Re: [PLUG] DSL providers (was: Install)

[k hill <cavegirl@bolverk.net>]

gabriel rosenkoetter wrote:
> 
> On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 02:05:32PM -0400, k hill wrote:
> > Covad has a nice backbone, even if they die their new owners are likely
> > to make good use of it. The equipment I have seen in the COs is
> > versatile, it almost seemed as they were preparing to implode.
> 
> No argument there. (And as I Covad subscriber--by way of Speakeasy--
> I'm none too interested in seeing them die.)

I would love to see them evolve and show the RBOCS that a threat is
real. No better way to kill their holier than thou attitude.

> This month's Wired (that is, 9.05) has several interesting articles
> on the topic of broadband and where it's going and why it's not. A
> valid point brought up a few times there is that as more and more
> people get broadband access, it'll be less and less able to keep up
> anyway. All we're doing is moving the traffic jam off each
> individual's phone line and onto the backbone, which isn't really
> solving much, and the baby Bells are in no kind of hurry to upgrade
> their systems, which is what we *really* need to get decent speed
> out of home network connections.

DArk fiber backbones running through sewers are becoming a reality. A
completely untouched signal went from Dallas Tx to Ohio? unrepeated by
this route. This is happening in reality at an oc-192 level and in R&D
at much higher levels. 
Fiber is expensive because there are too few manufacturers, and even
fewer qualified splicers. Fiber is sold by the meter, normally
increments of 5. If you need a fiber that runs from an lgx to an ilgx
that is 2 inches shorter than 30 meters, you have to order 35 meter
fibers and wait for them to arrive from germany, or higher a splicer at
hundreds of dollars an hour. If you get the 5 extra meters, you then
need to build the extra superstructure to hold the excess. You don't
even want to know how expensive fiber duct is. This is assuming that the
CO has room to build superstructure. Many COs are running out of room
for overhead cabling, what then? I am pond scum in the telephony world
but I enjoy it and learn more that I need to know because I want to.   
> No matter how prepared Covad is, they still have to deal with
> whoever owns the copper one one side and whatever backbone providers
> they can touch with for a reasonable price. There is more and more
> fiber going in, but it's definitely not enough yet (largely because
> it's ridiculously expensive).

And much more unreliable than is let on. COs are no place for the faint
of heart. I have seen fiber suspended by strings and stepped on and
shoved into too tight duct. This is going to eventually result in
failure rates.

> 
> My work place two summers ago went the fixed wireless route (wish I
> could remember the name of the company... they were local to St.
> Louis at the time). They came and mounted a low frequency microwave
> antenna on top of the building the office was in, and the service
> was great (almost never affected by the weather, though I had the
> feeling that electrical storms got in the way, whether or not they
> actually came near our building--just getting the disturbance in the
> atmosphere between our antenna and the provider's was enough).
> That's no good for residential service, though, as it needs to be
> line of sight. (It is good for upscale apartments that provide
> service to all of their tennants, I guess, but most of those landlords
> go with an underground T1 line anyhow.)

I think BLECs are going to fall faster and hurt more than CLECs,
personally.
 
> > Agreed, if you can't use standard connections to the potential they
> > present, what is broadband, with it's heftier price tag, going to do for
> > you?
> 
> Yeah, well, at the same time, being able to ssh to the various
> machines I maintain with basically no noticeable latency over what
> would have been there even if I were sitting on an OC3 (that is,
> it's because of an upstream provider) is pretty nice.
> 
> But that's definitely *not* general public appeal.

General audiences would only reply, huh? CLECs have to appeal to the
masses or they are going to crash and burn. It is easy to blame it on
Verizon, but the ILECS employees who comply with FCC regs are doing it,
and doing it well. 
 
> > Call me a nostalgic fool, but less media makes me happy. I guess movies
> > would be nice, but I think they are going to hit the same brick wall
> > broadband did. How many consumers have a system that would make it
> > comporable to the new nifty DVD and HDTV they just bought?
> 
> I suppose, but when I'm just sitting around in front of the computer
> answering personal email, it'd be kind of nice to have the white
> noise and vision of crappy WB programming going on. Not so much
> something I really need to pay attention to, but just something to
> stop thinking for a bit. (Of course, I used to do this in front of
> the real TV, but that was before the backlight in my laptop died.
> Which reminds me: anybody got a spare screen for a Thinkpad 760 XL?)

Never works for me, I need sleep to stop thinking. Sigh.


kristin


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