JWilly
join:2000-06-02
48519-1440 | Re: The hardest question.. This description of why it's hard to determine DSL availability is somewhat misleading. Phone networks are hardware; all that SBC has done for their DSL availability tool is copy their network map from Engineering, then analyze and modify the data according to known DSL limitations, i.e. concentrators, fiber, cable trouble histories, previous cable bandwidth problems, etc. Of course a driving-distance or circular-radius estimate is inaccurate; we all know that it's cable distance and hardware layers that matter. But, the cable networks have been extremely well mapped for many years, for engineering, maintenance and facilities planning of POTS telephone service.
There is no reason why any other telco can't do the same thing as SBC; all telcos have similar maps of their POTS networks. The telcos' DSL operations don't have to bear the full cost of map development because their maps are based on data that is mostly paid for on the POTS-service side.
In theory, the major non-telco providers could do the same thing in two ways. One, they could spend a ton of money to independantly re-map the telcos' networks. That's not practical. Two, they could build maps based on the telcos' existing engineering databases, if they could get access to them. Perhaps the rules that force the telcos to provide access to their copper networks didn't foresee the need to also provide access to that engineering information. |
