RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] DSL in the area ??

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Thu, 7 Jun 2001, Spurling, Shannon  wrote:

> To provide T1's or DSL, you use copper.

Yes, I knew this (at least for DSL).

> Copper and fiber are not interchangeable. Fiber to the curb sounds
> cool, but fat lot of use you'll get out of it. No, it will not take 75
> years to rewire every thing, and they will use fiber for long hauls,
> but the wire to your house will be copper. AFAIK they don't deliver
> phone on fiber. And if they did, you couldn't get DSL.

I thought the eventual idea for fiber to the curb was to carry just
about everything over it; the bandwidth would be there without worrying
about DSL.  Thinking it over a bit, though, I guess the real problem
with the idea of fiber for everything is that there really might not be
that much (besides internet services) left.  I'm a cell phone Luddite,
but even I can see that the chance of having conventional phone service
in a decade is a bit questionable.  Satellite might well be the answer
for TV service in most places.  One or the other might provide a good
chunk of internet bandwidth, too, eventually.  Hey, maybe the phone
network will be DSL only. :-)  Or not; the problem has always been that
upgrading/tweaking the phone network to offer more or better DSL doesn't
seem to be that profitable an enterprise.

> The fiber/copper transceivers needed would most likely kill any DSL
> type carrier. The phone company is slow to change, and that's because
> change is expensive, 

(and in this case profits could be almost nil)

> and the phone has to be reliable. If they delivered your phone service
> on fiber, the power for your phone must be provided locally. In a
> blackout, you'd not have 911 service.

This is already probably a bigger problem than you'd expect.  I'm
embarassed to admit that we didn't have a working phone once upon a time
last year during a blackout...

> IMHO a utility is something that is provided that would be difficult
> to get additional right of way's for more than one provider.

Oops; I did kinda leave the ROW issue out.  It's true that municipalities
and governments are generally the only entities that can force/guarantee
these.

> How do you deregulate water to the door.

You don't.  Just like you don't for electricity.  In both cases, you could
sign up your customers, meter their access, and make sure you added enough
to the grid/distribution system to (more than) cover your share of the
market.  Yes, some of the transmission stuff you don't own outright, but
that's not really news, either.  Again, water is a pretty dubious product
in most markets; I've got my own personal rice paddy going in the back
yard right now. :-)

[snip to]

> Right now I have a choice of two cable providers.

Wow; is that very common in this market?  I though most people only had
one.

> Both offer similar services. What good does it do if they both hover
> around the same price for service?

Well, that's what you'd expect.  You'd also expect that if there were only
one, it would be more expensive.  I suspect that both of them these days
see some competition from satellite.

> What good does it do to have a choice of gas stations if they all have
> the same price? Sure it fluctuates some, but never very much. It's
> about the same as non-contractual price fixing.

I'm not sure I follow.  Gas prices are one thing that surely fluctuate
with location and local competition.  Around town you probably never see
more than a nickel's difference, and that's partly because nobody is going
to have any allegiance to MFA or Texaco or whomever.  Gas is really cheap,
all things considered.

jking

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