5 ms·

IDK in the US, but in my country rural internet is indeed expensive. Using old telephone poles makes it easier, but you still need network elements, pay people

IDK in the US, but in my country rural internet is indeed expensive. Using old telephone poles makes it easier, but you still need network elements, pay people for deployment and it's very low density. The most expensive part is paying construction workers if you have to bury cable and all the stuff that involves that.

octoberfranklin 6y ago
Fiber to the home is only buried when the electrical lines are underground (i.e. no poles). That is incredibly rare in rural areas. And gigabit switches ("network elements") are stupidly cheap now. People have been totally bamboozled about what this stuff really costs.
- deleted 6y ago
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- tialaramex 6y ago
  Lots of this seems obviously wrong? https://b4rn.org.uk/about-us/our-network/ https://b4rn.org.uk/about-us/our-network/ B4RN is a pretty typical British rural broadband offer, in a rural area there's no real problem with just digging a trench, dropping the ducts into the trench, then blow fibre through a completed duct. In a city if you dig a trench that's a huge pain, because the city is paved or built on everywhere, but in rural areas it's no hassle. With modern agricultural practices a relatively shallow trench is enough that the fibre won't be disturbed by subsequent farming activity, these days nobody churns up half the planet to grow stuff because we know that destroying soil structure reduces long term productivity. And as to those "network elements" it's GPON, the elements are passive splitters, basically a fancy prism, completely passive. There's only bit of actual electronics in each region but it's quite a bit fancier than a "gigabit switch" because it's multiplexing the light for all the nodes behind the GPON splitters.
  - octoberfranklin 6y ago
    Post starts with a non-question followed by a question mark? This map is a map of the USA. Underground electrical service is extremely rare in rural areas of the USA. We have these things called utility poles. And we use them. On what planet do GPON prisms cost more than switches? The whole reason it got popular was that it was even cheaper than active optical. Here's a 32-way prism for $14: https://www.fs.com/products/11528.html https://www.fs.com/products/11528.html . That's under $0.50/customer. You pay a bit more for the weatherproof enclosure for it that mounts on a pole. Frankly, GPON is for losers. 144-count ADSS is so cheap now it's stupid to build GPON/EPON/BPON these days. Most of central Washington State (Grant County) has a dedicated strand of fiber to each household -- it's future-proof. Just do it. GPON is a scam by large telcos who are afraid that unless they have the whole neighborhood sharing something (i.e. a fiber) they'll be forced to let each customer choose a different provider for that customer's strand. I predict that we will see stupid telcos keep rolling out GPON even after it becomes way more expensive than dedicated dark fiber. It's greed and bamboozlement. Bamboozlers gonna bamboozle.

octoberfranklin 6y ago

Fiber to the home is only buried when the electrical lines are underground (i.e. no poles). That is incredibly rare in rural areas. And gigabit switches ("network elements") are stupidly cheap now. People have been totally bamboozled about what this stuff really costs.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tialaramex 6y ago
Lots of this seems obviously wrong? https://b4rn.org.uk/about-us/our-network/ https://b4rn.org.uk/about-us/our-network/ B4RN is a pretty typical British rural broadband offer, in a rural area there's no real problem with just digging a trench, dropping the ducts into the trench, then blow fibre through a completed duct. In a city if you dig a trench that's a huge pain, because the city is paved or built on everywhere, but in rural areas it's no hassle. With modern agricultural practices a relatively shallow trench is enough that the fibre won't be disturbed by subsequent farming activity, these days nobody churns up half the planet to grow stuff because we know that destroying soil structure reduces long term productivity. And as to those "network elements" it's GPON, the elements are passive splitters, basically a fancy prism, completely passive. There's only bit of actual electronics in each region but it's quite a bit fancier than a "gigabit switch" because it's multiplexing the light for all the nodes behind the GPON splitters.
- octoberfranklin 6y ago
  Post starts with a non-question followed by a question mark? This map is a map of the USA. Underground electrical service is extremely rare in rural areas of the USA. We have these things called utility poles. And we use them. On what planet do GPON prisms cost more than switches? The whole reason it got popular was that it was even cheaper than active optical. Here's a 32-way prism for $14: https://www.fs.com/products/11528.html https://www.fs.com/products/11528.html . That's under $0.50/customer. You pay a bit more for the weatherproof enclosure for it that mounts on a pole. Frankly, GPON is for losers. 144-count ADSS is so cheap now it's stupid to build GPON/EPON/BPON these days. Most of central Washington State (Grant County) has a dedicated strand of fiber to each household -- it's future-proof. Just do it. GPON is a scam by large telcos who are afraid that unless they have the whole neighborhood sharing something (i.e. a fiber) they'll be forced to let each customer choose a different provider for that customer's strand. I predict that we will see stupid telcos keep rolling out GPON even after it becomes way more expensive than dedicated dark fiber. It's greed and bamboozlement. Bamboozlers gonna bamboozle.