On Wed, 8 Oct 1997, Peter Trei wrote:
It looks like we're seeing different parts of the problem. You're worried about the long-haul backbone. I'm trying to see ways to get a 10Gbps fibre into my living room.
The backbone cost is a tiny fraction of the cost of getting fiber into every house in the country.
Building a few optical fibers into a cable as it is being manufactured is cheap and easy, as is using fiber-equipped cable if you are installing new lines, or replacing old ones for other reasons (installation costs are usually far higher than the cost of the line itself). It's hooking up all the fibers into a meaningful network that gets expensive, which was my point.
Practically speaking, using the cable TV infrastructure looks much more promising than the power grid. Pros: - already available in many major urban centres = less retrofit - theoretical 30Mbps transmission rate (not fibre, but still pretty good) Cons: - lack of standardisation / compatibility for the modems themselves (bleeding edge technology, surprise surprise) - little choice for your ISP - you may have to buy cable service along with the Internet connectivity Cynthia =============================================================== Cynthia H. Brown, P.Eng. E-mail: cynthb@iosphere.net | PGP Key: See Home Page Home Page: http://www.iosphere.net/~cynthb/ Junk mail will be ignored in the order in which it is received. Klein bottle for rent; enquire within.