  Logan 5Enjoying the CataclysmPremium,MVM
join:2001-05-25
Austin, TX
kudos:7
 ·Comcast
 ·Pacific Bell - SBC
1 edit | Can someone explain why they cant make smaller cabinets? Seems like they could if they really wanted to with the current technology to miniaturize.
It would be a no brainer to get people to adopt their technology on their property easier if the box was semi-buried or the size of a microwave not an upright fridge....... | |
|
 | Reviews:
·Charter
| Re: Can someone explain why they cant make smaller cabinets? Its not the city or municpality taking the 1500 if its going on private property. If they were to try and put one in YOUR yard, they would pay YOU whatever option you picked. I would take one in my yard if i got paid 1500 for it. That is 3 months worth of the mortgage payments. | |
|
| Bill_F
join:2010-02-09
Huntsville, AL | »www.adtran.com/web/page/portal/A···roup/330
You need something like that every few thousand feet/couple of blocks probably with a fiber WAN connection.
These Adtran Cabinets aren't that big though. The big cabinet in the picture is only about 2 feet wide and maybe 1.5 feet tall.
Something that size can serve many VDSL customers. (~300 or so with enough VDSL cards possibly, each VDSL/POTs card combination can run 32 lines I believe, times 9 or 10 maybe)
A lot of the size must be do to the way the carriers hook the phone lines into the boxes (using breakout cables on a rack) or battery backup.
They also have smaller pole mounted alternatives that serve less customers though.
So really no reason to have super giant tall boxes.
It must be the carriers being too cheap to buy smaller equipment, or running too many wires through the box. | |
|
| Reviews:
·Comcast
·AT&T Southeast
| said by Logan 5:Seems like they could if they really wanted to with the current technology to miniaturize. It would be a no brainer to get people to adopt their technology on their property easier if the box was semi-buried or the size of a microwave not an upright fridge....... I'd suspect heat and power concerns. We don't know what the power requirement is nor how much room is required for all the gear. Tighter you make the confines the less margin for error. Also as equipment changes its a heck of a lot easier to add things if an enclosure is half full versus trying to get something the size of a fridge down to a microwave oven size. | |
|
| | | | Re: Can someone explain why they cant make smaller cabinets? I really don't see the size of the cabinets getting much smaller. Sure, you can go with a smaller shelf, but who would want to only serve a few homes and have 3 cabinets per mile. When you can install the current size cabinets and serve customers for a mile in 4 directions. There is a lot of fixed costs that enter into each and every cabinet placed. The providers have to keep the number of cabinets to a minimum and the serving area to a maximum. | |
|
|  r81984Fair and BalancedPremium
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX | It is also a no brainer to put the boxes in peoples back yards.
--
Republicans: less fiscally conservative than that other party. | |
|
| | | | Re: Can someone explain why they cant make smaller cabinets? said by r81984:It is also a no brainer to put the boxes in peoples back yards. Why? So that the utility has to ask you permission every time they need to maintain their equipment?
I'd rather have one by the street rather than in my back yard to be honest. | |
|
| | | NormanSPremium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
kudos:4 Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| Re: Can someone explain why they cant make smaller cabinets? said by fifty nine:Why? So that the utility has to ask you permission every time they need to maintain their equipment? They don't need to ask permission to access equipment in a utility easement. The utilities here have been known to ask if we have a dog, but not if we mind that they access the pole.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum | |
|
| | | r81984Fair and BalancedPremium
join:2001-11-14
Katy, TX Reviews:
 ·AT&T U-Verse
·AT&T DSL Service
 ·row44
| said by fifty nine:said by r81984:It is also a no brainer to put the boxes in peoples back yards. Why? So that the utility has to ask you permission every time they need to maintain their equipment? I'd rather have one by the street rather than in my back yard to be honest. It will not be put on your property. It is put on the easement in your backyard.
In new subdivisions I have seen everything (power company boxes, cable company boxes, etc) is either in the backyards or along the road to enter the subdivision where there are no houses. Even in my old house which that neighborhood was built in the 70s it is above ground wiring along everyones backyards. Nothing is in the front of any house.
I can't understand why in some neighborhoods they would be lazy and put these in peoples front yards.
--
Republicans: less fiscally conservative than that other party. | |
|
| | | | NormanSPremium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
kudos:4 Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| Re: Can someone explain why they cant make smaller cabinets? said by r81984:I can't understand why in some neighborhoods they would be lazy and put these in peoples front yards. I doubt it is laziness. The VRAD needs to be as close to the copper distribution cabinet (SAI, "cross-connect", "B-Box"; whatever you wish to call it) as possible. The VRAD is the neighborhood terminus of the fiber; it has to convert to copper somewhere, for the "Last Mile" distribution. I suspect a lot of it has to do with communities which allowed the SAIs to be placed in locations which the neighbors currently find offensive.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum | |
|
| |
| | Reviews:
·Mediacom
| Re: Can someone explain why they cant make smaller cabinets? I think the issue has more to do with newer suburban environments where there is almost no such thing as public land, and likely a different setup for the "B-Boxes". You go to some brand new neighborhoods around here and you never see a "B-Box" at all... I don't know where they put them. They're just invisible, or something. Apparently that doesn't work for these new VRADs?
Honestly, to me it's their fault for wanting to live in a suburb instead of in the city. You gotta have stuff like this somewhere.
--
»/im/82288374/5591.png | |
|
AmmlerPremium
join:2005-04-19
Pittsburgh, PA | Give Me I will gladly take a lawn fridge if it means insane net speeds over regular DSL.
Look at the bright side......See how much less grass there is to cut? | |
|
| iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Re: Give Me Here's the thing: you can get DOCSIS 3 with 100/15 WITHOUT a lawn fridge.
Or fiber at 100/100...
If the lawn fridge is just for AT&T service (24/3 max) then I'll take the $1500, but speed-wise that's nothing impressive. | |
|
| |  atuarreHere come the drumsPremium
join:2004-02-14
College Station, TX | Re: Give Me said by iansltx:Here's the thing: you can get DOCSIS 3 with 100/15 WITHOUT a lawn fridge. Or fiber at 100/100... If the lawn fridge is just for AT&T service (24/3 max) then I'll take the $1500, but speed-wise that's nothing impressive. Here's the thing, not everyone can get that -- think before you post. | |
|
| | |  Augustus IIIIf Only Rome Could See Us Now....
join:2001-01-25
Gainesville, GA | Re: Give Me These things make noise, generate heat and have fans blowing to kick said heat out.
here at most we get a 10" by 12" box for cable, and it is a solid state one. meaning nobody has to come and play with it ever and no noise etc.
the vrads and other boxes are offsite by the main road in a big hive and there is an att truck working there 20 hours a day. how would you like to have 1 parked in your driveway daily?
but hey, go take your 1500$ | |
|
| | | | |
| | | | | NormanSPremium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
kudos:4 Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| Re: Give Me said by iansltx:I'm not suer how big Qwest's VRADs are but if they're fridge-sized it would be hard to place one in front of my apartment. Qwest seems to install VRADS adjacent to existing equipment boxes. The one outlined in red is the VRAD. North Albany, Oregon.
Qwest VRAD circled in red.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum | |
|
| | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
·Verizon Online DSL
| I did think before I posted. If you go down my review list you'll note that I've never had the luxury of using FTTH or VDSL. That said, there are a couple of telco boxes near the end of my block...right beside a parking lot...one of which might house cable equipment. My theory stems from the AT&T branding on the box, which could either be due to my school formerly getting connectivity from AT&T (the box is effectively on-campus) or (more likely IMO) it's a node (or whatever you want to call it) for Comcast, fka AT&T Broadband.
Let me backtrack for a minute though: is U-Verse in any area that has crappy cable service? Time Warner Cable 15/2 doesn't count unless it is mercilessly oversold. Especially since 30/5 and 50/5 will be available soon... | |
|
| | | sorry but you will not get insane speed. maybe 22mbps if you are lucky | |
|
Mutiny32Network Security Engineer
join:2000-07-04
Lees Summit, MO | Good luck with that battle... I think AT&T and other telecoms who continue deploying a far inferior long-term solution using a copper network that requires large, ugly boxes to be put on innocent customers' property need to take a step back before they go much further. One, they are wasting time and money due to short-sighted revenue losses. They will eventually have to deploy FTTH to compete. Two, they are going to start encountering customers who don't appreciate a large beige box as the new centerpiece to the view of their homes. They are in denial if they believe their victims who adamantly fight them won't "accidentally" destroy these boxes. With a 1984 Ford F150. At 45 MPH. They aren't cheap to install or repair.
But hey, good luck with your profits in a few years when you're getting left in the dust by smarter and more responsible competitors who had the foresight to take a hit to short-term profits for a more permanent solution. | |
|
| AmmlerPremium
join:2005-04-19
Pittsburgh, PA | Re: Good luck with that battle... Can you please tell Verizon to keep the FIOS deployments going. I'm still waiting. | |
|
| |
| | Mutiny32Network Security Engineer
join:2000-07-04
Lees Summit, MO | Re: Good luck with that battle... Copper technically is far inferior to optical-based communications. The potential capacity of copper versus fiber is insanely disproportionate. | |
|
| | |  DeathKPremium
join:2002-06-16
Cincinnati, OH
3 edits | Re: Good luck with that battle... Yeah. Except for in-home use copper is perfectly sufficient because you generally don't have to deal with super-long runs and we aren't at the point where we need bandwidth that fiber can offer which copper can't. Just look at HDMI. Spec 1.3+ supports TMDS bandwidth of more than 10Gbit/s. This was his point.
Obviously for long-distance communications fiber is superior because light transmission can be sustained. | |
|
| | | | |
| | | | | Markie
join:2003-07-26
Kalispell, MT | Re: Good luck with that battle... DisplayPort does not use fibre | |
|
| | | | | said by Mutiny32:Copper technically is far inferior to optical-based communications. The potential capacity of copper versus fiber is insanely disproportionate. The cost of tapping fiber's potential is in a league of its own though: you can get a 10GBase-T card for $500 while a 10GBase-SR SFP+ module will set you back $2000 per line module + host equipment... and even then, you're not tapping into fiber's true potential until you start using WDM with adds a ton of extra cost for the ADMs and wavelength-shifting equipment.
Few internet subscribers are likely to feel like they need speeds beyond 100Mbps within the next 10 years and that sort of speed is within DOC3/VDSL2 territory... it is still about a decade early to start worrying about fiber.
How long will it be before the average internet subscriber needs significantly more than 100Mbps? Probably more than 20 years. With fiber cables having a 25-30 years typical lifespan, fiber installed today will already be approaching end-of-life by the time we may actually need it.
Fiber is not immune to aging and FTTH fiber is a lot more likely to suffer from premature hydrogen contamination than carrier cables. | |
|
| Reviews:
·AT&T Midwest
 ·voip.ms
·MyPhoneCompany
| said by Mutiny32:I think AT&T and other telecoms who continue deploying a far inferior long-term solution using a copper network that requires large, ugly boxes to be put on innocent customers' property need to take a step back before they go much further. One, they are wasting time and money due to short-sighted revenue losses. They will eventually have to deploy FTTH to compete. Two, they are going to start encountering customers who don't appreciate a large beige box as the new centerpiece to the view of their homes. If it were going on private property, the owner would have known in advance. More likely it is going in the UK's version of right-of-way which many people consider to be their property but which in fact belongs to the municipality and is subject to utility placement that can only be restricted for certain causes.
When these are located on private property, at least in the US, AT&T will already have signed an agreement with the property owner for a perpetual easement.
AT&T will generally not offer free service or other compensation. They just want to pay cash and be done with it. The exact amount probably varies but I wouldn't do it for a penny less than $5000.
--
USNG:
16TDN2870
Find your Lat-Long:
Geocoder | |
|
| NormanSPremium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
kudos:4 Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| said by Mutiny32:But hey, good luck with your profits in a few years when you're getting left in the dust by smarter and more responsible competitors who had the foresight to take a hit to short-term profits for a more permanent solution. Do you mean like Verizon? Which has put further deployment of FiOS on hiatus, while selling off large swaths of their copper network, which are not amenable to deployment of fiber?
Very smart! 
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum | |
|
| | but attack of the killer tomatoes sounds better tastier too after you kill a few | |
|
Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
| Do your due diligence before buying a property... I'm sorry but if you're purchasing a house you should know who has what access to your property. I think most people don't do their due diligence when it comes to utility easements.
When we bought our house (new construction) we made sure that there was little-to-no chance of any utility needing to drop anything on our property. Luckily AT&T here is FTTP so there are no VRAD boxes but the electric company has a box in our neighbors yard and another has the cable boxes in their driveway.
Especially with this kind of things, homebuyers REALLY need to see what can happen to their property. Existing homeowners should do research as well just so they can be (unfortunately?) prepared too. | |
|
| Mutiny32Network Security Engineer
join:2000-07-04
Lees Summit, MO | Re: Do your due diligence before buying a property... That's a pretty hard thing to determine, considering that the easement is set by the municipality and is usually uniform across the board. | |
|
| | | | Re: Do your due diligence before buying a property... said by Mutiny32:That's a pretty hard thing to determine, considering that the easement is set by the municipality and is usually uniform across the board. I agree - most utility easements in developed neighborhoods are fairly wide bands across the front or the back of the property. The utility company could easily fit a VRAD cabinet inside the easement on every lot if they wanted to. | |
|
 NOCManMacChatterPremium
join:2004-09-30
Colorado Springs, CO | Make them responsible If the property value goes down they have to reimburse the owner for the fair market value prior to the box being installed. | |
|
| openbox9
join:2004-01-26
Alexandria, VA
kudos:1 | Re: Make them responsible That would've worked really well over the last couple of years  | |
|
| | | No they don't. If the box goes into an easement that already exists they don't have to pay for anything but damaged landscaping. I swear people have no concept of property law. | |
|
| | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Re: Make them responsible Property law says you own no property. You rent your land from the government through "property tax". Eminent domain also means you only get to posses your land until its not convenient for the government and special interests. Your are all slaves. | |
|
| | | |
zipjay
join:2003-03-11
South Williamson, KY | why not find ways to live with them? Couldn't they just build a nice "shed" over the boxes and leave a gate there unlocked for technician access? thats what i would do | |
|
 OmegaDisplaced OhioanPremium
join:2002-07-30
Cheyenne, WY | If... If ATT paid me $1500-2000 to have one on my tree lawn, I would invite them to place as many boxes as they could possible fit!
Sadly, it seems the city, not the homeowner receives that money.
--
Whats smells like blue? | |
|
 SLDPremium
join:2002-04-17
San Francisco, CA
1 edit | Oh, God! If I read or hear the phrase "across the pond" evere again, I'm going to scream!!! | |
|
| OmegaDisplaced OhioanPremium
join:2002-07-30
Cheyenne, WY Reviews:
·Bresnan Online
| Re: Oh, God! said by SLD:If I read or hear the phrase "across the pond" evere again, I'm going to scream!!! Across the pond.
--
Whats smells like blue? | |
|
| | SLDPremium
join:2002-04-17
San Francisco, CA | Re: Oh, God! Arghhhhhhhh!!!!! | |
|
|
| | | Re: What about backyards??? The power requirements for these things would require running power lines (either overhead, or underground).. either way.. there are laws in most countries that prevent you from say installing a pool, or a hot tub within certain distances of power lines... so shoving one of these in your backyard would prevent you from putting in a pool or a hot tub.. not to mention.. the lovely sharp not very child friendly edges that would cut your children up who are bound to play on them..
Oh and there is that whole pesky technician thing you have to deal with on your property, which would necessitate you being home to let them into your back yard, or leave your fence open.. allowing anyone into your back yard.... | |
|
| | |
 jsullvnPremium
join:2001-02-11
Sellersville, PA | Oh My.... Tooooooo Bad!  | |
|
| | Perhaps... Perhaps they should offer the residence free DSL for life. | |
|
Reviews:
·Bell Sympatico
| Paint it blue
BT - Dr. Who ISP |
"...You wouldn't regret this. Think of the tourist trade."
Ah you can't blame the guy, VRADs are ugly, they should have had better engineers design it. If Seymour Cray was alive and designed the thing it would have been a bench or sofa or come with an attractive fountain out in front. | |
|
|  japPremium
join:2003-08-10
038xx | Re: Paint it blue LOL! and if, like that VRAD, it's on wheels simply move it onto the neighbor's lawn when you get tired of the tourist's hanging around.  | |
|
| | thought heres a thought. why not just deploy wireless to a whole city and give the wireless the capacity it needs to services thousands if not millions of customers? that truly would be the next generation solution. honestly satellite tv is the best for deploying to new households requires no wiring to the premises. hell if you wanna live off the grid with nothing but water and sewer its possible. | |
|
 PashuneCaps stifle innovationPremium
join:2006-04-14
Gautier, MS
·Vonage
·CableOne
·magicjack.com
| Ugh. Honestly, maybe it's just me, and don't flame me for this comment, but these so-called lawn fridges, especially when compared to other communication technologies such as cable internet and FiOS, it makes it seem like DSL-based technology is on life support, especially when only ONE of these monsters will only provide service to a handful of customers.. then you have to add another one.
I acknowledge they all work differently, but seriously... I almost want to face-palm myself when I see these huge monsters providing "up to" 24 mbps internet. But look at cable? Sure, they've got amps every few hundred feet or so but they're much, much smaller, they can easily be hidden, and on top of that you can get much higher speeds thanks to DOCSIS 3. As far as FiOS goes, I think nothing needs to be said about how wonderful it is.
Now if AT&T figures out a way to bypass such a strict distance limit and offers higher speeds to more people, I'll applaud them, but by the time that happens, other communication technologies will again have surpassed them...
That being said, if they put one of these on my lawn and offer a good, chunky payment, I'll gladly accept it.
All of this post is my own opinion. Don't take it seriously! 
--
ISP: CableOne 5 mbit/500 kbit | |
|
| bsoft
join:2004-03-28
Boulder, CO
1 edit | Re: Ugh. said by Pashune:I acknowledge they all work differently, but seriously... I almost want to face-palm myself when I see these huge monsters providing "up to" 24 mbps internet. But look at cable? Sure, they've got amps every few hundred feet or so but they're much, much smaller, they can easily be hidden, and on top of that you can get much higher speeds thanks to DOCSIS 3. As far as FiOS goes, I think nothing needs to be said about how wonderful it is. VDSL2 can deliver far better than 24mbps. Qwest for example is delivering 40Mbps today, and it's not infeasible that we could see 100Mbps in the future (VDSL2 can deliver 100Mbps at 500m, although there are some pretty stringent line requirements).
Also consider that DSL is a dedicated line technology from your DSL modem to the DSLAM. Since the DSLAM (VRAD) is usually served by fiber (Ethernet these days), it's easy to deliver more bandwidth there.
The major problem that cable systems will probably have in the future is the sharing of bandwidth. A typical HFC system serves 500 or so subscribers from a single optical node. Even with 100MHz devoted to Internet services (way more than current systems that are typically 24MHz or less), there's only about 1.3Mbps (continuous) per subscriber. DOCSIS 3.0 doesn't really fix this problem either. Cable broadband works today because most subscribers don't use their connections heavily most of the time. The problem is that Internet video could dramatically change that.
Even a single HD stream (at 8Mbps) for (say) 250 of 500 subscribers in a node requires 2Gbps, which is peanuts for fiber today (10G Ethernet is common) but requires 300MHz of bandwidth in a cable system - which is about a third of the total bandwidth of a modern cable system.
Add in multiple streams, higher bit-rates, or more simultaneous users, and it's not impossible for the cable system to simply not have the bandwidth. That's why cable providers are being so aggressive with analog reclamation - every analog channel that's removed delays the need to take more drastic measures to increase capacity. Unfortunately, most of that analog reclamation has gone to HD channels, which require drastically more bandwidth than SD channels. 200 HD channels is roughly 600Mhz which only leaves about 350MHz or so left over for Internet service and other offerings like on demand video.
We have a ways to go before this really becomes a problem, since Internet video is still a small player compared to traditional TV services, and other usage (like file downloads) is generally too sporadic to result in high average bandwidth usage. | |
|
| | | | Re: Ugh. 300Mbps is one third of total bandwidth in a modern cable system?
That's less than 10 6MHz channels or 60MHz. How did you come up with one third? | |
|
| | | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Re: Ugh. said by fifty nine:300Mbps is one third of total bandwidth in a modern cable system? That's less than 10 6MHz channels or 60MHz. How did you come up with one third? (870mhz/6)*38[qam256]=5.5gbps | |
|
| | | bsoft
join:2004-03-28
Boulder, CO | said by fifty nine:300Mbps is one third of total bandwidth in a modern cable system? That's less than 10 6MHz channels or 60MHz. How did you come up with one third? I actually meant 300MHz, not 300Mbps. | |
|
| | | said by Pashune:Honestly, maybe it's just me, and don't flame me for this comment, but these so-called lawn fridges, especially when compared to other communication technologies such as cable internet and FiOS, it makes it seem like DSL-based technology is on life support, especially when only ONE of these monsters will only provide service to a handful of customers.. then you have to add another one. I acknowledge they all work differently, but seriously... I almost want to face-palm myself when I see these huge monsters providing "up to" 24 mbps internet. But look at cable? Sure, they've got amps every few hundred feet or so but they're much, much smaller, they can easily be hidden, and on top of that you can get much higher speeds thanks to DOCSIS 3. As far as FiOS goes, I think nothing needs to be said about how wonderful it is. FiOS is wonderful, but if Verizon's halting of new buildouts is any indication, FiOS will remain a niche product for some time to come. | |
|
Reviews:
·WOW Internet and..
·Time Warner Cable
| Not Welcome Those boxes aren't welcome where I live and i'm glad. We have one that services my city and that's it. That box is even in another city and sits behind the bus stop shelter.
Other cities have them every few blocks it seems.
--
www.twopugsbrand.com ONLINE STORE NOW ONLINE! up to 50% off SRP of Happy Tails Spa products. | |
|
Reviews:
·ooma
| Make AT&T build a community area I would make AT&T and Verizon build a nice community area in my HOA funded by them with a gazebo and community center and then they can have a certain square footage of the property to farm the fridges. For those areas already built, they can negotiate with home owners to build a nice shed/fridge and the home owner would have rights for storage and the other area would be locked and have only telcom access. It's better than what I have seen. | |
|
| | | Re: Make AT&T build a community area Honestly.. that is actually a great idea. | |
|
| patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Bury the damn thing. You already have a backhoe out to dig the trenches for the conduit to the pad. | |
|
| | Ugly boxes The boxes can hardly be much smaller than they are now. In fact some are over crowded as it is. You have always had a box by your subdivision or house in order to offer you POTS service (plain old telephone service). The company had to add an additional two boxes. One called a VRAD and the other small box is electric. They don't just randomly place these VRAD's. They are always by the existing SAI box. Right now in order to offer the tv service, you have to be roughly 3,000ft from the VRAD. Sorry, you will always have critics. | |
|
| | future Also, as an FYI...You soon won't have to worry about these boxes I am sure. As technology keeps a trucking, this to shall pass. AT&T is gunning for an all wireless network in the future I am sure. Which in turn means less and less workers on the payroll. Which I am sure either you or someone you know will probably be out of a job. Sure you probably don't care too much, however I do have a kid to feed at home and in my time it will be the end of the copper facility and that equals a lot of lost jobs. So keep the complaints rolling in, as I will keep my resume updated. | |
|
JonRup
join:2008-07-20
Hilliard, OH | Props for the flower Gave me a good chuckle  | |
|
|
|
.jpg/thumb.jpg "Click for full size")
.jpg/thumb.jpg "Click for full size")
