FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband

Fri Aug 28 13:34:13 UTC 2009

Rob, well put.

-jim
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

-----Original Message-----
From: "Robert E. Seastrom" <rs at seastrom.com>

Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:29:58 
To: Jack Bates<jbates at brightok.net>
Cc: Robert Enger - NANOG<nanog at enger.us>; <nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband

The problem is that if you break down the costs, you'll find out that
it almost doesn't matter what you put in as a cost of the total build;
the big costs are the engineering and the labor to install, not the
"cost of the NID" or anything like that.  Nobody cares whether you
saved a million bucks on a 2 billion dollar project.

One of the cool things about the infrastructure that is now in place
(copper pairs) is that it turned out to be relatively future-proof -
lots of 50 and 70 year old OSP still in use.  In order to get
similarly long life out of newly installed fiber assets, the only real
solution is home runs to either existing or newly constructed
concentration points (not just a box at the side of the road, that's
not what I'm talking about here).  Distributed splitter designs force
forklift upgrades when the Next Big Thing comes along, rather than
upgrading the service only for folks who are willing to pay for it.
The Next Big Thing is always coming, and 2.4 Gbit/sec down per port
GPON is gonna look awfully slow 10 years hence when everyone's
demanding gigabit ethernet to the desktop, not to mention 20 years
from now with IPv6 multicast of 2000 channels of 4320p pr0n.

I used to believe in the FTTC (fiber to the curb) model too - it's the
"obvious" solution.  That was before I started cranking the numbers
myself, playing with some of the new splicing solutions that are out
there that require *far* less finesse than the cam-splice stuff I was
using 10 years ago.  Now I believe in the "other" FTTC (fiber to the couch).
Get it as far out into the field as you possibly can, right up to,
or even inside, the house.

-r

Jack Bates <jbates at brightok.net> writes:

> heh. I've seen 3 different plans for FTTH in 3 different telco's;
> different engineering firms. All 3 had active devices in the
> OSP. Apparently they couldn't justify putting more fiber in all the
> way back to the office.
>
> Don't get me wrong. I've heard wonderful drawn out arguments
> concerning vendors that failed to properly handle Oklahoma summers or
> draw too much power.
>
> Brings up new PRO: active devices in the OSP providing longhaul
> redundancy on fiber rings
>
> Another PRO: simple, inexpensive NID
>
> Jack
>
> Robert Enger - NANOG wrote:
>> CON:  active devices in the OSP.
>> On 8/26/2009 12:06 PM, Jack Bates wrote:
>>> jim deleskie wrote:
>>>> I agree we should all be telling the FCC that broadband is fiber to
>>>> the home.  If we spend all kinds of $$ to build a 1.5M/s connection to
>>>> homes, it's outdated before we even finish.
>>>
>>> I disagree. I much prefer fiber to the curb with copper to the
>>> home. Of course, I haven't had a need for 100mb/s to the house
>>> which I can do on copper, much less need for gigabit.
>>>
>>> Pro's for copper from curb:
>>>
>>> 1) power over copper for POTS
>>> 2) Majority of cuts occur on customer drops and copper is more
>>> resilient to splicing by any monkey.
>>>
>>> Jack
>>>