Time4aNAP
Premium
join:2007-04-09
Des Plaines, IL
| reply to tshirt
Re: Um.
said by tshirt  :It actually could work... Of course it can work! Any utility with established rights-of-way has hegemony in the real estate necessary to deploy any new to-the-home technology. That alone is 90% of the entire package.
Let's be realistic about this. The current utility infrastructure was made possible by the Industrial Revolution, FDR's work programs that got us out of the Great Depression, and postwar domestic growth after the two world wars. By 1970 there wasn't the will or the wealth in America to make way for new rights-of-way.
What we do have is an archeologist's treasure trove of abandoned vaults, conduits, pipelines and other buried structures that have been long-forgotten. Some day these will be the pilot guides for new excavation techniques that can reclaim these abandoned spaces. Meanwhile, natural gas companies are constantly replacing old, leaky pipelines with new ones. So as not to disrupt service for long periods of time, the new lines are often laid down right next to the old ones. And to save money, the old lines are left where they are, rather than go to the expense of removing them.
Here's the cool part: the pipes that are no longer suitable for carrying flammable gas under pressure are often still serviceable as conduit for fiberoptic cable. Since they're no longer going to be carrying a potentially dangerous gas, any leaks can be made watertight cheaply. The result, an instant fiber backbone at a minimal cost.
The last mile is the most realistic application for BiG, since it's unlikely that every street will have a suitable conduit, and it's doubtful that simply energizing a large metropolitan area with uncontrollable UWB would really work. As for reading meters, an RF system has been in use for a long time in many places. I don't see utilities, gas or others, scrapping working systems and installing new ones "to save money". Similarly, those places that still have people going to each meter will have to pay for the new meters themselves, at the same time that they're making the other major capital investment. Between that and the workers' unions, "eliminating meter reader positions" would have a high initial cost at the worst possible time, speaking financially. So no, the gas companies would be in no position to offer subsidies to anyone.
I really doubt that the gas companies are going to attempt to bring BiG to multi-tenant buildings until the technology has proven itself, and has all of the kinks and bugs worked out in single family home neighborhoods. It's important that the initial rollout is a success. Suburban subdivisions that were built all at once, with every street and house having the same physical (and therefore, hopefully the same electrical) characteristics are the obvious places to start because they face the fewest unknown variables. I also doubt that the meter, which is usually located outside for safety reasons, would be the most suitable place to put the CPE for broadband. |
