4 ms·

More importantly: we already did this. Remember when they overhauled the highway system in a lot of areas back in the late 80s and through the 90s? While they w

More importantly: we already did this. Remember when they overhauled the highway system in a lot of areas back in the late 80s and through the 90s? While they were digging, they dropped a lot of fiber. Almost all of the major routes we use today for teleco/internet routing were laid or substantially upgraded then. Almost all the dark fiber laid was laid then. The hilarious part? Most of the fiber laid could do at least 40gbit, thus the cost of upgrading a lot of the existing backbone could be as easy as just swapping the line cards on either side. IMO, we may not actually need more fiber (outside of last mile usage, which this bill is directed at), but just better use of existing fiber. If you're wasting fiber on anything less than 10 gigabit, please stop. It costs you next to nothing to upgrade compared to what it cost a decade ago: upgrading to equipment that can handle 10GBase-LR/ER/ZR or OC-192/STM-64 or better is worth every dime. Literally, if the US government passed a law stating, say, any fiber over 5 miles long must have a line rate of at least 10 gigabit, and heavily subsidize upgrading equipment that is simply too old to handle it, a lot of Internet speed WTFery would go away in rural and suburban areas. You'd be surprised how many LTE/4G cell phone towers, DOCSIS 3.x headends, or modern ADSL2+/VDSL2/possibly G.Fast DSLAMs do not have 10gbit or greater backbones. It's just absurd in 2017 that we're using stuff that is 90s era at best.

rayiner 10y ago
I think the idea is to get fiber into the last mile. Vast parts of the country are still under construction. New subdivisions are being built, and people are moving there from established northeastern/midwestern states. Requiring conduit to be put underground as you build the roads for a new subdivision, for example, would dramatically reduce the costs to deploy fiber in these places.
- mi100hael 10y ago
  This would only apply to projects receiving federal funding, which I don't imagine includes most subdivisions. Most likely just interstates, state highways, and maybe county highways. That wouldn't necessarily get fiber through your front door, but it should get it far enough out to provide a viable high speed option for rural households that are currently stuck with dial up or satellite.
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    There is no reason we couldn't or shouldn't also do the same thing at the state level.
  - ec109685 10y ago
    They can make taking federal highway funds contingent on adopting a dig once policy for locally funded projects. This is how the speed limit and drinking age was standardized across the country.
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      It will be an interesting change, for the federal government to use this power for good rather than evil.
    - milesrout 10y ago
      I still find it astounding Americans can't drink until 21.
  - indolering 10y ago
    But if this goes through on a national level it would spark off local legislation as well. This would be a great half-a-loaf for politicians who can't afford to oppose these monopolies.
- PaulHoule 10y ago
  Roads regularly get resurfaced in places that are already well-established, so it's not just a "new construction" thing.
  - iamatworknow 10y ago
    Resurfacing, especially in rural areas, is exactly that -- the existing road is scored and then paved over. There's not enough room there to insert a conduit without actually digging a channel. I'm not saying that work shouldn't be done, but it wouldn't be a case of just throwing down a pipe during normal resurfacing work.
    - samstave 10y ago
      wouldnt the equiv be that resurfacing==upgrading optics/lincards... you dont need to replace the actual fiber.
- samstave 10y ago
  > think the idea is to get fiber into the last mile. Vast parts of the country are still under construction. New subdivisions are being built Such an interesting subject is this; we have freaking building codes, regulations and requirements - esp re: elec and structure and such... We need to take a step back and make a freaking INFRA code that requires what the data line requirements to a building should be. DATA SHOULD BE A UTILITY - just like the sewer, water, etc... we should stop bitching about FCC this and that - and REQUIRE that construction includes the data plan as well. This will alleviate much of this kvetching. Please give me your opinion on the above as I respect your perspective.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    I think the breakdown should roughly be: developers must wire out to the property line (and if they're building a subdivision, out to the main road). The county should wire anywhere a public road is being built and bring glass to some reasonably convenient place (because otherwise developers would have nothing to connect the other end of the line to). Private companies should handle everything that's not dumb glass. I think counties are reasonably capable of burying fiber in the ground as they build and repair roads, but that's about all I trust them to do. I live in the DC metro area. Our public sewers dump raw sewage into the Anacostia river every time it rains. The city has an extensive network of old lead pipes that are poisoning kids. The Metro was almost unusable last year because tracks were catching fire. These problems exist all over the country, and are all caused because by prices for services being set too low, because they are set by elected officials and not the market. Meanwhile, we have had FiOS in MD/VA since 2006-ish. In that time the top speed has gone from 50 mbps to 750 mbps as Verizon upgraded OLTs, backhaul, etc. Yeah, I pay $100 per month for 300/300 service, while my water/sewer bill is so small I don't even know what I pay. But I don't see that as evidence my internet bill should be lower, I see it as evidence that my utility bill is too low.
    - milesrout 10y ago
      >These problems exist all over the country, and are all caused because by prices for services being set too low, because they are set by elected officials and not the market. They exist because the US continues to insist on spreading responsibility out of thousands of local governments instead of having a single set of rules and standards for everyone.
massysett 10y ago
"outside of last mile usage, which this bill is directed at" How is that? It applies only to federally funded projects. Most homes and businesses are not on federally funded roads. This bill is not a FTTH driver.
- DiabloD3 10y ago
  FTTH is a type of last mile, FTTH is not the only consumer of last mile fiber. The future of America is not, and never will be, FTTH. The future of America is FTTF/FTTDP (fiber to the frontage/distribution point) to a street/basement cabinet that houses current generation micro-headends and micro-DSLAMs that are setup to handle the last 500-1000 feet, speaking G.fast and DOCIS 3.x as very small greenfield installations. Current gen G.fast tops out at 1000/1000 in less than 300ft installations, slows to 100/100 at 1500ft (about a third of a mile) using existing installs of standard 80s and 90s era unshielded phone wire, the numbers go up with brand new copper, and next gen G.fast is aiming at increasing these speeds several fold (talk of 10gbit in under 300ft and 1gbit at much further distances). Current gen DOCIS 3.1 tops out at 1.3gbit down, 245mbit up, and there are already existing gigabit-on-cable customers getting what they paid for on 90s era coax. I see absolutely no reason to roll out actual FTTH ala FIOS, and I agree with Google Fiber's decision to drop actual FTTH, and they should be aiming for taking over unmaintained networks that can be rebuilt as modern DOCIS 3.x or G.Fast, or deploying micro-towers doing shorter range LTE-A fixed. Current gen LTE-A maxes out at somewhere in the neighborhood of at least 10gbit per tower/frequency band, and fixed LTE-A "modems" with outside directional antennas can get gigabit connectivity; next gen LTE (LTE-A Pro, aka 4.9G) at least doubles this. All of this is useless without Congress pushing for more fiber between towns, or inside large metro areas (which means burying more fiber along federal highways and major state roads). There is literally no reason why, today, we don't have at least 50/10 to every goddamned home in America. Every goddamned home, no matter how far you are out in the sticks. This is a drain on our economy every second we aren't working towards this actually rather easy to achieve goal. Fun fact: I don't even have reliable cell phone connectivity at my house. I'm maybe the only person on HN that bothers to maintain a POTS line and use it as my primary phone number.
  - rayiner 10y ago
late2part 10y ago
I think your intention is good - and I agree we should put in modern fiber. But only a small percentage of fiber put on long routes uses single wavelengths. Most fiber going more than 5-10km uses DWDM and that is indeed an important place to put in modern fiber. However, most of the railway routes in 1998 used fiber that supported 32*40G lambdas, so the problem with most of the fiber laid over the last 20 years is not that it can't handle more than 1gbps. Most of the problem is the equipment, not the type of fiber used.
qaq 10y ago
Companies have being running various WDM solutions on backbone links for ages.
ragix 10y ago
I agree with you here. However some of the 10gbit iom/mdas for the Nokia 77x0 bins are $100,000s.
hhw 10y ago
SONET was replaced with DWDM a decade ago. With 100GHz ITU Grid C, you would get 40 channels of up to 10Gbps each. More recently, most long haul providers have been upgrading to coherent using 50GHz spacing with 80 channels of 200Gbps, further broken down into 10Gb and 40Gb TDM or PDM circuits. Long haul density is not the issue. For a real life example, on a recent quote we received, fiber down the west coast from 2001 6th Ave in Seattle to 624 S Grand Ave in Los Angeles was only 1/3rd the cost of going from 624 S Grand Ave out to Malibu. The issue is not with long haul density, but with last mile due to restrictive municipal regulations and procedures, and lack of collaboration between different metro networks.
tlow 10y ago
I didn't know about any of this prior to reading your post, so please forgive my naivete. 100% municipal internet access in the US is a game changer for education as education laws like California's CA 61199[1] requires that primary instructional materials be available to 100% of students in both the classroom and at home In other words, 100% internet deployment or municipal wifi or whatever form it takes, literally changes what is allowable to primary instructional material content in public education in the united states.[2] [1] http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/textedcod60119.asp http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/textedcod60119.asp [2] IANAL and different states have different laws, what I am speaking about should be considered California specific as that is the only domain of my knowledge

rayiner 10y ago

I think the idea is to get fiber into the last mile. Vast parts of the country are still under construction. New subdivisions are being built, and people are moving there from established northeastern/midwestern states. Requiring conduit to be put underground as you build the roads for a new subdivision, for example, would dramatically reduce the costs to deploy fiber in these places.

mi100hael 10y ago
This would only apply to projects receiving federal funding, which I don't imagine includes most subdivisions. Most likely just interstates, state highways, and maybe county highways. That wouldn't necessarily get fiber through your front door, but it should get it far enough out to provide a viable high speed option for rural households that are currently stuck with dial up or satellite.
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  There is no reason we couldn't or shouldn't also do the same thing at the state level.
- ec109685 10y ago
  They can make taking federal highway funds contingent on adopting a dig once policy for locally funded projects. This is how the speed limit and drinking age was standardized across the country.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    It will be an interesting change, for the federal government to use this power for good rather than evil.
  - milesrout 10y ago
    I still find it astounding Americans can't drink until 21.
- indolering 10y ago
  But if this goes through on a national level it would spark off local legislation as well. This would be a great half-a-loaf for politicians who can't afford to oppose these monopolies.
PaulHoule 10y ago
Roads regularly get resurfaced in places that are already well-established, so it's not just a "new construction" thing.
- iamatworknow 10y ago
  Resurfacing, especially in rural areas, is exactly that -- the existing road is scored and then paved over. There's not enough room there to insert a conduit without actually digging a channel. I'm not saying that work shouldn't be done, but it wouldn't be a case of just throwing down a pipe during normal resurfacing work.
  - samstave 10y ago
    wouldnt the equiv be that resurfacing==upgrading optics/lincards... you dont need to replace the actual fiber.
samstave 10y ago
> think the idea is to get fiber into the last mile. Vast parts of the country are still under construction. New subdivisions are being built Such an interesting subject is this; we have freaking building codes, regulations and requirements - esp re: elec and structure and such... We need to take a step back and make a freaking INFRA code that requires what the data line requirements to a building should be. DATA SHOULD BE A UTILITY - just like the sewer, water, etc... we should stop bitching about FCC this and that - and REQUIRE that construction includes the data plan as well. This will alleviate much of this kvetching. Please give me your opinion on the above as I respect your perspective.
- rayiner 10y ago
  I think the breakdown should roughly be: developers must wire out to the property line (and if they're building a subdivision, out to the main road). The county should wire anywhere a public road is being built and bring glass to some reasonably convenient place (because otherwise developers would have nothing to connect the other end of the line to). Private companies should handle everything that's not dumb glass. I think counties are reasonably capable of burying fiber in the ground as they build and repair roads, but that's about all I trust them to do. I live in the DC metro area. Our public sewers dump raw sewage into the Anacostia river every time it rains. The city has an extensive network of old lead pipes that are poisoning kids. The Metro was almost unusable last year because tracks were catching fire. These problems exist all over the country, and are all caused because by prices for services being set too low, because they are set by elected officials and not the market. Meanwhile, we have had FiOS in MD/VA since 2006-ish. In that time the top speed has gone from 50 mbps to 750 mbps as Verizon upgraded OLTs, backhaul, etc. Yeah, I pay $100 per month for 300/300 service, while my water/sewer bill is so small I don't even know what I pay. But I don't see that as evidence my internet bill should be lower, I see it as evidence that my utility bill is too low.
  - milesrout 10y ago
    >These problems exist all over the country, and are all caused because by prices for services being set too low, because they are set by elected officials and not the market. They exist because the US continues to insist on spreading responsibility out of thousands of local governments instead of having a single set of rules and standards for everyone.

massysett 10y ago

"outside of last mile usage, which this bill is directed at" How is that? It applies only to federally funded projects. Most homes and businesses are not on federally funded roads. This bill is not a FTTH driver.

DiabloD3 10y ago
FTTH is a type of last mile, FTTH is not the only consumer of last mile fiber. The future of America is not, and never will be, FTTH. The future of America is FTTF/FTTDP (fiber to the frontage/distribution point) to a street/basement cabinet that houses current generation micro-headends and micro-DSLAMs that are setup to handle the last 500-1000 feet, speaking G.fast and DOCIS 3.x as very small greenfield installations. Current gen G.fast tops out at 1000/1000 in less than 300ft installations, slows to 100/100 at 1500ft (about a third of a mile) using existing installs of standard 80s and 90s era unshielded phone wire, the numbers go up with brand new copper, and next gen G.fast is aiming at increasing these speeds several fold (talk of 10gbit in under 300ft and 1gbit at much further distances). Current gen DOCIS 3.1 tops out at 1.3gbit down, 245mbit up, and there are already existing gigabit-on-cable customers getting what they paid for on 90s era coax. I see absolutely no reason to roll out actual FTTH ala FIOS, and I agree with Google Fiber's decision to drop actual FTTH, and they should be aiming for taking over unmaintained networks that can be rebuilt as modern DOCIS 3.x or G.Fast, or deploying micro-towers doing shorter range LTE-A fixed. Current gen LTE-A maxes out at somewhere in the neighborhood of at least 10gbit per tower/frequency band, and fixed LTE-A "modems" with outside directional antennas can get gigabit connectivity; next gen LTE (LTE-A Pro, aka 4.9G) at least doubles this. All of this is useless without Congress pushing for more fiber between towns, or inside large metro areas (which means burying more fiber along federal highways and major state roads). There is literally no reason why, today, we don't have at least 50/10 to every goddamned home in America. Every goddamned home, no matter how far you are out in the sticks. This is a drain on our economy every second we aren't working towards this actually rather easy to achieve goal. Fun fact: I don't even have reliable cell phone connectivity at my house. I'm maybe the only person on HN that bothers to maintain a POTS line and use it as my primary phone number.
- rayiner 10y ago

late2part 10y ago

I think your intention is good - and I agree we should put in modern fiber. But only a small percentage of fiber put on long routes uses single wavelengths. Most fiber going more than 5-10km uses DWDM and that is indeed an important place to put in modern fiber. However, most of the railway routes in 1998 used fiber that supported 32*40G lambdas, so the problem with most of the fiber laid over the last 20 years is not that it can't handle more than 1gbps. Most of the problem is the equipment, not the type of fiber used.

qaq 10y ago

Companies have being running various WDM solutions on backbone links for ages.

ragix 10y ago

I agree with you here. However some of the 10gbit iom/mdas for the Nokia 77x0 bins are $100,000s.

hhw 10y ago

SONET was replaced with DWDM a decade ago. With 100GHz ITU Grid C, you would get 40 channels of up to 10Gbps each. More recently, most long haul providers have been upgrading to coherent using 50GHz spacing with 80 channels of 200Gbps, further broken down into 10Gb and 40Gb TDM or PDM circuits. Long haul density is not the issue. For a real life example, on a recent quote we received, fiber down the west coast from 2001 6th Ave in Seattle to 624 S Grand Ave in Los Angeles was only 1/3rd the cost of going from 624 S Grand Ave out to Malibu. The issue is not with long haul density, but with last mile due to restrictive municipal regulations and procedures, and lack of collaboration between different metro networks.

tlow 10y ago

I didn't know about any of this prior to reading your post, so please forgive my naivete. 100% municipal internet access in the US is a game changer for education as education laws like California's CA 61199[1] requires that primary instructional materials be available to 100% of students in both the classroom and at home In other words, 100% internet deployment or municipal wifi or whatever form it takes, literally changes what is allowable to primary instructional material content in public education in the united states.[2] [1] http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/textedcod60119.asp http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/textedcod60119.asp [2] IANAL and different states have different laws, what I am speaking about should be considered California specific as that is the only domain of my knowledge