From: heller@deepsoft.com
At Wed, 2 Jul 2014 15:37:58 +0000 (UTC) "Adam H. Kerman"
wrote:
>
> conklin wrote:
> >"Stephen Sprunk" wrote:
> >>On 01-Jul-14 16:03, conklin wrote:
> >>>"Adam H. Kerman" wrote:
>
> >>>>Do you really believe there's a business case for building a fiber
> >>>>plant in a rural area?
>
> >>>As the copper wire is abandoned everywhere, ...
>
> >>Copper isn't being "abandoned" anywhere; it is quite valuable.
>
> >Its use for telephone service is being abandoned everywhere.
>
> Oh, for heaven's sake, George: There are selected places in which Baby
> Bells and ex-GTE (which absolutely DOES NOT apply to rural telephone
> coops nor exchanges that never were Bell nor GTE) are trying to get out
> of providing a traditional telephone switch in a central office serving
> copper loops to subscriber premisis. This is for regulatory reasons as
> they are required to provide wholesale rates to competitors who access
> the historic telephone plant. There are a handful of instances in which
> state public utility commissions have gone along with this, and FCC is
> always threatening to eliminate federal mandates.
>
> It's going to be a very long time before it happens in a majority
> of Baby Bell exchanges.
>
> Non-Bell exchanges are regulated differently and, with some exceptions
> (like former GTE exchanges), are not subject to wholesale rates and
> competition. They have no regulatory incentive to abandon copper.
>
> If the copper pair is in good condition, it's still useful for data and
> voice needs. Cable distributors providing broadband manage to do it
> on coax, which is ancient wiring technology too.
Actually, by *world* standards, what the USA Cable distributors (eg Comcast
and Time Warner) provide is sub-standard. DSL technology is EOL (End of Life)
-- the equipment is no longer being made or supported. Copper *IS* becoming a
"dead" telecom technology and is pretty much dead in most of the *developed*
world and is dieing in the developing world. It seems to be 'hanging on' in
the USA, however.
>
> btw, there are two different fiber models. I dunno why you were saying you
> have "FiOS" (the i is lower case), which is Verizon's marketing term.
> We all know that Verizon was rolling out FiOS slowly and pretty much
> stopped at some point, due to its incredible expense. Your notion that
> fiber is cost effective to install is goofy.
It is no more expensive than stringing copper on the utility poles. Actually
*fiber* cables are getting to be cheaper than copper -- copper is slowly
becoming a 'precious' metal -- people are doing things like stealing copper
pipes from old buildings to sell for scrap.
Yes, Verizon has pretty much stopped rolling out FiOS. Mostly due to poor ROI
in *rural areas* and little point in *urban* areas (some of this is collusion
with Comcast and Time Warner and some is that Verizon is concentrating on
wireless). Note the poor ROI in rural areas relates to things like loan payoff
times and population density. Right now, Verizon has sold off almost all of
their copper telephone infrastructure -- only in Mass. does Verizon have any
copper telephone infrastructure, and they can't sell it off to Frontier (or
one of the smaller players), because they can't sell *just* the copper -- they
don't want to sell the FiOS installed in the 'wealthy' Boston suburbs -- the
FiOS is very profitable and copper loses money. Verizon does as little as they
can get away with maintaining the copper. I doubt much of the copper telephone
infrastructure in Western Mass meets anything like minimum operating standards
-- if you can get a dialtone most of the time, that is good enough. People
frequently lose phone service when it rains ([rain] water gets into the
cables). Modems don't work at higher speeds. Lines with static. Verizon *has*
been 'called on the carpet' about these issues, but I Verizon would rather pay
fines than actually fix things. The fines are probably cheaper than the cost
of fixing the phone lines -- in some cases the cables need to be completly
replaced, which Verizon is not going to do.
>
> FiOS is "fiber to the premisis"; they have fiber on the pole line and
> then install a fiber drop to the building and have some sort of terminal
> on the outside of the building with battery that lasts for a brief
> period but not the eight to twenty-four hours that battery would have
> lasted at the central office.
>
> AT&T's Uverse is "fiber to the node", in which AT&T builds nodes to
> serve a couple dozen to a hundred buildings but continues to use a
> portion of the copper loop between the node and the pole line, then
> the original drop between the pole line and the premisis.
>
> In a city or suburban area, the drop may be 20 to 40 feet from the pole
> line, but in a rural area, you're talking about a significant distance,
> and I have no idea why any rural co-op, no matter how much subsidy it
> received, would replace anybody's drop with fiber. So between not being
> in a Verizon area and being in a rural area, I have no idea why you would
> state that you have FiOS, although maybe Verizon is providing some support
> to rural co-ops. In a rural area, a fiber drop installation would cost
> more than several years of gross revenue they'd receive from the subscriber,
> so that's just not going to happen unless the subscriber has a need for
> it and pays up front. I don't really understand how maintaining copper
> drops are affordable in rural areas.
George probably does not have "FiOS". He has FTTH (Fiber To The Home),
provided by a local municipal telecom coop. FTTH has the 'look and feel' of
FiOS and George might be *understandably* confused about the terminology. I
think George is using the term "FiOS" in a generic sense (eg like the term
"IBM PC" to refer to any desktop computer with an Intel x86 processor that can
run MS-Windows) -- FiOS is Verizon's *brand name* for their FTTH service
offering. *Verizon* has been actively working to *prevent* the very
existence of local municipal telecom coops, by getting laws banning them
passed in several state legislatures. There is no way that *Verizon* is
helping these local municipal telecom coops -- Verizon is openly hostile to
these efforts.
>
> Given that rural telephone and electric co-ops receive monies for phone
> and data from the Universal Service Fund and grant monies for electric from
> the farm bill (which pay for maintenance and installation of the physical
> plant with respect to the pole line, which also benefits telephone), your
> idea that rural telephone co-ops don't receive massive subsidy is absurd.
Verizon has also received money from the Universal Service Fund (not that they
really need it). Note: the FCC *has not* be using the Universal Service Fund
to fund local municipal telecom coops that are building (and have built) FTTH
(Fiber To The Home) systems. The Universal Service Fund has only be used for
*rural telephone* companies (including the likes a Verizon), mostly *copper*
based systems (basic POTS). The FCC has used some of the Universal Service
Fund to fund cell providers in recent years and is only *now* beginning to
look at renaming the Universal Service Fund to the Connect America Fund and
looking at funding broadband Internet in rural America.
>
--
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