TKJunkMail
Enjoy the sun
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join:2002-03-03
Avalon, NJ
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
 ·Comcast
2 edits |  CoC & ROI
The cost of capital and return on investment are 2 financial terms that will affect this decision. Comcast, and any other large corporation, has dozens of financial analysts that make these kinds of evaluations all the time. Comcast will switch to all fiber when the numbers are persuasive that that is the best economic decision and not before.
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
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join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
 ·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
·Cox HSI
| The issue that holds this back is ROI and what they consider acceptable profit.
You and I might think 10% profit after all expenses is great... but who knows what they might have targeted. They may be sitting back until it's 50% profit or more.... which means we could be waiting awhile.
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"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) |
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majortom1029
join:2006-10-19
Lindenhurst, NY | doint good
well i think the cable companies have time. With splitting nodes,docsis 3,switched video,etc they have some time.
HEck I am happy with my 30/5 boost connection from cablevision. |
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lostinthewest
@QWEST.NET
| reply to TKJunkMail
Re: CoC & ROI
EDFAs and power dividers replace the node, replace the coax with fiber with niu's at the premise and do all Gqam transport. Start with new areas and expand into areas that need rebuilt. Add a direct (or remote) network control system in the headend. It can also be done preserving an existing analog tier if the marked demands it. Not only is fiber cheaper than coax it would do away with power supplies, electrical distortion anomalies and CLI requirements. Capital better spent with a longer ROI.
Makes sense and I'm not even a vendor, LOL. |
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N3OGH
Bear patrol must be working like a charm
Premium
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs
 ·Verizon FIOS
·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to TKJunkMail
Comcast will switch to all fiber when the think it's the best economic decision.
I think most companies in America are incredibly short sighted. Comcast is looking to wring out as much profit quarter to quarter.
10 years from now, Comcast is going to be in a similar position to Verizon. Except it will be Comcast bleeding TV subs to Verizon, and not Verizon bleeding land lines to Digital Voice, and other VoIP offerings. Then Comcast will be installing FTTH.
Except 10 years from now, it will cost significantly more for them to do it.
But what do I know? I mean, after all I spend 45 minutes on the phone last nigh trying to explain to the Comcast CSR that I can't return a DVR box I all ready turned in, and that my bill should be for $51 and not $89, as I DON'T HAVE THE DAMN BOX ANYMORE!
grrr 
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gatorkram
Spelling and Grammer impared
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join:2002-07-22
Winterville, NC
clubs:
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 ·linode
| The media doesn't matter...
when they aren't selling products that demand more than they could already be offering.
My cable system, for example, is still running DOCSIS 1.1
What on earth are they going to deploy fiber for, when people are sucking down the crap they already offer.
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wifi4milez
Big Russ, 1918 to 2008. Rest in Peace
join:2004-08-07
New York, NY
·Verizon FIOS
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
·RoadRunner Cable
 ·BroadVoice
| reply to N3OGH
Re: CoC & ROI
said by N3OGH  :10 years from now, Comcast is going to be in a similar position to Verizon. Except it will be Comcast bleeding TV subs to Verizon, and not Verizon bleeding land lines to Digital Voice, and other VoIP offerings. Then Comcast will be installing FTTH. Except 10 years from now, it will cost significantly more for them to do it. I disagree. In 10 years the cost to roll out fiber will actually be much cheaper than it is today. Look at Verizon's FIOS rollout; their cost per sub is already down more than 20% in the past 2 or 3 years, and continues to go down as equipment and plant prices drop. As fiber becomes more of a "mainstream" option for carriers, the prices will get so low that using copper will actually be more expensive to deploy (that will take more than 10 years however).
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DaveNJ
No Fear
join:1999-09-01
New Jersey
·Comcast
·Patriot Media
| Customer dead end
I still cant buy a cablecard ready tv, thats going to work on cable. all cablecard v1 sets are going to stop working when sdv happens. So really this isnt a question for me. When digital cable ready cablecard sets are available let me know, otherwise i can care less. FIOS looks better every day |
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espaeth
Digital Plumber
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join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
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1 edit | reply to gatorkram
Re: The media doesn't matter...
said by gatorkram :when they aren't selling products that demand more than they could already be offering. It's definitely an issue of demand, but it's a lack thereof on the consumer side.
Most broadband providers offer multiple tiers of service, and the overwhelming majority of their subscriber base falls into the lowest/cheapest class of service. That doesn't exactly motivate companies to push wide-scale development on the top end of service. |
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bgraham
join:2001-03-15
Smithtown, NY
·Verizon FIOS
| It's All About $$$
I agree with everyone who says it's all about money.
As soon as fiber looks a better financial deal cable co's will switch. Maybe copper will transmit a couple of terrabyts easily in a year or two. It could be that wireless will be the way to go in a few years anyway and fiber and copper will get left in the dust.
Remember the customer pays if cable co's spend billions for a fiber network that is outdated in 5 years or so by new technology. |
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alchav
join:2002-05-17
Palm Desert, CA |  Make plans now for FTTH on new Roll-Outs!
The Cable Companies should have a plan for FTTH on new areas, the equipment may be different but they should start working out the bugs now. If they wait for a massive change it might be too late. |
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tomkb
Premium
join:2000-11-15
Avon, OH
clubs:
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to TKJunkMail
Re: CoC & ROI
said by TKJunkMail :The cost of capital and return on investment are 2 financial terms that will affect this decision. Comcast, and any other large corporation, has dozens of financial analysts that make these kinds of evaluations all the time. Comcast will switch to all fiber when the numbers are persuasive that that is the best economic decision and not before. Good point. There is one other catalyst, when one of there competitors begins to offer it. |
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KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
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join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
·AT&T Yahoo
·AT&T DSL Service
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| reply to bgraham
Re: It's All About $$$
That's the point tho. Now FTTH would actually be cheaper then building out Hybrid Co-Ax from scratch, so definitely in new development it should be FTTH all the way, and the argument is any expansion of services or upgrades of infrastructure and facilities should be all fiber too as it's simply cheaper.
Now, whether there are any savings to be had in replacing existing, fully-operational Hybrid Fiber/Co-axial systems remains to be seen. At this time no, but for future expansion, most definitely.
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"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) |
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bobjohnsonfl
@spcsdns.net | reply to KrK
Re: CoC & ROI
it will be a very long time for cable because the customers dont want to pay for the upgrades |
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Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA
| reply to wifi4milez
said by wifi4milez :I disagree. In 10 years the cost to roll out fiber will actually be much cheaper than it is today. Look at Verizon's FIOS rollout; their cost per sub is already down more than 20% in the past 2 or 3 years, and continues to go down as equipment and plant prices drop. As fiber becomes more of a "mainstream" option for carriers, the prices will get so low that using copper will actually be more expensive to deploy (that will take more than 10 years however). The cost of the fiber optical cable and equipment may very well go down but the cost of labor won't. Verizon costs per sub have gone down because their farther along the learning curve. If the cost of the labor was zero most of us would probably have FTTP today. |
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espaeth
Digital Plumber
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join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
·voip.ms
·Vitelity VOIP
·Callcentric
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| reply to KrK
Re: It's All About $$$
said by KrK :That's the point tho. Now FTTH would actually be cheaper then building out Hybrid Co-Ax from scratch, so definitely in new development it should be FTTH all the way, and the argument is any expansion of services or upgrades of infrastructure and facilities should be all fiber too as it's simply cheaper. There's costs associated with having a varied product portfolio though.
You're talking about replacing the head-end CMTS with a different piece of gear (likely non-Cisco) that would require retraining of head-end engineers. You have to re-write all of your call center support documentation, alter the training program for your field techs, procure new testing gear that you aren't using anywhere else in the country, forge new supply vendor relationships to get ONT hardware to terminate the fiber at each house, retool the entire video distribution solution to deliver pure IP-based video, and stock separate equipment spares than you use anywhere else in the country. |
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djrobx
join:2000-05-31
Valencia, CA
·PHONE POWER
·AT&T U-Verse
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| reply to bgraham
What I don't get is that Time Warner has gone street-by-street, replacing all of the nodes and LEs with new 1ghz capable C-COR gear. It seems they're doing this all over LA. Re-deploying all of this gear has got to cost a fortune. All this for a little more spectrum? I would think they'd hold off for a bigger technological step, perhaps pushing fiber up to the tap. |
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sbrook
Premium,Mod
join:2001-12-14
H0H 0H0
·Rogers Hi-Speed
Host:
Rogers
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| The crazy part is ...
FTTH is considered cost prohibitive and yet by actually implementing FTTH they'd bring the cost of FTTH down dramatically because the production costs would plummet from doing it in bulk. Early DOCSIS modems were expensive beasts, now produced for very low cost. The same would happen with Fibre. The cost of the fibre equipment would plummet. |
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MacLeech
The one and only
Premium
join:2001-07-14
SoCal
2 edits | reply to DaveNJ
Re: Customer dead end
said by DaveNJ :I still cant buy a cablecard ready tv, thats going to work on cable. all cablecard v1 sets are going to stop working when sdv happens. So really this isnt a question for me. When digital cable ready cablecard sets are available let me know, otherwise i can care less. FIOS looks better every day FIOS is going to have the same issue with CableCards devices when they run out of the 860Mhz RF space they're using for video... they'll either do IPTV (rumored) or SDV.
On top of IPTV or SDV, adding channels by encoding channels with MPEG4 or adding spectrum upto 1 GHz will cause issues for all of those current CableCARD devices too, so it's not just a 2-way communication issue (call it iDCR, NOT CableCARD v2).
I'm not even sure if the iDCR spec (2-way CableCARD) will even work on equipment connected to FIOS, since it uses a non cable standard method of upstream communications... It's not using the industry standard methods of integrated DOCSIS modem, Moto return protocol, or SA return protocol; it's using IP through MOCA.
P.S. My CableCARD equipped TV works fine connected to cable... for now. |
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nasadude
join:2001-10-05
Rockville, MD
·Comcast
| reply to TKJunkMail
Re: CoC & ROI
said by TKJunkMail :...Comcast will switch to all fiber when the numbers are persuasive that that is the best economic decision and not before. as long as the existing monopoly/duopoly market persists, there will be no reason for comcast to go all fiber under any ROI conditions. With a captive market, there will simply be no reason for them to spend the money and they will incrementally upgrade their hybrid cable plant to squeeze as much as possible out of it, just like ATT is doing with copper.
I'm still amazed Verizon actually decided to lay fiber and the only reason I can think of is they panicked when they realized the rate at which they were losing POTS customers and decided to "future proof" their network for the coming convergence of broadband/tv/voice. |
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