Verizon Considers 'Fiber to the Node' FiOS > USF causes this

USF causes this

Fiber maintenance is supposed to be cheap, far cheaper than copper. They are trying to reduce build out costs. Fiber builds while far cheaper than 2 years ago are still very expensive. In very rural areas it does not make any kind of economic sense yet, they are looking for alternatives.
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Registered Bandwidth Offender #40812

reply to patcat88

reply to patcat88

So far it looks like 25 Mbps is the max you can get with VDSL. At least, AT&T's version. After that you have to bond. And please, please don't start putting VRADs everywhere Verizon...

And really, I'd love fiber everywhere. Would probably allow for cheaper business and carrier class fiber installations as well. However I can see why it'd be uneconomical at this point to lay it all the way out to very rural areas. In which case, I'd be happy with FTTP\FTTN VDSL or ADSL2+ at 20 Mbps down and 2 up. Sure beats the current options, that top out at $100 for 2 Mbps down and highly variable (512k ish) up if you want something that isn't limited to 5GB a month or have satellite-class latency.

Oh wait, lots of town can't even get DSL. The lines are all screwy. Back to square one.

Bonded DSL can be a good alternative for Verizon to offer all the services they do to FTTH except their biggest HSI tiers.

And current DSL offerings don't really matter since VZ would in effect be gutting "first mile" stuff.

Right. Bonded DSL, as in DSL2+ or VDSL, could get you 50 Mbps or maybe 30 a ways from the CO. The end result being as much as 20-30 Mbps internet and the TV stuff. Sounds fine to me, though without the cool factor of light running to your house.

What I think they (and AT&T) should do is keep the DBS partnership and reserve that throughput for HSI instead of half-assing video and HSI.

Good idea, but then cable has one up on 'em for offering all three services (TV, voice, internet) over one line. Of course, I'd love to be able to get a 25 Mbps VDSL line from AT&T (though I'm not in their area so moot point) because I could care less about TV. Of course, I could have both TV and internet with no problem on FiOS as fiber can support those extreme types of speeds, but I'd rather not be capped on my internet speeds in less capacity friendly situations (xDSL) just because I *might* get TV.

reply to halfband
My father in-law works for a rural telcom that you have never heard of in a county in nevada you have never heard of. Total number of residents in the county is probably about 5000 spread over 100's of square miles, most residents are concentrated in 3 towns of approximately 300, 600 and 1500 people respectively with the remaining residents in farmsteads. They are building out a FTTP network because it does make economic sense. Fiber has many many benefits over copper, resistance to water infiltration and EM interferance are just a couple that are huge maintenance issues with copper. According to what he has told me the installed cost per resident is around $1200 right now and costs are falling dramatically year on year. Conduit has all been purchased and is currently being installed using in-house crews. In a year or two they will buy the fiber and pull and splice and probably in about 5 the entire county will be FTTP.

You don't get more rural than the telecom in question and they are confident that fiber makes sense. As someone else said, Wall street and their short sided vision of quarterly profits, not long term viability are the difficult sell. Any CEO worth his money will take the short 5 year hit to the stock to build out the fiber and realize the long term benefits of a fully fiber network.

In this era of investor activism I wouldn't be surprised if it was argued that a CEO is in breach of fiduciary duty if they take actions that negatively affect the stock price like building a a very expensive network, even if there is a ROI later on. A lot of investors, even institutional investors are extremely short-sighted and don't give a crap about long term viability. They want their profits yesterday, the future be damned. That's why companies like Cox are in a great position.

reply to rahvin112
Scale also has a major deciding factor. What makes sense for your F-i-L in one county doesn't necessarily equate to making sense for Verizon for hundreds of counties.

reply to iansltx

reply to iansltx
Your assuming that cable reaches everyone that verizon will be able to with fttn. If cable doesn't go down a road like the one I live on and verizon will extend dsl service to my house, then they have two services and cable none.

True dat. Also, about the VDSL2 etc. and bonding, I didn't know that VDSL2 could get that much extra bandwidth, but I also didn't know it was that short-range. Looks like if VDSL were to be the upgrade path for my area i still wouldn't be able to get access. Houses are spaced too far apart here and I'm only about two miles out of town...

reply to rahvin112

reply to Nuts65

reply to rahvin112