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raytaylor
join:2009-07-28

raytaylor to jcremin

Member

to jcremin

Re: Fibre / GPON forums

said by jcremin:

said by raytaylor:

Also keen to find out how i could run a subscription pay-tv service over the top

I forgot about the tv service question.... From my research, I think the best advise I can give for how to do this is.... don't.

You are indeed right, but i would like to offer a service in the future as i grow and need to choose a system that will handle an RF overlay of some sort so that set top decoders and transmitters can be added later. I wouldnt want a bad decision now to hurt me in 4 years time.

Also having a tv overlay of some sort - perhaps even by ip multicast makes it more appealing for me to be able to wholesale access to a national triple play isp. Our market is currently panning out that in 2 years time there will be two or three national isp's doing tv and i would like to wholesale to one of them so they can expand their network into my area. One of the reasons why i will be getting power pole access is because it increases services to the community. This would be a big selling point.
Bigpaddy_Irl
join:2005-12-12
Ireland

Bigpaddy_Irl

Member

Jeez I cant belive ye are all talking about this too.
I am actually about to begin a fiber pilot project to a new village built in 2000 with over 600 homes all on top of one another.
I will be micro trenching the footpaths/sidewalks, just waiting on the trencher to arrive now
Its very hard to find proper best practises though in building a fiber network.
I estimated the project will cost me €150,000 and should take no longer than 3 months.
Its the way to go now. 43% of tv is watched over here online.
I too would be very interested to hear how ye are planning to do things and what equipment you are going to use...
jcremin
join:2009-12-22
Siren, WI

jcremin to raytaylor

Member

to raytaylor
said by raytaylor:

i would like to offer a service in the future as i grow and need to choose a system that will handle an RF overlay of some sort so that set top decoders and transmitters can be added later.

Personally, I wouldn't even deal with an RF overlay. Doing RF on a third wavelength just doesn't seem worth it when everything is moving to IP set top boxes. I met with another ISP who did the RF overlay system because they already had a cable system and it was an older retirement population, most of who just want their standard definition content on their TV without any complicated set top boxes. They claimed the WDM mutiplexers chewed up more of their optical budget than they would have liked. Plus the roof full of RF encoders cost something like a million bucks.

Most of the telco's I have talked to or read about who are doing fiber are switching to IP delivery since so much stuff is going "on demand" anyway. The recommendation I was given was if I ever became a CATV provider (or if I ever leased out access to one) was to simply deliver it over an IPTV VLAN on the fiber.

Either way, it looked like going the RF path would be a huge expense for a dying technology that may never see an ROI if there is any decent competition in the area, which there is in my case, even if it is only satellite.

WVNet
@98.142.42.x

WVNet

Anon

Wow, seems like everyone is heading in the same direction!
We're running our first aerial fiber ring this year to connect our tower sites and a few local institutions. Using the 'figure-8' fiber with a self-support cable built in. Aerial splice cases, big tubular things like the telco and cable outfits use. HP Procurve switches with the new Mikrotik RB2011uas-2hnd-in as a CPE.

Biggest hurdle here in the US is the red tape. You have to be a CLEC to get an interconnect agreement - that takes months and $$$. Then the interconnect with the local ILEC takes months and $$$$, and that'll give you pole & duct access. Once you get a franchise agreement with the various towns, that is....more time and $$$.

If you can get access to private land to trench on, such as for small subdivisions or housing developments, that'll save you a lot of time and money while you're learning the ropes.

It's key to have a few anchor customers lined up, apartment buildings, hospitals, libraries, government offices, schools.
jcremin
join:2009-12-22
Siren, WI

1 recommendation

jcremin

Member

said by WVNet :

Wow, seems like everyone is heading in the same direction!

Yeah, it seems like a pretty logical move for many of us. My network is mature enough to be self sufficient, but some of it is nearing the end of its useful life. In order to stay competitive, I figure I can either invest half the money now for equipment that will limp me along competitively for now, and then invest the other half in another 5 years when I need to replace the network again.... or I figure can invest twice as much now for fiber which should get me at least 15 years or more, without all the environmental issues that I seem to spend way too much time dealing with, and I don't have to spend a single minute worrying about capacity for a LONG time.
said by WVNet :

Biggest hurdle here in the US is the red tape. You have to be a CLEC to get an interconnect agreement - that takes months and $$$. Then the interconnect with the local ILEC takes months and $$$$, and that'll give you pole & duct access. Once you get a franchise agreement with the various towns, that is....more time and $$$.

I'm working totally independent without any CLEC status or anything. All my backhauling is still wireless and I'm planning on building out in villages where I already have service to, so I'm not interconnecting with anyone. Since I'm staying strictly internet, no franchise agreement needed for the towns. I'm also working directly with the power company who owns the poles in order to lease space on them, which is a fairly straighforward contract.

The biggest single cost will be the hardware, followed by the labor to install. I'm doing all the engineering/splicing/and customer drops myself, so that's a big chunk of change saved. The power company (understandably) wanted the feeder and distribution figure-8 cables to be hung my an NESC qualified contractor, but we have a customer who just so happens to be a linesman for the same power company who is willing to do the aerial work for $40/hr, which I figure is a hard price to beat. Even if I could hang it all myself, I'd be hard pressed to say that it wouldn't be worth that just to have him do it anyway!

I've got a lot of planning left to do, but I'm pretty confident in the knowledge I have been able to find so far. When I get a bit more time, I'll start posting some of my plans which will hopefully be helpful to anyone else starting down this path, and I figure another set of eyes might catch something that I overlooked.

Joe