5 ms·

I recall reading some magazine article in the 90's about some entrepreneurs who bought rights of way from railroads to lay fiber optic lines and then sold the p

I recall reading some magazine article in the 90's about some entrepreneurs who bought rights of way from railroads to lay fiber optic lines and then sold the package to someone like global crossing for a mint - point being is that i suspect even on land, major internet infrastructure in one way or another piggybacked on the vestiges of another age...

WalterBright 11y ago
The telegraph was simultaneously strung right alongside the intercontinental railroad as it was built. The railroad route is still used today for railroads and highways, it only makes sense that the cables follow the same economics.
- lmm 11y ago
  There was an earlier transcontinental telegraph along a different route. Once the railroad was built that one was abandoned since the one along the railroad route was easier to maintain.
sophacles 11y ago
I think it may have been this article: http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/6.05/qwest.html http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/6.05/qwest.html Or at least that's what popped into my mind from your description.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
Here in Chicago, fiber is either tied to the 100+ year old L tracks or run through the more recent L tunnels. The L has a system length of just a tad over 100 miles and covers a good part of the city. Makes perfect sense to run everything through there. The only downside I see is that its within easy each of vandals in some locations, especially where the L tracks start descending into tunnels. There was an article not too long ago about how some parts of India still rely on telegraph for any sort of communication and the government's plan to modernize it all. I'm a little surprised no one has figured out a DSL-like technology to use existing telegraph lines for high speed data. According to wikipedia the German postoffice had a 50 baud link working in 1933 using teleprinters. Even a 512kb link would be of use, assuming we can beat those speeds by 10x 80 years later.
- VLM 11y ago
  Something to think about WRT India is the telegraph wiring was designed for non-electrified areas, it works fine with one giant chemical battery in the main office, basically all the keys and sounders are in electrical series. Old fashioned copper gravity batteries instead of modern power supplies and things like that. Some rural areas of India are only 80% electrified. I suspect power could be an issue. In the US, power companies love pulling in fiber with their cables, both for internal SCADA control and resale. No point sending out two cabling crews along two paths... so places that tend to have power tend to have fiber connectivity. It might be similar in India. So no fiber because its a rural area with no power lines and eventually they'll get both at the same time.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    You have something similar with POTS. There the phones are powered from the switches, complete with x days of UPS mandated by law (thus even if your area lose power, you can still call for help). But this is expensive to maintain for the telcos (all that copper wiring etc) so increasingly they want to replace it all with mobile networks.
7952 11y ago
The Great Western did it first in the 1830s... "In 1839 the world’s first commercial telegraph line using the Cooke and Wheatstone five-needle system was commissioned by the Great Western Railway and built between Paddington and West Drayton, a distance of 13 miles." And later: "British Rail Telecommunications was created by British Rail (BR). It was the largest private telecoms network in Britain, consisting of 17,000 route kilometres of fibre optic and copper cable which connected every major city and town in the country and provided links to continental Europe through the Channel Tunnel.[1]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Telecommunications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Telecommunication...
nandhp 11y ago
The railroad companies did some of this themselves -- the SPR in Sprint stands for Southern Pacific Railroad.
- eplanit 11y ago
  Exactly true. Railroad companies maintain their own "right of way", which is the tracks plus the margin of land on either side. Since railroads depend heavily on communications, they maintain their own poles/trenches and cables etc. Their telecommunications infrastructure is an integral part of their rail infrastructure. And yes, they make lots of money by leasing bandwidth and resources to telecoms. (I used to work for Burlington Northern Railroad).
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    Dunno how it is in the US, but in other parts of the world power companies has gotten into the "ISP" business. This by running fiber along their existing power cables, originally to allow remote monitoring and control of transformers etc.

WalterBright 11y ago

The telegraph was simultaneously strung right alongside the intercontinental railroad as it was built. The railroad route is still used today for railroads and highways, it only makes sense that the cables follow the same economics.

lmm 11y ago
There was an earlier transcontinental telegraph along a different route. Once the railroad was built that one was abandoned since the one along the railroad route was easier to maintain.

sophacles 11y ago

I think it may have been this article: http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/6.05/qwest.html http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/6.05/qwest.html Or at least that's what popped into my mind from your description.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

Here in Chicago, fiber is either tied to the 100+ year old L tracks or run through the more recent L tunnels. The L has a system length of just a tad over 100 miles and covers a good part of the city. Makes perfect sense to run everything through there. The only downside I see is that its within easy each of vandals in some locations, especially where the L tracks start descending into tunnels. There was an article not too long ago about how some parts of India still rely on telegraph for any sort of communication and the government's plan to modernize it all. I'm a little surprised no one has figured out a DSL-like technology to use existing telegraph lines for high speed data. According to wikipedia the German postoffice had a 50 baud link working in 1933 using teleprinters. Even a 512kb link would be of use, assuming we can beat those speeds by 10x 80 years later.

VLM 11y ago
Something to think about WRT India is the telegraph wiring was designed for non-electrified areas, it works fine with one giant chemical battery in the main office, basically all the keys and sounders are in electrical series. Old fashioned copper gravity batteries instead of modern power supplies and things like that. Some rural areas of India are only 80% electrified. I suspect power could be an issue. In the US, power companies love pulling in fiber with their cables, both for internal SCADA control and resale. No point sending out two cabling crews along two paths... so places that tend to have power tend to have fiber connectivity. It might be similar in India. So no fiber because its a rural area with no power lines and eventually they'll get both at the same time.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  You have something similar with POTS. There the phones are powered from the switches, complete with x days of UPS mandated by law (thus even if your area lose power, you can still call for help). But this is expensive to maintain for the telcos (all that copper wiring etc) so increasingly they want to replace it all with mobile networks.

7952 11y ago

The Great Western did it first in the 1830s... "In 1839 the world’s first commercial telegraph line using the Cooke and Wheatstone five-needle system was commissioned by the Great Western Railway and built between Paddington and West Drayton, a distance of 13 miles." And later: "British Rail Telecommunications was created by British Rail (BR). It was the largest private telecoms network in Britain, consisting of 17,000 route kilometres of fibre optic and copper cable which connected every major city and town in the country and provided links to continental Europe through the Channel Tunnel.[1]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Telecommunications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Telecommunication...

nandhp 11y ago

The railroad companies did some of this themselves -- the SPR in Sprint stands for Southern Pacific Railroad.

eplanit 11y ago
Exactly true. Railroad companies maintain their own "right of way", which is the tracks plus the margin of land on either side. Since railroads depend heavily on communications, they maintain their own poles/trenches and cables etc. Their telecommunications infrastructure is an integral part of their rail infrastructure. And yes, they make lots of money by leasing bandwidth and resources to telecoms. (I used to work for Burlington Northern Railroad).
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Dunno how it is in the US, but in other parts of the world power companies has gotten into the "ISP" business. This by running fiber along their existing power cables, originally to allow remote monitoring and control of transformers etc.