4 ms·

Cost and Fragility. You can push around 1GHz of bandwidth on the normal hardline-feed line with taps system cable uses, each node is designed to pass by a cert

by Aloha 4y ago

Cost and Fragility. You can push around 1GHz of bandwidth on the normal hardline-feed line with taps system cable uses, each node is designed to pass by a certain number of households. Coax is.. cheap, forgiving, easy to terminate, and inexpensive to replace - Fiber is more expensive, unforgiving, and much harder to terminate.

GreyStache 4y ago
Regarding the termination: our local fiber provider handles the termination with some optical precision connector (forgot the name). Both to the sunken-in-sidewalk multiplexer and in the home to the optical termination point (both gpon). So for mass deployments fiber connections do not require fibre welds are not required. I have to see it play out in practice and I'm not a fan of the idea that one telco controls controls (ie stifles competition) in a gpon scenario. The conduit has recently been placed in our street, so "soon"...
- Aloha 4y ago
  I'm still a fan for cost reasons of FTTN, because I think with Coax in the last mile, you can deliver fantastic performance, so long as you're not also trying to delivery video too. Furthermore if you actually run Coax in duct for buried circuits, its easy to replace with fiber later.
  - bayindirh 4y ago
    Our telco converted all its infra to FTTN via fiber. So, I've actually have fiber connection up to the front of my building, then it's terminated and distributed via VDSL to the street. I have a 50/8 mbps connection at home and, it gives all the performance it can give. The telco keeps the speeds a bit higher to handle VDSL overhead, so we have a real 50/8 mbps IP connection at premises. I'd rather not rewire my home and use existing equipment (which can handle 350mpbs), rather than bringing in fragile fiber into the home.
    - xenadu02 4y ago
      This sounds like post-hoc rationalization. I have Sonic fiber in SF. 1Gbps symmetric, over a "fragile fiber" run directly into my home. It works quite well. The drop cable is pre-made in standard lengths with weatherproof connectors. The glass is embedded in a large-ish diameter substrate that resists sharp bends naturally so the installers don't need to take special care to prevent losses, just don't try to force the cable to bend beyond what it wants to do (very different from your standard fiber patch cables in a switch room). It is robust enough you could cable staple it to a wall without issue. Terminates in a tiny ONT that gives me Ethernet on my side. They're deploying 10Gbps for all new installs and I'm eagerly awaiting my upgrade. No change to the fiber itself are required, just swapping equipment on both ends. This same fiber can do 100Gbps in the future if the need arises, possibly more. No coax plant can come close. The fact that an independent ISP can do this for $40/month and make money at it proves the economics. There is no reason not to run fiber unless you're more focused on rent extraction than investing in your business... at least in suburbs and cities. (See ATT's public comments and focus on milking wireless while dis-investing in physical plant as an example of goosing profits because they don't face real competition in most of their service area).
      - Aloha 4y ago
        Does Sonic own their own fiber network?
        zbrozek 4y ago
        Yes.
        fragmede 4y ago
        They own some fiber. They'll also sell you service using AT&T's fiber if that's what's there.
        xenadu02 4y ago
        Sorry I should have been clearer: I am referring to "Sonic Fiber" which is their own infrastructure, not any kind of resold service which they do offer in areas where they have not deployed their own fiber infrastructure. In the Bay Area they have fiber in SF, South SF, Daly City, Redwood City, Berkley, Oakland, San Carlos, Burlingame, Albany, Brentwood, and probably more. They are rolling it out mostly in areas with poles at the moment because the cost of burying is quite high. They've proposed "microtrenching" in SF to reach areas with all underground utilities but so far the city hasn't been very interested and it isn't cost-effective for them to dig up the sidewalks to install conduit. I hope that will change at some point.
rodgerd 4y ago
https://www.chorus.co.nz/tools-support/broadband-tools/broadband-map https://www.chorus.co.nz/tools-support/broadband-tools/broad... New Zealand has fibre to the home for the majority of a country the side of the eastern seaboard of the US, with only 5 million people, and a lower per-capita GDP. It's doable. It's just a question of wanting to.
- Aloha 4y ago
  Its just not as efficient, you can deliver similar classes of service by HFC networks.
  - rodgerd 4y ago
    Australia and New Zealand have helpfully agreed to provide a case study in which works best. Mixed fibre and copper in Australia is slower and ended up costing dramatically more than it was supposed to.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
    I think it's just inertia. At higher speeds you have to do so much signal processing going over copper, that it iss costing more and more energy compared to optical. Which is limited to 2.5 Watts per port and end of the fiber, at least in common prosumer facing gear. While you can push up to 80KM(or meanwhile even more!) in one run with such stuff, depending on the used fibre and wavelength. Speaking about optical modules in this formfactor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_form-factor_pluggable_transceiver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_form-factor_pluggable_tr...
  - robocat 4y ago
    I was initially a skeptic of the cost of Fibre-To-The-Premises, but in hindsight for New Zealand (≈Oregon) I think a national rollout of fibre was very effective[3][4]. AFAIK fibre is more resilient to catastrophes (like earthquakes[1][2] in Christchurch or California), and having a high speed residential fibre network definitely helped during Covid. I am uncertain what you mean by “efficient”. Perhaps link to something that backs up your opinion? [1] https://az659834.vo.msecnd.net/eventsaircancprod/production-venuewest-public/4491ae0dc0cf4698b586c22ea9788df0 https://az659834.vo.msecnd.net/eventsaircancprod/production-... [2] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sonia-Giovinazzi-2/publication/318507579_Resilience_and_fragility_of_the_telecommunication_network_to_seismic_events_Evidence_after_the_Kaikoura_New_Zealand_earthquake/links/59724fc50f7e9b4016943d9c/Resilience-and-fragility-of-the-telecommunication-network-to-seismic-events-Evidence-after-the-Kaikoura-New-Zealand-earthquake.pdf?origin=publication_detail https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sonia-Giovinazzi-2/publ... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29791864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29791864 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25339491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25339491
toast0 4y ago
When AT&T did a fiber overlay in San Jose (GPON), they had neighborhood cables that were factory terminated to go from wherever to each pole. The linemen had to setup the pulleys? and pull the cable through, and attach them, but they didn't have to terminate them. When they ran a line to my house, they did do a field termination, but it seemed like they had a tool and it went quickly (mine was the tech's first time, or at least pretty early, but it only took a minute or so). Of course, for repair work, if a tree or something breaks a multi fiber bundle, splicing is going to be a lot harder than coax. Probably harder than traditional phone lines, but I think PON is setup so that you don't need to care which wire connects to which other wire, and if you do that for end-user traditional phone lines, you'll have a big mess, so you'd really want to match the wires up before you junction them. Coax is just one big wire, so way simpler.

by Aloha 4y ago

GreyStache 4y ago

Regarding the termination: our local fiber provider handles the termination with some optical precision connector (forgot the name). Both to the sunken-in-sidewalk multiplexer and in the home to the optical termination point (both gpon). So for mass deployments fiber connections do not require fibre welds are not required. I have to see it play out in practice and I'm not a fan of the idea that one telco controls controls (ie stifles competition) in a gpon scenario. The conduit has recently been placed in our street, so "soon"...

Aloha 4y ago
I'm still a fan for cost reasons of FTTN, because I think with Coax in the last mile, you can deliver fantastic performance, so long as you're not also trying to delivery video too. Furthermore if you actually run Coax in duct for buried circuits, its easy to replace with fiber later.
- bayindirh 4y ago
  Our telco converted all its infra to FTTN via fiber. So, I've actually have fiber connection up to the front of my building, then it's terminated and distributed via VDSL to the street. I have a 50/8 mbps connection at home and, it gives all the performance it can give. The telco keeps the speeds a bit higher to handle VDSL overhead, so we have a real 50/8 mbps IP connection at premises. I'd rather not rewire my home and use existing equipment (which can handle 350mpbs), rather than bringing in fragile fiber into the home.
  - xenadu02 4y ago
    This sounds like post-hoc rationalization. I have Sonic fiber in SF. 1Gbps symmetric, over a "fragile fiber" run directly into my home. It works quite well. The drop cable is pre-made in standard lengths with weatherproof connectors. The glass is embedded in a large-ish diameter substrate that resists sharp bends naturally so the installers don't need to take special care to prevent losses, just don't try to force the cable to bend beyond what it wants to do (very different from your standard fiber patch cables in a switch room). It is robust enough you could cable staple it to a wall without issue. Terminates in a tiny ONT that gives me Ethernet on my side. They're deploying 10Gbps for all new installs and I'm eagerly awaiting my upgrade. No change to the fiber itself are required, just swapping equipment on both ends. This same fiber can do 100Gbps in the future if the need arises, possibly more. No coax plant can come close. The fact that an independent ISP can do this for $40/month and make money at it proves the economics. There is no reason not to run fiber unless you're more focused on rent extraction than investing in your business... at least in suburbs and cities. (See ATT's public comments and focus on milking wireless while dis-investing in physical plant as an example of goosing profits because they don't face real competition in most of their service area).
    - Aloha 4y ago
      Does Sonic own their own fiber network?
      - zbrozek 4y ago
        Yes.
      - fragmede 4y ago
        They own some fiber. They'll also sell you service using AT&T's fiber if that's what's there.
      - xenadu02 4y ago
        Sorry I should have been clearer: I am referring to "Sonic Fiber" which is their own infrastructure, not any kind of resold service which they do offer in areas where they have not deployed their own fiber infrastructure. In the Bay Area they have fiber in SF, South SF, Daly City, Redwood City, Berkley, Oakland, San Carlos, Burlingame, Albany, Brentwood, and probably more. They are rolling it out mostly in areas with poles at the moment because the cost of burying is quite high. They've proposed "microtrenching" in SF to reach areas with all underground utilities but so far the city hasn't been very interested and it isn't cost-effective for them to dig up the sidewalks to install conduit. I hope that will change at some point.

rodgerd 4y ago

https://www.chorus.co.nz/tools-support/broadband-tools/broadband-map https://www.chorus.co.nz/tools-support/broadband-tools/broad... New Zealand has fibre to the home for the majority of a country the side of the eastern seaboard of the US, with only 5 million people, and a lower per-capita GDP. It's doable. It's just a question of wanting to.

Aloha 4y ago
Its just not as efficient, you can deliver similar classes of service by HFC networks.
- rodgerd 4y ago
  Australia and New Zealand have helpfully agreed to provide a case study in which works best. Mixed fibre and copper in Australia is slower and ended up costing dramatically more than it was supposed to.
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
  I think it's just inertia. At higher speeds you have to do so much signal processing going over copper, that it iss costing more and more energy compared to optical. Which is limited to 2.5 Watts per port and end of the fiber, at least in common prosumer facing gear. While you can push up to 80KM(or meanwhile even more!) in one run with such stuff, depending on the used fibre and wavelength. Speaking about optical modules in this formfactor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_form-factor_pluggable_transceiver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_form-factor_pluggable_tr...
- robocat 4y ago
  I was initially a skeptic of the cost of Fibre-To-The-Premises, but in hindsight for New Zealand (≈Oregon) I think a national rollout of fibre was very effective[3][4]. AFAIK fibre is more resilient to catastrophes (like earthquakes[1][2] in Christchurch or California), and having a high speed residential fibre network definitely helped during Covid. I am uncertain what you mean by “efficient”. Perhaps link to something that backs up your opinion? [1] https://az659834.vo.msecnd.net/eventsaircancprod/production-venuewest-public/4491ae0dc0cf4698b586c22ea9788df0 https://az659834.vo.msecnd.net/eventsaircancprod/production-... [2] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sonia-Giovinazzi-2/publication/318507579_Resilience_and_fragility_of_the_telecommunication_network_to_seismic_events_Evidence_after_the_Kaikoura_New_Zealand_earthquake/links/59724fc50f7e9b4016943d9c/Resilience-and-fragility-of-the-telecommunication-network-to-seismic-events-Evidence-after-the-Kaikoura-New-Zealand-earthquake.pdf?origin=publication_detail https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sonia-Giovinazzi-2/publ... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29791864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29791864 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25339491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25339491

toast0 4y ago

When AT&T did a fiber overlay in San Jose (GPON), they had neighborhood cables that were factory terminated to go from wherever to each pole. The linemen had to setup the pulleys? and pull the cable through, and attach them, but they didn't have to terminate them. When they ran a line to my house, they did do a field termination, but it seemed like they had a tool and it went quickly (mine was the tech's first time, or at least pretty early, but it only took a minute or so). Of course, for repair work, if a tree or something breaks a multi fiber bundle, splicing is going to be a lot harder than coax. Probably harder than traditional phone lines, but I think PON is setup so that you don't need to care which wire connects to which other wire, and if you do that for end-user traditional phone lines, you'll have a big mess, so you'd really want to match the wires up before you junction them. Coax is just one big wire, so way simpler.