Fiber To The Home?
from the it's-cheap! dept
I remember when people used to talk about the idea of wiring fiber optics all the way to the house. Everyone used to say it was too expensive. Recently, that whole "last mile" idea has been forgotten about as people focus on wireless solutions. Now, suddenly, the idea of fiber to the home is back. Apparently, it's even cheaper to install than a DSL line (and judging by the number of times PacBell has had to stop by to try to resetup the DSL line that Northpoint killed, I believe it). Of course... why would you do fiber to the home if you could do wireless?
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why?
Wire:
DSL - up to 1.5Mb/S
T-3 - up to 45 Mb/s
Fiber:
OC-3 - up to 155Mb/s
OC-48 - up to 2448Mb/s!!!
Most wireless protocols are today only ~10Mb/s over short distances. Over longer distances -- remember, it is "the last mile -- or two" to your CO -- you'd need more power to achieve the same bandwidth, and you'd be irradiating the neighborhood to do it.
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Re: why?
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Re: why?
The other is that my phone company way up here in Canada is implementing a new service in the fall, which is available in select areas in Canada and the US, doing what the second post detailed. They will provide satellite TV, access to the Net on your TV, ADSL, video-on-demand, and phone line, and you can pay for it all in one bill. It is competitive with cable, and one of the biggest selling points is the convergence - I could potentially pay 3 bills in one! A lot of people have indicated that they would be interested, there's no incredibly high startup cost, and no construction if you want it. I think that this convergence stuff is what's going to be happening in the future. And if it can cause my cable company to quit acting like such a**holes, so much the better.
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T-3
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