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optic fiber may be one of the zero interest rates phenomena coupled with gov subsidies betting on the future At the end of the day there was plenty of juice to

optic fiber may be one of the zero interest rates phenomena coupled with gov subsidies betting on the future At the end of the day there was plenty of juice to squeeze from existing infra

flashback2199 3y ago
Coax is still going to run out of bandwidth eventually, so fiber lines run will not be wasted, but yeah, it is further out than most laypeople realized, going by other threads about coax, there's this popular conception that coax is super crappy, in reality it's a pretty good RF waveguide, unless it gets pierced or the connector is poorly crimped, but that also applies to fiber
- orra 3y ago
  Yes, coax (and DOCSIS) is far better than a telephone wire (and DSL).
- martinald 3y ago
  Tbh using DOCSIS4.0 is probably a mistake and a dead end technology. Virgin Media in the UK said the cost of upgrading to 4.0 from their 3.1 network was only half that of actually laying full fibre to all their covered premises, so they are instead rolling out FTTH everywhere instead. 4.0 requires significant new physical network components deployed close to end users so it's not a cheap or easy upgrade. Plus it's unlikely there will be much more speed after 4.0 given it is using very sophisticated modulation techniques and using nearly the entire spectrum of the coax cable.
  - flashback2199 3y ago
    That's interesting. I thought that, too, but recently I read that there's about another order of magnitude of bandwidth increase to squeeze out of coax yet. I didn't save the link though.
    - martinald 3y ago
      Sorry, I meant relative to fibre. I'm sure there will be DOCSIS 4.1 getting another 20% out of the plant, and various other small incremental improvements. Whereas really there is no reason you couldn't have terabit-PON systems.
  - metaphor 3y ago
    > Tbh using DOCSIS4.0 is probably a mistake and a dead end technology. Virgin Media in the UK said the cost of upgrading to 4.0 from their 3.1 network was only half that of actually laying full fibre to all their covered premises, so they are instead rolling out FTTH everywhere instead. Let's put this into proper perspective. The state of Texas alone is ~2.8x larger than the entire UK. Comcast FY22 Residential Broadband generated ~5x more revenue (spot FX; about the same circa end of CY22) and serves ~5x more customers [1; pp. 42-43] than all of Virgin Media O2 Fixed-Line over the same period [2; pp. 5-6]. To think what might make infra capex business sense for Virgin Media in the UK would be asymptotically transferable to Comcast in the US as a broadcast telecom with 6 decades of history and at the prevailing cost of capital strikes me as quite naive. [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1166691/000116669123000010/cmcsa-20221231.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1166691/000116669123... [2] https://news.virginmediao2.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Virgin-Media-O2-Q4-FY-2022-Earnings-Release.pdf https://news.virginmediao2.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/...
    - flashback2199 3y ago
      Average age of coax line in TX might be newer too, since the state has had a lot of new property development in recent decades. I have a feeling that quality of the existing coax might be a factor in how successful or costly speed upgrades can be, since we're now squeezing the last bit of bandwidth out of them. Cables that are out of spec but still mostly working at lower bandwidths are going to be a problem since higher bandwidth is more sensitive to the quality of the cable. Some lines will have to be replaced, which will increase costs.
      - lazide 3y ago
        The issue is rarely the cables - coax run in the last 50 years is essentially identical to coax run now. It had to be to support all those TV channels! Connectors do sometimes corrode, rodents do occasionally eat things, and they do need to upgrade some of their splitting/serving equipment though.
        flashback2199 3y ago
drozycki 3y ago
The issue was always mostly about monopoly power and not technical limitation. A hypothetical second coax network would achieve the same end result, but there’s no reason not to go with fiber for new installations today.
gowings97 3y ago
by time you go n+0 with all the nodes to enable DOCSIS 4.0, you probably could just do FTTH for nearly the same cost. FTTH opex is also lower after 5 years.
- fbdab103 3y ago
  I know nothing of the space, could you go into the opex a bit? I naively assume that once the wire is in the ground, all of the maintenance is in powering routers + staff + recovery when a backhoe inadvertently cuts a line. How do coax and fiber differentiate themselves on long-term costs?
  - toast0 3y ago
    Coax has powered equipment in the field. Power costs money (opex). The powered equipment sometimes needs replacing, probably much more often than GPON (opex to roll the truck, capex maybe to replace broken equipment)
    - gowings97 3y ago
      Precisely
linsomniac 3y ago
>At the end of the day there was plenty of juice to squeeze from existing infra That's the argument that POTS was making 20-30 years ago. But now it's just rotting in the ground in our area. In fact, just today I was driving by a telecom pedestal that some traffic had hit and was wondering if anybody even notices anymore. The next intersection there was one that was barely in better shape. ~100 years ago they built the telephone systems. ~50 years ago they built the cable systems. Sure, they can squeeze some more out of the cable, until they can't, at which point we're going to wish we had invested in some more modern infrastructure.

optic fiber may be one of the zero interest rates phenomena coupled with gov subsidies betting on the future At the end of the day there was plenty of juice to squeeze from existing infra

flashback2199 3y ago

Coax is still going to run out of bandwidth eventually, so fiber lines run will not be wasted, but yeah, it is further out than most laypeople realized, going by other threads about coax, there's this popular conception that coax is super crappy, in reality it's a pretty good RF waveguide, unless it gets pierced or the connector is poorly crimped, but that also applies to fiber

orra 3y ago
Yes, coax (and DOCSIS) is far better than a telephone wire (and DSL).
martinald 3y ago
Tbh using DOCSIS4.0 is probably a mistake and a dead end technology. Virgin Media in the UK said the cost of upgrading to 4.0 from their 3.1 network was only half that of actually laying full fibre to all their covered premises, so they are instead rolling out FTTH everywhere instead. 4.0 requires significant new physical network components deployed close to end users so it's not a cheap or easy upgrade. Plus it's unlikely there will be much more speed after 4.0 given it is using very sophisticated modulation techniques and using nearly the entire spectrum of the coax cable.
- flashback2199 3y ago
  That's interesting. I thought that, too, but recently I read that there's about another order of magnitude of bandwidth increase to squeeze out of coax yet. I didn't save the link though.
  - martinald 3y ago
    Sorry, I meant relative to fibre. I'm sure there will be DOCSIS 4.1 getting another 20% out of the plant, and various other small incremental improvements. Whereas really there is no reason you couldn't have terabit-PON systems.
- metaphor 3y ago
  > Tbh using DOCSIS4.0 is probably a mistake and a dead end technology. Virgin Media in the UK said the cost of upgrading to 4.0 from their 3.1 network was only half that of actually laying full fibre to all their covered premises, so they are instead rolling out FTTH everywhere instead. Let's put this into proper perspective. The state of Texas alone is ~2.8x larger than the entire UK. Comcast FY22 Residential Broadband generated ~5x more revenue (spot FX; about the same circa end of CY22) and serves ~5x more customers [1; pp. 42-43] than all of Virgin Media O2 Fixed-Line over the same period [2; pp. 5-6]. To think what might make infra capex business sense for Virgin Media in the UK would be asymptotically transferable to Comcast in the US as a broadcast telecom with 6 decades of history and at the prevailing cost of capital strikes me as quite naive. [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1166691/000116669123000010/cmcsa-20221231.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1166691/000116669123... [2] https://news.virginmediao2.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Virgin-Media-O2-Q4-FY-2022-Earnings-Release.pdf https://news.virginmediao2.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/...
  - flashback2199 3y ago
    Average age of coax line in TX might be newer too, since the state has had a lot of new property development in recent decades. I have a feeling that quality of the existing coax might be a factor in how successful or costly speed upgrades can be, since we're now squeezing the last bit of bandwidth out of them. Cables that are out of spec but still mostly working at lower bandwidths are going to be a problem since higher bandwidth is more sensitive to the quality of the cable. Some lines will have to be replaced, which will increase costs.
    - lazide 3y ago
      The issue is rarely the cables - coax run in the last 50 years is essentially identical to coax run now. It had to be to support all those TV channels! Connectors do sometimes corrode, rodents do occasionally eat things, and they do need to upgrade some of their splitting/serving equipment though.
      - flashback2199 3y ago

drozycki 3y ago

The issue was always mostly about monopoly power and not technical limitation. A hypothetical second coax network would achieve the same end result, but there’s no reason not to go with fiber for new installations today.

gowings97 3y ago

by time you go n+0 with all the nodes to enable DOCSIS 4.0, you probably could just do FTTH for nearly the same cost. FTTH opex is also lower after 5 years.

fbdab103 3y ago
I know nothing of the space, could you go into the opex a bit? I naively assume that once the wire is in the ground, all of the maintenance is in powering routers + staff + recovery when a backhoe inadvertently cuts a line. How do coax and fiber differentiate themselves on long-term costs?
- toast0 3y ago
  Coax has powered equipment in the field. Power costs money (opex). The powered equipment sometimes needs replacing, probably much more often than GPON (opex to roll the truck, capex maybe to replace broken equipment)
  - gowings97 3y ago
    Precisely

linsomniac 3y ago

>At the end of the day there was plenty of juice to squeeze from existing infra That's the argument that POTS was making 20-30 years ago. But now it's just rotting in the ground in our area. In fact, just today I was driving by a telecom pedestal that some traffic had hit and was wondering if anybody even notices anymore. The next intersection there was one that was barely in better shape. ~100 years ago they built the telephone systems. ~50 years ago they built the cable systems. Sure, they can squeeze some more out of the cable, until they can't, at which point we're going to wish we had invested in some more modern infrastructure.