North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: [funsec] Not so fast, broadband providers tell big users (fwd)
On Mar 14, 2007, at 3:02 AM, David Lesher wrote:
I would agree. The last time I looked at the economics of this in detail, it would have been cheaper to have just strung fiber along the electric lines, at least for above ground power distribution. The system I looked at had fiber along the high voltage lines anyway, to get enough bandwidth to the neighborhood - i.e., fiber to the neighborhood, plus equipment there to put the data onto the copper. After that, each transformer requires a shunt. Therefore, each transformer requires a truck roll plus equipment to get service. And, every time a transformer blows, a new truck roll plus equipment. And, many line splices were good enough for power but not good enough for data, so these had to be found and replaced. All of this required new techs, or extensive training, as the existing techs weren't trained for it. All of this was for fairly short run to the house, and fairly crappy bandwidth. It seemed much more sensible to me to just run fiber along the wires to the house (i.e., to treat the power lines as an easement, not a data pipe), but maybe that's just me. Regards Marshall
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