What is Digg?65 Comments
- Guspaz, on 11/28/2007, -2/+31The majority of the cost to install fiber isn't the cable, but the act of installing it (digging a trench, stringing on poles, paying for access rights to those trenches/poles, etc). Admittedly, more flexible fiber might give you more options about how you dig or string, but it's not made obvious how this would make a big difference. You're still going to have to "wire" the neighbourhood and get the cabling to the customer.
- MacintoshSauce, on 11/28/2007, -6/+27Fast Internet connections in the USA? Really? I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR AGES SO FAR TO GO BEYOND 7 MBPS! The rest of the world exceeded us ages ago...
- gadgetuk, on 11/28/2007, -0/+18Wow, ^^^ they were needlessly unhelpful.
The "Last Mile" is explained above. The "Conundrum" is that we can only squeeze so much bandwidth out or the traditional copper last-mile (or local loop) connection using DSL type technologies. Either a new genius technology for copper-based comms is required or a complete rethink - if we are to keep up with the Jones' in Asia.
Fiber is great because the bandwidth across it is essentially only limited by the equipment at either end. The downside is that it would cost an astronomical amount of money to replace all of the copper loops and upgrade all of the exchanges to support it.
Obviously that's just a precis - there are hundreds of other factors to consider too. - Farik, on 11/28/2007, -2/+13We all know that hasn't happened.
- lcarsdeveloper, on 11/28/2007, -4/+14I'm on 512kbps in Australia. Capped at 20GB per month, because I can't afford a faster speed or more downloads per month. When I exceed 20GB, my internet slows down to 64kbps. I have 5 people using 4 computers in my house. Stop your complaining, seriously. I'd love 7MBPS uncapped anyday.
- WallnutBoy, on 11/28/2007, -0/+9Anyone who thinks this comment will contain anything that will make reading it worth-while hasn't been paying attention for the past 15 comments.
- DS513, on 11/28/2007, -0/+6The "last mile" refers to the fact that AT&T has had a fiber optic network since the mid 1980s. However, since the internet as we know it did not exist at that time, fiber optic was intended to make the phone network more reliable. However, since there was no need to run fiber optic cable to each individual house, AT&T's fiber optic network only extended to its telephone substations. What AT&T is doing now is running fiber optic cable the "last mile" from the substations to people's houses.
http://ecommerce.hostip.info/pages/446/Fiber-Optic ... - patch6, on 11/28/2007, -0/+6Suck on that, Mark Cuban.
- kaelyiesta, on 11/28/2007, -0/+6Imagine a tree with smaller and smaller sub branches extending out from the trunk. Consider the tips of the terminating branches to be individual users, or residences. The total length of the sum of the last sub branchs far exceeds the length of the rest of the lengths of this tree summed up. This is the problem, simplified. We are the leaf nodes, so to speak, and getting fiber of the same quality as the rest of the tree is troublesome. That difference in medium causes bottlenecks of various sorts. It's a tough problem, but not nearly as bad as some in the telecommunications business would have you believe. I am not surprised it took another country to come up with any sort of solution to this problem. Our dear government backed telecoms in the US have no need to work for our business. Thats another rant though.
- Leomarth, on 11/28/2007, -0/+6Corning solved this six months ago; fiber flexible enough that they could wrap it around a pencil with no signal loss.
For those who don't know about the last mile, there are so many bends and turns in a house that it's difficult for fiber to keep signal integrity at each turn. Light wants to escape when you flex fiber. The goal of any cabling job, whether it be fiber, or copper, is for as many straight runs as possible. Even copper cracks some when flexed. For this reason, a lot of long runs use single strand, and a lot of "in room" runs will use braided copper wire that has higher attenuation. - mrjit, on 11/28/2007, -3/+8The USA is a lot more ground to cover than most of those nations with ridiculous consumer rates, not that I'm saying it's excusable
- Tenoq, on 11/28/2007, -0/+5I don't think you understand how much it costs and how pathetic 'net connections in Australia really are. I'm on _the_ best plan available to me without going to corporate plans and rolling my own cable - and that's a 9Mb/s down, 256kb/s up and 20GB peak/40GB off-peak plan. That's it. Doesn't get any better. :p
- inactive, on 11/28/2007, -1/+6I get a 30Mbps connection here in Australia, but only 10GB per month downloads/uploads then shaped @ 64k. I would take America's 7Mbps and unlimited downloads plan anyday.
We get screwed here. - graeh, on 11/28/2007, -0/+5These days - with all the amount of user generated content on the net - and games - and free software - you're asking if the only use for faster lines is piracy?
There's a whole mass of people out there who'd benefit from faster internet who don't even know what bittorrent is. The internet isn't just for porn and piracy these days - thankfully. - ZetaSagittarii, on 11/28/2007, -0/+4Hopefully the Japanese will be quick in adopting this new approach. I used to know how it is to enjoy a 100Mbs connection for $45/month, but that was till last year, before I made the mistake and moved to a new place, where I can only crawl with this 8Mbsp ADSL at the same price, but hearing Australians fellows here, I feel for them. I'm already planning another move to a new place and towards faster net, either 100Mbs at $50 or 1Gbps at $80. Picture says it all (even for those who can't read Japanese): http://eonet.jp/home/net/service/
- timster, on 11/28/2007, -0/+4Jut tie some fiber cable to one end of all the copper cable in the US, then pull on the other end.
How hard could it be? I've been running cable in my house this way for years.
/sarcasm - Fatcheeseguy, on 11/28/2007, -2/+6Surf porn at the speed of light.
- codewater, on 11/28/2007, -0/+4And for a couple of dollars more I get 100/100mbits full duplex uncapped, unthrottled, no ports blocked fiber connection (upgradeable to 1000/1000).
The cost: 195 Swedish Krona = 30 CAD/USD.
And Sweden is NOT a densely crowded country like for example Japan. We are only 9 million people on an area slightly larger than California. - fartbarker, on 11/28/2007, -0/+4no, you are fine
I live in America and have 2 internet options
1. satellite $70/mo plus upfront install
2. dialup (paying $9/mo)
Phone company won't install dsl, they say I am 2000 ft too far. They have no plans for me or anyone else around here. - inactive, on 11/28/2007, -15/+18What is the "last mile" conundrum? The article doens't seem to explain.
- jimmytango829, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3Working from home doing graphic design using Adobe Version Cue (like a subversion repository, but for photoshop files). Obviously, you are basing what you think everyone should use the internet for on what YOU use the internet for and what satisfies you.
- Loonacy, on 11/28/2007, -1/+4Anyone who thinks this doesn't pertain to the US obviously hasn't been paying attention for the past 15 years.
- Tenoq, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3Cable is run above ground on power poles in this country - not sure about yours. Even then, it cost $2b in it's day, and reaches a very limited part of our population. In Australian terms, $2b is fair whack of money - even more in today's dollars. We're already talking $4b to do FTTN nationwide, and FTTH is guesstimated at $30b.
- graeh, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2Ease up tiger - I'm currently shaped to 60k/s on DSL1 in a major city of Australia. I used our 4 gig quota ($60 per month) @ 1000k/512k connection in about a week by just using the modern web (streaming, gaming). Switching ISP's to one that has a more reasonable plan - but 7m/s - that's unheard of in Australia. Even in the centre of the capital cities.
- CroqueMitaine, on 11/28/2007, -0/+27MBPS Unlimited download and upload 19.95CAD$ per month... i have found the holygrail of ISP's
- koma80, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2I know we are starting to sound like Four Yorkshiremen, but what can you say on 1Mb connection with 6GB limit? Every MB over that is payed ridiculously high.. And thats even a good deal..
Welcome to Bosnia : ( - taphagreg, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2Bah, plastic fibre has been coming for years. Why would this one be any different ?
- wipis, on 11/28/2007, -2/+4Yeah just reading the title it sounded pretty obvious. And I'm a little excited about this. If Optical suddenly got much cheaper to get and install, especially in areas where the nearest node is a little far, then optical could finally come to my little neighborhood.
- kahlessreborn, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2Thats 20db HOT!
- Mizzy, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2Selfish bastards. Im at 32 kbps.
- CaptainStone, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2Agreed. I had a professor talking about POF (Plastic Optical Fiber) back in 2000. He even brought some in to show us.
- codewater, on 11/28/2007, -1/+3And for a couple of dollars more I get 100/100mbits full duplex uncapped, unthrottled, no ports blocked, fiber connection (upgradeable to 1000/1000).
The cost: 195 Swedish Krona = 30 CAD/USD.
And Sweden is NOT a densely crowded country like for example Japan. We are only 9 million people on an area slightly larger than California. - inactive, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2I'm also in Australia on 512 (although I reach the theoretical maximum so I think its an artificially capped ADSL2 connection), but I'm on an unlimited plan (I don't think they offer it anymore, and they changed it to require a Australian Business Number before then too).
There is apparently a new internet cable being laid to Guam in 2008 from PIPE, hopefully that will relieve some of the international bandwidth expense and reduce Southern Cross's monopoly on Australian bandwidth. http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm?id=1697&show=a ... - inactive, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2Verizon, at least in my area, terminates the optics outside the home on a panel (replacement for traditional PSTN panel). Thus, only electrical cables are routed through the home. I don't see how tighter bend radii helps out here. Traditional silica fibers are already very flexible. The article makes it seem as if these fibers need to be straight as a pencil. You can wrap them around a coffee cup without any problems. If the benefit is $0.10/ft instead of $0.90/ft, I can see the value. Otherwise, I smell something funny.
I guess one exception would be condos and apartment buildings. Inside routing of fiber might be unavoidable. - Olain, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2Fiber optics require end equipment that is A LOT higher to distribute over what it does to distribute it over copper. With copper you can just pop in a non powered splitter. Fiber you have to have a powered switch of some sorts. Fiber in price is cheap. Installing it is $$ and equipment to manage it is $$.
- OwdenBowden, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1The Last Mile issue has been solved for a while. There is a company called RIM Semiconductor that was able to take the pre existing copper wire and via a compression algorithm provide significant broadband and Secure access to the home. http://www.rimsemi.com/
- dgendreau, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Yuo kan not haev teh fibar! It si only for teh 1337 haxorz!
-JeffK - Leomarth, on 12/02/2007, -0/+1Sorry to reply so late.
Wall drops, attic runs, and running a long side electrical conduit can be particularly hard on fiber. I just finished up a college course on this a few months ago and the teacher has incredible experience in this field. - srg13, on 11/29/2007, -0/+1Running a home web server? It kinda sucks with 1MB/s upload at the moment here...
- Error601, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Plastic fiber cables have been available a long time. I've got some right here. The cost is digging up your yard to get it to your house. The last mile speed doesn't change your Internet access speed anyway unless it's saturated which, unless you're using a dialup, it's unlikely it is.
- arkan, on 11/29/2007, -0/+1I'm in the same boat. All these subdivisions they are building around me are getting cable access... The nearest city is annexing that land as the subdivisions get built so they get high speed access through the cable company that has the franchise with the cable companies. Since my franchise for my unincorporated area is some mom and pop does not and probably never will offer cable internet I'm pretty much stuck until embarq gets its act together... and... well, we're talking about embarq here.
- gendjinn, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Ireland installed fibre-optic cable from exchange to door in the late 80s. I guess that just proves how state run non-profit monopolies are just crap in comparison to private sector corporations... oh wait.
- mrjit, on 11/28/2007, -2/+3It's the line from the service box/csu to a customers network
- srg13, on 11/29/2007, -0/+1What ISP are you on? Telstra??? We get ADLS2+, 25GB a month plus 500 free voip minutes for $50 from TPG... Its theoretical limit is 24mbps, but we get more like four or five...
- netzdamon, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Anyone who thinks hasn't been paying attention to umm err...
- mrjit, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1I'm missing your point, I'm in Florida and running on a 20/5 connection, the max connection through FIOS right now is 50mb. Canada doesn't even remotely qualify as one of the "high speed" countries I'm referring to.
- runningfox, on 11/29/2007, -0/+0Actually the copper has supply the sufficient bandwidth for PC. It will never happen in a few years that your PC's network adapter reaches a IO of 100Mbps, which will tire the switch down in your building
But if our LAN has the ability of 2.5Gbps, some new applications and requirements will be induced - meed, on 11/28/2007, -2/+2I have found that plastic only has a limited life span and degrates in color and become brittle. While it would be ultra nice to have Fibar to my house, would this plastic fibar still be usefull for data transmission in 5+ years?
- Biznarie, on 11/28/2007, -0/+0Theres one use, but honestly most of the users on the net dont need anymore then 2000kbps. Plus if Korea gets more speed what do you honestly think its going to be used for? sending big graphic design files? or piracy?
- caleb4mj, on 11/30/2007, -0/+0Just use tin cans with a piece of string?
Right now you can get 10x the bandwidth to your neighbor by using 802.11 instead of cable. If we route this it should equate to similar bandwidth to the ISPs with near zero cost. Unfortunately its easier to design and patent my own internet than to get anyone to agree with me. But can you imagine what could be possible if we trusted eachother more than we trust the ISPs? -
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