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The stories I heard about the expansion that was anticipating growth that never came was all about long-haul fiber: Fiber between cities and across the country.
by linsomniac 7y ago
The stories I heard about the expansion that was anticipating growth that never came was all about long-haul fiber: Fiber between cities and across the country. Some of that, one could speculate, was because these long haul fibers were being sold to businesses, who were paying ~$100/mbps, but the residential endpoints were still very slow (1.5Mbps DSL was blazing fast in 1998, if you could even get it), because the telcos were holding onto their in-ground copper investment.
- reaperducer 7y agoIt was more than just long-haul. Some cities suffered from the growing pains of the fiber feeding frenzy. City streets would be torn up five or six times within a couple of months as competing fiber startups tried to cash in on the anticipated gold rush. Those towns with good planning departments put together "street cut coordination" plans to minimize repeated disturbances. But most didn't get their acts together before the fiber bubble burst.
- linsomniac 7y ago3-4 years ago the town in this article got tired of the tearing up of its main street, and refinished that street, after telling the likely suspects that they'd better put down extra capacity now if they were going to need it, because future digs would require the diggers to completely redo the road rather than just trench and fill.
- cptskippy 7y agoI'm kind of surprised they weren't installing conduits and vaults. Isn't that common practice to facilitate easier repair of faults?
- reaperducer 7y agoFiber companies aren't interested in spending the extra money for conduits and vaults. They just want to get quick cash to feed to their investors.
- cptskippy 7y agoThey're currently installing fiber in my area with vaults that, according to my partner the engineer, are way closer together than they need to be. I wonder if something else is going in them as well...
- reaperducer 7y agoPossibly your municipality is requiring them to do that in the build-out to make them future-proof.