Opher BanarieFiber Optic Cables
August 19th 2008 21:13
The New York Times reports that Verizon Communications is spending billions of dollars installing fiber optic cables to the homes of customers in their service area.
The investment will allow Verizon to provide bundled services such as cable TV, high definition video, voice communications and Internet broadband services faster and cheaper than competitors. The estimated cost is $4,000 per customer and Verizon is marketing the service as FiOS.
Analysts quoted by the Times question whether Verizon will have a sufficient profit on the project to justify the investment.
FiOS addresses the "last mile" issue that traditional copper phone wires suffer from. The last mile refers to the typical distance from a home to the nearest switching center their local phone company operates. Most switching centers have already been upgraded to digital switches and high-speed data circuits. It's the last mile that keeps customers from getting the faster transmission speeds most broadband Internet subscribers want. This is why cable Internet service is faster - the dedicated cable offers higher speeds than is possible with the copper phone line.
However, most cable systems were built using wires, too, not fiber optics. Fiber optics has the capacity to carry much more data than a typical home user will ever require. Of course, 20 years from now what is 'typical' may be several times more than todays measure.
John Donovan, AT&T’s chief technology officer, said the company might string fiber optic cables to its customers’ homes in the future. But he argues that it was a smarter choice to try to get as much life out of the copper wire as possible, betting the cost of fiber will drop over time.
“The last thing we want to do is overdeploy fixed capacity into the ground where there is no recovery for being wrong by putting in too much,” he said. “The ideal way to deploy technology is on the last day as fast as possible, because it gets more capable and cheaper every day.”
That is true, AT&T, but you really cannot deploy fiber on the last day, can you? There is a risk that customers will want a proven technology from a reliable source (which FiOS will be in the future), rather than a last minute offering from a company that chose to play slow. Only time will tell which choice wins in the marketplace.
The investment will allow Verizon to provide bundled services such as cable TV, high definition video, voice communications and Internet broadband services faster and cheaper than competitors. The estimated cost is $4,000 per customer and Verizon is marketing the service as FiOS.
Analysts quoted by the Times question whether Verizon will have a sufficient profit on the project to justify the investment.
FiOS addresses the "last mile" issue that traditional copper phone wires suffer from. The last mile refers to the typical distance from a home to the nearest switching center their local phone company operates. Most switching centers have already been upgraded to digital switches and high-speed data circuits. It's the last mile that keeps customers from getting the faster transmission speeds most broadband Internet subscribers want. This is why cable Internet service is faster - the dedicated cable offers higher speeds than is possible with the copper phone line.
However, most cable systems were built using wires, too, not fiber optics. Fiber optics has the capacity to carry much more data than a typical home user will ever require. Of course, 20 years from now what is 'typical' may be several times more than todays measure.
John Donovan, AT&T’s chief technology officer, said the company might string fiber optic cables to its customers’ homes in the future. But he argues that it was a smarter choice to try to get as much life out of the copper wire as possible, betting the cost of fiber will drop over time.
“The last thing we want to do is overdeploy fixed capacity into the ground where there is no recovery for being wrong by putting in too much,” he said. “The ideal way to deploy technology is on the last day as fast as possible, because it gets more capable and cheaper every day.”
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