber for the last 10 to 20 years. Now I have his answer

[juggernaut]

I was supposed to be on the receiving end of fiber to my house for a test bed from my ISP. Recently over the past month the service has been like shit and I guess they were throwing me a bone so I would not cancel. Well I have yet to see the fiber and my connection still sucks. At this point I'm looking for a T1 to the house if anyone knows of a good company. The call I made today worked out great.

"Hi sir I can get you a T1 with no issues at all. Sir do you do transfer any large files over the internet? Yes I do. Sir do you transfer any large media over the internet? Yes I do. Do you mind if I ask what those files are so I can get a better understanding of the service you will need? Maybe we don't have to get a full T1 to your house. Hum well I transfer alot of adult images and my wife does alot of adult live cam shows. I would like the full 1500 please I don't want a frac T1. Oh sir I'm sorry but I can not take your order. Our company policy will not permit us to do business with Adult Companies. Hum? Ok sorry to hear that. Thanks..."
LOL

[cd34]

There are two reasons for fiber deployment in the United States.

The Regional Bell companies are given very generous tax writeoffs for the installation of copper in neighborhoods since the beginning. Until recently (last 5-10 years), noone could use those wires except the phone company -- then came deregulation.

So, with deregulation, and the size of telephone gear getting smaller and space opening up in central offices and the Public Utilities commission requiring the phone companies to give access to competitors and access to the copper plant in return for the regional bell companies to sell long distance, the regional bell companies must give access to their copper to CLECs (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier).

So, what to the bell systems do? they deploy FTTC (Fiber to the Curb) with the last-mile served over copper. The Bell Company lays fiber down, puts a Remote SLC (Subscriber Line Carrier) in an area, connects it via fiber to the CO (central office), connects it to the copper going to the home and shortens the service distance to be able to deliver DSL services to more customers. While doing this, they turn off the sealing current delivered to the copper wires that went from the CO to where the new SLC is.

Sealing current is sent down lines and through bridge taps in the lines to prevent corrosion. You might ask why they would turn that off. The simple answer is, it destroys their copper infrastructure from the CO to the residences -- the very copper that they must provide competitive access to. So, thanks to the government allowing the phone company to become a monopoly, and thanks to deregulation and the PUC mandating access to the copper plant, the phone companies now have the ability to sell long distance, and, are meeting the requirements of allowing their competitors access to copper wires that go.... nowhere.

So, while they are not technically a monopoly anymore, they still have no competition and thus, are not forced to innovate. Until someone is able to deliver competitive service or better service and work around the phone companies, there is no real need for the phone companies to offer anything more than they do.

And because the government legislated it so, the Bells are doing everything in their power to maintain that 'monopoly' without being called a monopoly.

3G might spurn some development and cause the bell's to release something slightly faster than that service. Cable companies around here claim 6mb/sec -- as the local bell company sees some loss in their numbers, they'll offer 8mb. I've done 8mb ADSL back as far as '94. The equipment that is used for DSL is no different than the equipment that the phone companies have been using to deliver T1s for ages. Paradyne has had 11mb ADSL using 3 pair for distances up to 12000' since 95, so, none of this is 'new' technology. I think the earliest VDSL circuit that I saw was in the late 90s. Tut systems used to make a 10mb DSL balun that was purchased by a company selling to hotels so that they could run 10mb ethernet on the same wires that delivered phone service to each room -- saving thousands of dollars in rewiring costs for each room. Again, late 90s -- 7 years ago. An eternity in terms of data.

DSL isn't new. High speed dsl isn't new. Getting it deployed is the hard part. And the VDSL that Korea is using is based on Pairgain & Paradyne's initial units -- both US based companies. Paradyne used to be very highly financed by a company in Paramas, NJ called AT&T. In fact, the demo units I had in 97 had the AT&T deathstar on them -- but it was a paradyne rep that visited.

So, we're not behind on innovation -- we're behind on deployment.

[RawAlex]

The other part of this that is really funny is that there are thousands of miles of dark fiber out there going city to city and point to point because too much was built in the wrong places. In the mean time, little has been done for the "last mile", and as a result, all the speed in the network never makes it to the end users.

My DSL here they claim 3, I get 4 without a blink. Cable company is suggesting up to 10mps, but I suspect that only applies when nobody else is on your loop (cable modems are, for the most part, token ring networks... the more people you put on them, the less bandwidth available to you). They continue to improve speeds by shrinking the number of users per segment by splitting segments into smaller and smaller pieces. My old cable modem was great until 4 in the afternoon, the kids would come home from school, turn on Napster, and the entire network would sink down to less than dialup. Too funny!

My house is 4 years old. Copper inside, but I know it's fiber up to the switch point, about 1000 feet from here. They have a head end for the DSL in that little hut.

Alex

[cd34]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

The other part of this that is really funny is that there are thousands of miles of dark fiber out there going city to city and point to point because too much was built in the wrong places.

In Florida, dark fiber must be tagged and is assigned property tax. The entire path is mapped including termination points, and is labelled.

When a telecom company stops paying property tax, that fiber becomes property of the state. Since it is documented, it can be resold to cover the taxable cost. We also have a state tax based on the number of ethernet ports on our networks.

The reason there is so much dark fiber out there is two-fold:

Fiber was the End All Be All to our data woes. Unlimited bandwidth, every investor jumped in, every company ran fiber that could get right-of-ways at a cost of about $10k/mile. Everyone built their networks, but, the clients never came.

Because there was so much dark fiber laid and not used, companies went out of business. since termination and route maps were not maintained, much of the fiber in the ground is destined to stay dark forever. Even companies that installed their own fiber have lost route maps and relay cable all the time because they don't have a firm grasp on what they already have.