 gwionwild colonial boyPremium,ExMod 2001-08
join:2000-12-28
Pittsburgh, PA
kudos:1 | musings from the front... ... well, remember, refitting a cable system to carry voice isn't a huge effort. The bandwidth's there in trumps. Refitting a voice network to carry video is a much bigger effort. There are areas in every telco's territory in which the system literally amounts to a set of tin cans and a string, and it works, famously. For voice. Even, miracle of miracles, for DSL - at least, the minimal level of service.
The problem's data and video. What we refer to as "speed" is really "capacity". At some point, a cat whisker of copper - 90% of the non-trunk telephone system in America - max's out. Cable built their systems between the sixties and nineties; telephony has miles of plant built in the first half of the twentieth century. That was built with the idea that, if ever any sort of video would ever travel the system, it would be, at most, the quaintly archaic "video-phone" idea. And America's never embraced that idea, outside of coporate conferencing.
It's a new era in communications, and the telcos have to play catch up to compete. It's money well spent, in my opinion. Cable can afford to drag their feet, have a shorter term vision, for now - and, naturally, show a better shorter term margin. Telcos have to think longer term. In the long run, telcos have to future proof their investment. It's going to be huge, any way you look at it. Better to spend an extra billion or so, now, than an extra ten billion, ten years out. Long term investment versus short to mid term one. That simple.
In essence, both industries are doing what they should be doing... telecom is making a long term investment, hoping to recapture the costs of this build over decades, while cable is playing close to the chest, and planning to accumulate profits to finance their own long term ivestments. Which will be inevitable. In a sense, they'll have an advantage, in fact, since their systems can already, mostly, carry the current loads, so they'll upgrade basic hardware and plant for a while, then reconoiter the business situation, and deploy next-gen tech as it best serves their strategic business plans. Telecom has to upgrade plant or fall by the way, here and now... better to upgrade into a 100 year infrastructure, then, than a 20 year infrastructure.
Cable or not, there comes a point at which telecom has to upgrade their infrastructure - the point, pretty much, is now.
--
Semper Eadem
--
Oh no, you cannot tell a gypsy...
ooh, that (s)he's no longer a member
Become a deadly weapon now...
along with everything else
Oh call my name... |
| Couldn't have said it better myself.
The phone companies saw no reason to upgrade for decades and now they have to not only fix, but upgrade as well. The copper setup they have now was never designed to hold as much data as we are passing through it. |
