Hi Gord,
I found several things you noted interesting. One, the costs associated with controlled environmental vaults (CEV) housing, and the other being user perceptions and expectations of data services.
You'll note that the RBOCs are now promoting a fiber extension technology that they've cleverly dubbed "FTTP," where the P stands for premises, as in customer premises.
What actually constitutes a customer's premises is another matter. I go into this in more depth on the BCR Online Forum, which you can click on, here:
bcr.com
This gives the SP an out in deploying field gear in the same uneconomical manner they'd been doing before, since it is not a form of implementation requiring of "field-" mounted closures in the usual context. Instead, they are free to site their gear in basements of high-rise buildings and dorms; in landlord-provided easements; and, in general, mountings that are closer to the end user, but not necessarily within any single user's personal apartment or office.
The operative word here being "premises," of course, which technically could be used to connote a tract of land or a building space in support of an easement within that building.
On your note concerning what users expect, I find this to be a recurring theme vis a vis quality of service (QoS) discussions that address the Internet, in particular, and VoIP, which has often been likened to the level of quality provided by cellular and PCN phone services. Generally, users are a lot more tolerant of shoddy service if that is all they expected from the outset.
Conversely, rock-solid PSTN POTS telephone services have always been viewed as highly reliable. I can't remember the last time I lost my dial tone, for example, which is what I'd expect from my video service if it were provided by the same provider. Would I expect this level of service from a wireless provider during all forms of atmospheric conditions and climatic activity? No, I wouldn't. But if I made such a selection (wireless or satellite TV delivery) after taking into account the greater the potential of occasional impaired deliver, I'd be less likely to be as disappointed with pixelizing and momentary outages than I would otherwise. While I'm on that subject, HFC sytems and others, which depend on satellite feeds to their head ends, are similarly apt to exhibit these same problems, but not to the same extent that home wireless antennas and receivers do.
To paraphrase an old adage: In telecoms terms, you generally get what your perceptions about a service are when you subscribe to it. Thus, in the process, making a statement about your tolerance level in the face of more costly alternatives, and sometimes due to uncontrollable circumstances presented by Nature.
The full service area network (FSAN) designs that the Bells have adopted for FTTx applications are based on a SONET rings in the backbone and redundant power where necessary to ensure that capacity is adequate and power is reliable, respectively. Other variations of FTTH also have their good points, such as point-to-point GbE, which, short of a break in the wire (which could happen to any mode of implementation), has no moving parts in the field, placing all points of vulnerability at either the head end (central office) or at the customer's premises.
Somewhere in between these two fundamental design extremes - with FASN using ATM, and GbE using point-to-point Ethernet - there are designs that are less reliable, which, if improperly sized and engineered, would very likely lead to the kinds of kinks you've noted.
I'm interested in reading more on the subject of what customers perceive their service levels to be (their expectations) and how tolerance fits into their decision making when selecting a bundled set of service provider offerings.
FAC
frank@fttx.org |
