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it's not about big cities, it's about unprofitable rural areas. The copper wire will be kept alive as long as it brings money.
by buryat 9y ago
it's not about big cities, it's about unprofitable rural areas. The copper wire will be kept alive as long as it brings money.
- agumonkey 9y agoI suppose if cities copper ever get removed it would be for fiber replacement.
- abalashov 9y agoYeah, but as POTS revenue declines in big cities, too, there's a tipping point beneath which it's not worth maintaining that infrastructure, either. While the unit economics are better because of the density, there are also more subscribers to serve, breeding its own infrastructural complexity. It may be more efficient to do it in cities per wire distance or unit of infrastructure, but there's also just more infrastructure. For POTS to be economical anywhere, a sizable chunk of the population has to buy it. I don't know what those tipping points are, but you can be 370% sure the ILECs have calculated this out meticulously.