4 ms·

Ultimately everywhere that has wired power should be able to get fiber, if right of ways were reasonable.

by cma 3y ago

jagger27 3y ago
Fibre can go about 100 km without a repeater which in the grand scheme of things isn’t very far. Keep in mind that Starlink works best with a fibre base station inside of the coverage cone. A few of those stations in northern Quebec built next to existing cell towers gets you a lot of connectivity for cheap.
- cma 3y ago
  Seems like a repeater could be powered just from induction with neighboring powerline, or solar+battery.
  - ftth_finland 3y ago
    Subsea cables have built-in repeaters and they span thousands of miles. On land it’s usually easier and cheaper to use huts with power.
- ftth_finland 3y ago
  You can do 400 km with unrepeated systems. However, very seldom do you need or want to go that far on land since very, very few places worth connecting are more than 400 km from somewhere else. Repeatered systems can go thousands of miles and the repeater sites are handy for local breakout.
infecto 3y ago
I am not so sure that is true. Speaking only for the US. I don't have the data but I suspect most of the grid in rural America was built long ago. Everyone needs power, it is a natural monopoly. When they were building it out, everyone got hooked up and only requires regular maintenance. Sure, if there was a sudden growth spurt maybe more lines are run or higher capacity but I suspect for most of rural America that this is not true. I even suspect most of this electrification happened for free or very low rates to the household. Now, if you are building a new home that needs a grid tie-in, it usually costs quite a bit. Now fiber on the other hand, not so much of a natural monopoly. There may be state imposed regulation where a cable company has rights to areas. You could have a totally free market and many different providers. In a rural area you might be able to sign up only 20% of the population with your service, you would still need to build out the infrastructure though and perhaps that 20% would not even cover costs. It is easy to say everywhere with power should have fiber but America is vast and that would be quite expensive, I am not even sure a local effort would be able to cover costs.
- couchand 3y ago
  GP said, "if right of ways were reasonable." In the context of internet connectivity, I interpret a reasonable right-of-way policy being collectively-owned fiber which can be shared. We don't say, "everybody who wants a road should build their own road along this path" we just build the damn road and share it.
  - infecto 3y ago
    I do not believe your interpretation is correct or what most others would assume to be the case but hey I could be wrong. Right of way being reasonable means that the owner of the transmission lines did not charge unreasonable fees or requirements for using the same poles to run fiber. And you are partly wrong on your last part, yes of course each individual is not building their own road but again, roads are natural monopolies, everyone wants a road of at least some minimum quality (dirt). Additionally it would be near impossible to get "right of way" to build your own road. In rural areas roads are indeed just dirt and to get it paved would require some majority of the individuals living out there to pay for it, YMMV depending on local rules. Since its a road its easier to get a majority to agree to to pack it with gravel or pave it, everyone that lives down that road is driving on it. I am not arguing that internet is or is not a right that everyone should have but that it is not always a natural monopoly, some people maybe don't want it, some have cell service, some are using Dish, maybe there are some cable connections available in certain areas. So yes, each individual does not build their own road but often in rural areas the burden for that road is shared and often stays as a dirt road because of it.
    - couchand 3y ago
      Your liberatarian dreamland example (though not reflective of any rural [public development] area for the last few decades that I'm aware of) is a perfect illustration of my point. Even those areas with private roads [private developments generally] only have a single private road that everyone shares on a given route. The argument why is that it's a natural monopoly. But what does that mean? It means high barriers to entry (often infrastructure) mean the first mover has an overwhelming advantage. Isn't that precisely the case with fiber, as you yourself were arguing? So is provisioned fiber a sufficient barrier to entry to qualify as a natural monopoly or is it not? Please clarify.
Jedd 3y ago
> Ultimately everywhere that has wired power should be able to get fiber, if right of ways were reasonable. That's quite a caveat, but still doesn't get you to 'fiber is feasible everywhere'. Where I am (about 250km north-west of Sydney, Australia) my nearest exchange is 30km away, and no one is going to come up with the money to lay fiber out to me. Starlink has been an amazing enabler.
- Retric 3y ago
  What matters is the distance between the end of your driveway to the end of the next person’s driveway not the exchange. Like power lines many homes can all use the same cable. And sure there’s going to be a few unprofitable edge cases, that’s what mandates are for. A company that wants to serve high density neighborhoods ends up paying for a few random houses far from each other. The average cost per home is what makes an area profitable at least when you setup the local monopoly correctly.
  - infecto 3y ago
    No, mandates absolutely should not be involved unless the agency that is issuing the mandate wants to cover those unprofitable edge cases. Additionally the distance to the GP home and the exchange it what matters. Unlike electricity, you maybe only have a small percentage of a rural area wanting fiber. If GP is not in a very dense area, he may be the only person within a reasonable distance that wants fiber and no company wants to foot the bill for that.
    - Retric 3y ago
      Mandates are how we got electricity and phone lines to every home. Building such networks are a natural monopoly and communities have real leverage if they want to use it. Subsidies as needed are fine, subsidies without mandates simply waste taxpayer money without actually fixing the underlying problem. Without a mandate companies just take that cash and build the same profitable network they would have build without it. Also, 93% of Australian homes have home internet. Cheap fiber beats any other technology when it’s available. So perhaps the neighbor doesn’t want fiber today, in 2 or 20 years when someone else moves in you don’t need to lay a new fiber. It’s all just statistical noise from an investment perspective.

Ultimately everywhere that has wired power should be able to get fiber, if right of ways were reasonable.

by cma 3y ago

Ultimately everywhere that has wired power should be able to get fiber, if right of ways were reasonable.

Fibre can go about 100 km without a repeater which in the grand scheme of things isn’t very far. Keep in mind that Starlink works best with a fibre base station inside of the coverage cone. A few of those stations in northern Quebec built next to existing cell towers gets you a lot of connectivity for cheap.

cma 3y ago
Seems like a repeater could be powered just from induction with neighboring powerline, or solar+battery.
- ftth_finland 3y ago
  Subsea cables have built-in repeaters and they span thousands of miles. On land it’s usually easier and cheaper to use huts with power.
ftth_finland 3y ago
You can do 400 km with unrepeated systems. However, very seldom do you need or want to go that far on land since very, very few places worth connecting are more than 400 km from somewhere else. Repeatered systems can go thousands of miles and the repeater sites are handy for local breakout.

infecto 3y ago

I am not so sure that is true. Speaking only for the US. I don't have the data but I suspect most of the grid in rural America was built long ago. Everyone needs power, it is a natural monopoly. When they were building it out, everyone got hooked up and only requires regular maintenance. Sure, if there was a sudden growth spurt maybe more lines are run or higher capacity but I suspect for most of rural America that this is not true. I even suspect most of this electrification happened for free or very low rates to the household. Now, if you are building a new home that needs a grid tie-in, it usually costs quite a bit. Now fiber on the other hand, not so much of a natural monopoly. There may be state imposed regulation where a cable company has rights to areas. You could have a totally free market and many different providers. In a rural area you might be able to sign up only 20% of the population with your service, you would still need to build out the infrastructure though and perhaps that 20% would not even cover costs. It is easy to say everywhere with power should have fiber but America is vast and that would be quite expensive, I am not even sure a local effort would be able to cover costs.

couchand 3y ago
GP said, "if right of ways were reasonable." In the context of internet connectivity, I interpret a reasonable right-of-way policy being collectively-owned fiber which can be shared. We don't say, "everybody who wants a road should build their own road along this path" we just build the damn road and share it.
- infecto 3y ago
  I do not believe your interpretation is correct or what most others would assume to be the case but hey I could be wrong. Right of way being reasonable means that the owner of the transmission lines did not charge unreasonable fees or requirements for using the same poles to run fiber. And you are partly wrong on your last part, yes of course each individual is not building their own road but again, roads are natural monopolies, everyone wants a road of at least some minimum quality (dirt). Additionally it would be near impossible to get "right of way" to build your own road. In rural areas roads are indeed just dirt and to get it paved would require some majority of the individuals living out there to pay for it, YMMV depending on local rules. Since its a road its easier to get a majority to agree to to pack it with gravel or pave it, everyone that lives down that road is driving on it. I am not arguing that internet is or is not a right that everyone should have but that it is not always a natural monopoly, some people maybe don't want it, some have cell service, some are using Dish, maybe there are some cable connections available in certain areas. So yes, each individual does not build their own road but often in rural areas the burden for that road is shared and often stays as a dirt road because of it.
  - couchand 3y ago
    Your liberatarian dreamland example (though not reflective of any rural [public development] area for the last few decades that I'm aware of) is a perfect illustration of my point. Even those areas with private roads [private developments generally] only have a single private road that everyone shares on a given route. The argument why is that it's a natural monopoly. But what does that mean? It means high barriers to entry (often infrastructure) mean the first mover has an overwhelming advantage. Isn't that precisely the case with fiber, as you yourself were arguing? So is provisioned fiber a sufficient barrier to entry to qualify as a natural monopoly or is it not? Please clarify.

Jedd 3y ago

> Ultimately everywhere that has wired power should be able to get fiber, if right of ways were reasonable. That's quite a caveat, but still doesn't get you to 'fiber is feasible everywhere'. Where I am (about 250km north-west of Sydney, Australia) my nearest exchange is 30km away, and no one is going to come up with the money to lay fiber out to me. Starlink has been an amazing enabler.

Retric 3y ago
What matters is the distance between the end of your driveway to the end of the next person’s driveway not the exchange. Like power lines many homes can all use the same cable. And sure there’s going to be a few unprofitable edge cases, that’s what mandates are for. A company that wants to serve high density neighborhoods ends up paying for a few random houses far from each other. The average cost per home is what makes an area profitable at least when you setup the local monopoly correctly.
- infecto 3y ago
  No, mandates absolutely should not be involved unless the agency that is issuing the mandate wants to cover those unprofitable edge cases. Additionally the distance to the GP home and the exchange it what matters. Unlike electricity, you maybe only have a small percentage of a rural area wanting fiber. If GP is not in a very dense area, he may be the only person within a reasonable distance that wants fiber and no company wants to foot the bill for that.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Mandates are how we got electricity and phone lines to every home. Building such networks are a natural monopoly and communities have real leverage if they want to use it. Subsidies as needed are fine, subsidies without mandates simply waste taxpayer money without actually fixing the underlying problem. Without a mandate companies just take that cash and build the same profitable network they would have build without it. Also, 93% of Australian homes have home internet. Cheap fiber beats any other technology when it’s available. So perhaps the neighbor doesn’t want fiber today, in 2 or 20 years when someone else moves in you don’t need to lay a new fiber. It’s all just statistical noise from an investment perspective.