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1013

Swordfish II
Watching A Dream
Premium Member
join:2002-05-12
Cloud 9

Swordfish II

Premium Member

To sum it up

Essentially cable is still and for the near future will be the most cost effective and fastest service.

ArrayList
DevOps
Premium Member
join:2005-03-19
Mullica Hill, NJ

ArrayList

Premium Member

no fiber is the most cost effective.

Duramax08
To The Moon
Premium Member
join:2008-08-03
San Antonio, TX

Duramax08

Premium Member

Either way copper sucks.
pepe7
join:2003-08-25

pepe7 to ArrayList

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to ArrayList
Incorrect, Mr. Gore (ROFTL).

In the context of what's already available in the market, fiber is faster but not more cost effective. Cable HSI already covers larger swaths of the country, even areas that fiber will likely never see. For now at least that makes it very cost effective.

ArrayList
DevOps
Premium Member
join:2005-03-19
Mullica Hill, NJ

ArrayList

Premium Member

up front costs are less than the cumulative upgrades you will need with coax.

vpoko
Premium Member
join:2003-07-03
Boston, MA

vpoko

Premium Member

But cable companies cannot pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today; there's a big difference between paying now and paying later. Of course we all agree fiber is more future-proof and will have lower maintenance costs in the long term, but tearing up all existing coax and replacing it with fiber would certainly not be economical.

ArrayList
DevOps
Premium Member
join:2005-03-19
Mullica Hill, NJ

ArrayList

Premium Member

why would you tear it up? leave it in place and put fiber in as you can. at the rate they go right now, they don't do any.
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

Kearnstd to Swordfish II

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to Swordfish II
Fiber is the best and should be aimed at for the future. but the HFC networks are much more expandable than the telco lines. and the cable company has another advantage. they already have fiber to the nodes, as such if they want to switch to FTTH I am sure they have less work ahead of them.

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County

CylonRed to Swordfish II

MVM

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But not the best where I live - so it is DSL for me...

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena to ArrayList

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to ArrayList
Fiber is probably be able to deliver the fastest speed. But for the next 10 years, the current cable networks are probably more cost effective.

First, the cables are already in place, and fiber has been installed to the neighborhoods. (If you have digital television and any HD channels, you have a TV company fiberoptic cable less then 2 miles away, likely less then a mile).

Second, fiberoptic cables are expensive. This is why Verizon isn't doing a massive deployment and just hook everyone in a city up to fiber, regardless of whether they have TV, Internet or Phone or not. They did this with telephone back in the day, and just connected all homes to copper regardless of whether they actually had this newfangled invention called a tele-phone. Instead, they do it on a case by case basis.

I agree COMPLETELY that fiberoptics is the future, and can't wait till all houses are connected with a 10 Gbps pipe.

But as far as cost-effectiveness goes, the DOCSIS system has allowed for easy upgrades and downwards compatibility. A cable company can take DOCSIS 1 and DOCSIS 2 equipment out, and replace it with DOCSIS 3 equipment, and still serve all of their DOCSIS 1 and 2 clients....with the new equipment whereas both Verizon with FIOS and ATT with UVerse have to maintain 2 separate networks and 2 separare systems. One for their old DSL clients, one for their new FIOS and UVerse clients. And that.... is very cost in-effective.

antdude
Borg Ant
Premium Member
join:2001-03-25
US

antdude to Duramax08

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said by Duramax08:

Either way copper sucks.
Yeah, dial-up sucks!
pepe7
join:2003-08-25

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Geez. You live in the north shore like I do. Apparently you have forgotten entirely about the labor costs involved. For this reason around Chicago it is currently extremely cost prohibitive to put in a FIOS-like system.
Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA

Sammer to pepe7

Member

to pepe7
said by pepe7:

Cable HSI already covers larger swaths of the country, even areas that fiber will likely never see. For now at least that makes it very cost effective.
Actually some cable companies have already realized that RF over Glass is sometimes the least expensive way to expand beyond their existing cable lines so fiber has already started to serve some homes that are likely to never see the external copper of HFC. Admittedly RFoG may be a niche technology but it points to the fact that even the cable companies realize that fiber to the home is the eventual future.
pepe7
join:2003-08-25

pepe7

Member

I read about RFoG at one point. It looks like it will still support DOCSIS too. The following might be of interest to someone here-

»www.lightwaveonline.com/ ··· 082.html

ArrayList
DevOps
Premium Member
join:2005-03-19
Mullica Hill, NJ

ArrayList to pepe7

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to pepe7
of course the captial involved in putting in a project like that will be a lot, but unless they figure out how to break the laws of physics they will never have to upgrade after the fact.