[Cialug] Fiber Internet

[Dave Weis]

On Wed, 4 Jun 2008, Matthew Nuzum wrote:
> A couple weeks after I moved out of Bradenton Florida Verizon
> installed fiber to all the homes in my neighbourhood there. They are
> deploying fiber as broad and wide as they can because they don't have
> to share it like they do the copper. Verizon says they loose money on
> the deals where other ISPs resell their copper. With Fiber (called
> FIOS) they deliver a voip like telephone service, high speed
> networking (7Mbps is the low end) and tv programming.

Every time I hear the "we lose money on it" I want to beat someone 
severely. I won't say exactly how much a piece of copper costs us but it's 
more than Q charges you for that same copper with dialtone on it to your 
home. Does adding dialtone lower the value/price of a copper line? Also, 
if I request anything that's not already there other than a wire from a 
pole to a building, I pay their full construction cost on it.

The prices were set by the government to provide a legally mandated profit 
to the telephone company. They may be losing money on it but it wasn't 
because the prices were set too low.

> I still think the future is wimax. Then again I also think that half
> the people with computers won't need a PC in a few years because
> everything they need a computer for will be done with something that
> looks more like an iPhone than a PC. And who'd want to pay for DSL
> service just for their iphone?

I don't see whymax going very far. There's enough other problems such as 
coverage, interference, NIMBY types not allowing more towers, number of 
clients per access point, backhaul, etc. They might pull it off but I 
think it will be more because of how much the cellular industry has 
lowered people's expectations of anything wireless than whymax being a 
huge success.

dave

-- 
Dave Weis
djweis at internetsolver.com
http://www.internetsolver.com/