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Why is running fiber somehow more expensive than dsl, cable, or power cables? Spoiler; It's not. Chattanooga's EPB runs fiber to every home that has power. I

Why is running fiber somehow more expensive than dsl, cable, or power cables? Spoiler; It's not. Chattanooga's EPB runs fiber to every home that has power. Internet should be treated like the essential utility it is. If we were successfully able to run electricity to farm houses in the 1930s, I see no reason at all they shouldn't have fiber internet in 2023.

packetlost 3y ago
The fiber is, to my knowledge, cheaper than the equivalent copper per mile. There's bigger than you'd think costs basically every step of the way to lay a new line regardless of the medium, with the local power utility often times being a major hangup. The question is almost never about the cost of laying fiber vs laying copper, it's about laying a new line (fiber) or laying nothing (use existing copper). You have to get permission from every land owner whose ditch/yard you need to dig up. Using poles is usually not an option because they're typically owned by the local power utility who either won't let ISPs use them at all or drastically increase operating costs to the point where it's not feasible. Power supply for actively powered equipment can be hard in lower density (ie. rural) areas (from a bureaucratic standpoint). Copper nodes can sometimes be passively powered, but there's not much in fiber optics that can outside of GPON splitters.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > The question is almost never about the cost of laying fiber vs laying copper, it's about laying a new line (fiber) or laying nothing (use existing copper). Yep, exactly. 99.99% of the cost of laying anything (underground, above ground, wherever) is in the permitting and digging/hanging. The cost of the material itself and the labor of handling it is rounding error.
rayiner 3y ago
> Why is running fiber somehow more expensive than dsl, cable, or power cables? Because we’re running fiber in the 21st century while DSL, cable, and power have mostly already been in the ground for decades. The cost of building any kind of infrastructure has increased exponentially over the decades. We literally could not build today a lot of the infrastructure we already have in the ground—e.g. the New York subway. > Chattanooga's EPB runs fiber to every home that has power. EPB got a $110 million grant from the ARRA ($1,000 per fiber subscriber), and also leverages economies of scale because the fiber network is used both for the electric grid and the fiber service. I think that’s actually a great way to deploy fiber, but it doesn’t tell you anything about the economics of a fiber provider that isn’t the electric utility.

packetlost 3y ago

The fiber is, to my knowledge, cheaper than the equivalent copper per mile. There's bigger than you'd think costs basically every step of the way to lay a new line regardless of the medium, with the local power utility often times being a major hangup. The question is almost never about the cost of laying fiber vs laying copper, it's about laying a new line (fiber) or laying nothing (use existing copper). You have to get permission from every land owner whose ditch/yard you need to dig up. Using poles is usually not an option because they're typically owned by the local power utility who either won't let ISPs use them at all or drastically increase operating costs to the point where it's not feasible. Power supply for actively powered equipment can be hard in lower density (ie. rural) areas (from a bureaucratic standpoint). Copper nodes can sometimes be passively powered, but there's not much in fiber optics that can outside of GPON splitters.

gottorf 3y ago
> The question is almost never about the cost of laying fiber vs laying copper, it's about laying a new line (fiber) or laying nothing (use existing copper). Yep, exactly. 99.99% of the cost of laying anything (underground, above ground, wherever) is in the permitting and digging/hanging. The cost of the material itself and the labor of handling it is rounding error.

rayiner 3y ago

> Why is running fiber somehow more expensive than dsl, cable, or power cables? Because we’re running fiber in the 21st century while DSL, cable, and power have mostly already been in the ground for decades. The cost of building any kind of infrastructure has increased exponentially over the decades. We literally could not build today a lot of the infrastructure we already have in the ground—e.g. the New York subway. > Chattanooga's EPB runs fiber to every home that has power. EPB got a $110 million grant from the ARRA ($1,000 per fiber subscriber), and also leverages economies of scale because the fiber network is used both for the electric grid and the fiber service. I think that’s actually a great way to deploy fiber, but it doesn’t tell you anything about the economics of a fiber provider that isn’t the electric utility.