"Optical Illusion Disappears - Providers become passive-aggressive in
deploying fiber"
by Jason P. McKay
[Thread, the following article from teledotcom.com comes courtesy of Hiram Walker,
from ... where else? The Harmonic Thread. Hi Hiram! ]
teledotcom.com
Note that mention is made of a company called Clear Works Technologies, Inc. in the early paragraphs. We discussed this company here in the LM about a year ago, or more, as a potential deliverer of deep fiber to neighborhoods and to the home.
The article is copied below for posterity. Enjoy.
Regards, Frank Coluccio
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It hasn't been hard to find service providers talking up the
benefits of passive optical networking, a technology that drives
down the cost of driving fiber loops closer and closer to the
home or business. After all, this type of network can help
carriers meet increasing Internet-inspired bandwidth demands.
What has been difficult is finding providers that are actually
doing anything about it-until recently, that is.
Several providers have announced plans of late to deploy fiber
in the local loop, which could result in hundreds of thousands
of homes hooked up to fiber by year's end. The latest push,
which is anchored by a BellSouth Corp. initiative, doesn't
reflect a new appreciation of optical networking. Rather, it
underscores some changes in fundamental issues that had
blocked earlier wide-scale deployment.
Chief among these changes are the reduction of fiber optic
cable costs (nearly 10 to 1 for some components) and the
emergence of a standard born out of the Full Service Access
Network (FSAN) consortium called ATM Passive Optical
Network (APON) (see "Less Is More," Jan. 25). The
drive-which involves ClearWorks Technologies Inc.
(Houston) and SBC Communications Inc. as well-has also
gained momentum because of growing concerns that
competing services, such as digital subscriber line (DSL) and
cable modems, may not be able to meet long-term broadband
demands (see "Critical Mass" ).
[[FAC Edit: 'Critical Mass' was hard to find. I dug it up posted it in the message following this one...]]
"This has been an old thing that providers have been looking at
for years," says Chris Whitely, project manager of local access
alert at Insight Research Corp. (Parsippany, N.J.). "They have
been considering deploying fiber into the neighborhood, into
the home-and the major impediment has been cost. It's mainly
the cost of laying the fiber to each home, but it's also that they
have a legacy infrastructure. And it's difficult to get them to
deploy fiber where they already have infrastructure."
The new deployment push doesn't mean providers have
overcome all the obstacles. For at least the next five years,
wide-scale optical networking will probably be limited to
homes that are relatively less expensive to hook up. This
means carriers will concentrate on getting into new
communities that are being constructed from the ground up
instead of trying to connect to older homes where legacy
copper-based connections need to be retrofitted. Per-home
deployment costs about $800 in greenfield sites, compared to
$1,400 in older neighborhoods, according to ClearWorks.
With these numbers in mind, ClearWorks's initial deployment
plans call for offering integrated voice, video and data by
working with contractors in Houston to lay fiber optic cable
directly to 2,700 new homes in two greenfield sites. Another
1,500 homes could be connected in Virginia greenfield sites in
the future.
Bundled services will be offered over an Internet protocol (IP)
network at costs to consumers that will be about 50 percent
less than if they purchased them from separate providers. The
homes will receive Internet access at speeds up to 100 Mbit/s,
with other applications running at 10 Mbit/s. Telephone
systems will be based on voice over IP (VoIP), with features
such as voice mail and caller ID. The homes will also access
digital cable television service, on-demand video rentals, 40
ad-free digital music stations, a community intranet and
capabilities for closed-circuit security.
"What we're going to build is a network of the future that's all
based on IP technology now, rather than trying to patch in
some IP Internet connectivity to an analog or a hybrid fiber
cable later," says ClearWorks chief executive officer Michael
McClere.
BellSouth's plan calls for bringing fiber directly to 400 Atlanta
homes to deliver video and data using the asynchronous
transfer mode (ATM) data networking protocol. Yet its
approach differs from ClearWorks in that it will retrofit existing
homes by replacing copper lines for data and entertainment
video, while retaining the existing copper infrastructure for
phone lines.
The BellSouth approach also differs in terms of scope. It
expects to connect 300,000 homes via fiber-to-the-curb
set-ups in its nine-state coverage area by year's end. This
involves bringing the optical network directly into local
pedestal boxes where the connection can then be split into
separated lines for individual homes. The carrier also expects
to begin a project later this year that will eventually connect an
additional 200,000 homes in Atlanta and southern Florida.
Beyond this, BellSouth hopes to use its Atlanta project as a
springboard to implement a five-year program to bring fiber
directly to 500,000 homes by working primarily through
greenfield sites.
For BellSouth, like its competitors, optical networking is a
future play. "I'm really enthused about the opportunity we have
here," says David Kettler, BellSouth vice president of science
and technology. "The fiber medium carries the greatest
bandwidth available, so it is the best medium to position for
the plethora of services. High-speed data, entertainment video,
telephony-it's just the best medium."
SBC is something of an old hand at the game-almost 30,000
Richardson, Texas customers have had fiber-to-the curb
deployments in place since 1994-but the carrier is also
upgrading and expects to add another 10,000 connections by
year's end. More is undoubtedly on the way. "We are
continually investing in our network and pushing fiber closer to
the home," says Ed Reisner, managing director of technology
and product development at SBC Operations. Reisner adds
that SBC plans to invest $2 billion to $3 billion over the next
several years to deploy fiber closer to the customer.
All this optical networking may delight its proponents, but
economics will still slow wide-scale deployment for the time
being. "Fiber in general tends to be new builds, not
overbuilds," says Lawrence Gasman of Communications
Industry Researchers Inc. (CIR, Charlottesville, Va.). "If
you're already supplying most of the communications needs of
a particular home with copper, pulling out the copper costs
money and putting in the fiber costs money. The incremental
revenue you derive from that with better broadband Internet
access is very unlikely to offset it."
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