re: Saturday morning musings by a Fiber Hawk re the recent FCC copper sharing order
Thread, I would like to offer some opposing views to some of the positions voiced here and over in the Last Mile Thread on the above subject, if, for no other reason, than to volunteer to be the devil's advocate in order to stimulate some further discussion on this topic.
[Late edit, please forgive some of the disjointedness below, since I prepared this on interrupts and found myself wrestling with the edit clock at one point. If you've been there, you know what I mean.]
Today's technology, and the dramatically-reduced physical form factors which said technologies now permit, can now be used to provide us with the means to overcome the usual arguments of the past... namely, those arguments which position for or against the reasons for the local monopoly, and its interests.
Perhaps we're not quite there yet, but if we're not, it's surely not the fault of technology alone, at this point. It's more likely the result of the mind's own inertia, and the comfort that we take, which AHhaha likes to cite, i.e., how we always tend to look to those in government to dictate how we should proceed.
Having said that, I think technology is actually on our side, and it will surely come to our rescue if we give it, and the creativity which engenders it, a chance. The problem is that we always seem to defer to government, instead, and in some ways the reasons for doing so are now becoming anachronistic, in nature.
But even technology, it seems, can not come to the rescue of all situations. At least not soon enough to prevent this last government initiated action, it would appear.
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It doesn't matter to me if the incumbents win or lose, or if the competitors win or lose. The fact is, IMO, that in some pervase way everyone loses with this most recent ruling, in the longer term, because it merely portends to momentarily satisfy the appetite for bandwidth, and therefore, will have the effect of severely damping the flow of new innovation, at the same time... while consuming enormous amounts of shrinking resources in downsized LEC organizations. And all of this is taking place in order to make an old technology which is slated for the garbage heap more accessible to startups who should be spending their time more productively on more transcendent forms of technology implementations.
The FCC should not be mandating anything in this space at this point. If they should be doing anything at all in these venues (and this is even suspect, IMO), then they should be getting more involved in making recommendations about how to facilitate deeper fiber and wireless penetrations into the neighborhoods, by a plurality of xLECs, and making some substantive recommendations about how to facilitate wireless licensing and spectrum allocations, instead of the bureaucracy-strewn processes which are now in place.
But the FCC should not, IMO, be a force behind extending the life expectancy of twisted pair copper in this late chapter of local distribution technology... copper, whose longevity is surely slated to be a guaranteed by-product of this order.
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ARGUMENT:
To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade:
ILECs have already undertaken many much-needed fiber upgrades (the PUCs have actually mandated some of these upgrades in some cases) which serve to replace very lossy, very lousy, and very noisy copper pairs with new "fiber-based" alternatives. And they have scheduled many more undertakings for those areas which have not been covered yet.
Fiber is going to be used to achieve this. Fiber. Don't mind me if you see me repeating the term "fiber" almost incessantly throughout this post, but fiber is both the enabler of information delivery and at the same time a form of nemesis to the DSL community for obvious reasons, both to the DSL service providers, and the DSL vendors, alike, when viewed in this new penetration scheme which the FCC has defined.
Fiber to the neighborhood, Fiber to the Curb, Fiber to the Home, Fiber to the pedestal, etc. Either through next gen DLC implementations, or increasingly through the more sophisticated passive optical networking (PON) deployments involving optical networking units (ONUs) which feed homes via twisted pairs and other media, including (you guessed it), fiber, itself. And wireless extensions, as well, but there is only so much tolerance for futurism in one post, so I'll attempt to keep this on the brief side.
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These upgrades I've alluded to are much overdue by today's suddenly-cast-upon-us expectations, granted, but they must be undertaken, nonetheless. Lest, of course, they be stalled indefinitely, for the sake of allowing some startups the dubious opportunity to exploit what has been there all along. Which leads me to an irony of sorts which should also be mentioned:
Startups usually make hey in their marketecture over the inadequacies of the incumbent's facilities, citing obsolescence, poor quality, noisy conditions, lethargy, etc. Now that the incumbent is finally upgrading to fiber based distribution, the startups must also change their fabric, through necessity, too. So? What do they do?
The startups may attempt to thwart the incumbents from changing their
loops to fiber in some situations. I can see the petitions for injunctive relief now citing predatory practices and restraint of trade. That is, until the fledglings convince their VC backers that they, too, at some point have a plan to compete on these new terms... namely, how they will be able to support extending DSL services from the pedestal, once fiber and field electronics replace the longer, rapidly-aging, copper loops with much shorter, newer, drops to the structure.
Does anyone here think that this is a simple matter? Think again. Think TRUCK ROLLS. TRs represent the curse of death in startupdom. And think this, too: The employees which will be needed to do this. The employees who do not exist, yet. And employees, too, which represent another set of antithetics to today's startups arsenal of advantages, which they will use to beat the incumbents at their own game. Employees go hand in hand, with the truck roll curse.
As background, many existing extended-loop conditions are often characterized as marginal, at best, even for voice services in some areas. And they may represent distances of from 12,000 to 20,000 to 30,000+ feet from the CO or wire center. As another aside, this also implies a maximum of some 128 kb/s for many prospective surfers, usually using IDSL-like technologies. Compare this to the potential of fiber deeper into the burbs, or 3G wireless supported services.
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Faced with the prospect of losing their newly acquired copper medium, what recourse does the DLEC now have, once the copper pairs are retired due to the upgrades? Is it reasonable to prevent the ILECs from following through with their upgrades simply to allow the piggy-backing of other people's data on the much older copper? Or, should there remain some duality consisting of new and old plant to allow grandfathering for those situations were the competitors have already made their mark?
Another interesting question to ponder IMO is this: If the ILECs are allowed to go forward with their upgrades, then does it follow that the DLECs should be permitted access to the new pedestal interfaces to the residence, too? That part, from what I can see, was not covered by Thursday's FCC order. Perhaps it should have been included in order to prepare for this contingency, but from what I can tell, it wasn't.
At some point the ILECs must be wondering, Who am I working for, anyway?
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Isn't it time that the monopoly schtick get tossed? Or, at least put into 20th, if not 21st Century perspective?
Advances in technology now allow 100,000,000 telephone calls to be
carried over a 9 micron core in a 250 micron outside diameter fiber, instead of a black twisted pair cable the size of Water Main No. 3 which now runs through most of NY City. Let me put this in perspective.
A twenty four hundred (2400) pair cable can be as thick as four inches in diameter. That's about as high as you go in a single sheath (okay, some go as high as 3,600 pairs, in case WTC is looking in, which I hope he is, because I'm going to need some support after this one) where twisted pairs are concerned.
Beyond the basic 2400 pair cable, you simply need to add more cables if you want to increase the number of talkers. Sooner or later you wind up with placing multiple ducts of conduit to support these cables, and then entire duct banks of 2400 pair cables. And then, you are occupying a tunnel which could handle a hook 'n ladder fire engine through it. And even then, you couldn't support same 100,000,000 voice services that could instead be transported over a single fiber, the diameter of a human hair.
Here one can begin to envisage why the newer form factors associated with fiber are not nearly as foreboding a burden along rights of way, by any stretch of the imagination, as the older copper loop model was.
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Another issue which I find interesting is that we will be mixing two different worlds, and in two different ways.
One world speaks to criticality and the need for dependability, and one world speaks to some not so perfect physical properties, prone to the vagaries of environmental and man made factors, if not the inexplicable world of the artifacts of an imperfect medium which we write off as phenomena.
The latter phenomena, of course, in a totally unpredictable and hostile environment, presents a much more scary prospect than those other attributes which are purely based on bias and spin.
Normally, I wouldn't find mixing applications on a medium as a particularly threatening prospect, if one vendor were in charge. Especially if their presence is supported by a consistent, uniform protocol model. But here, we are talking about something entirely different than interleaving similar analog or digital packet profiles in a consistent multiplexed format by a single service provider.
I know, the telcos profess to offer both forms of service (voice and data) over ADSL, too. On one pipe, as well. But if it's their (the ILEC's) responsibility to make them both work, voice and data, then they will be incented to make it so, and they will make it so, even if they have to go through a period of loss-lead in order to make it happen. It's only a matter of doing business, and many businesses operate in the same way when introducing new product.
But, if they are only charged with voice, forget about it. The glove hasn't been invented yet that has the necessary number of fingers to fit this situation.
The FCC's order implies that two different physical media approaches be used on the same physical wire by two different providers, which may very well cross over from one to the other through the well-known and documented effects of near end and far end cross-talk.
And, through other anomalies which are also well documented having to do with ordinary and customary central office and field activities which take place anytime one service (or an adjacent service) is being modified or tested by the provider. Make that service providers, plural, in this case, and we shouldn't expect them to coordinate with one another every time a group of elements must be touched or tweaked, unless one is paying the other under SLA terms to do so.
And when the end user's own use, or abuse, of the service is in question? Forget about it, squared.
As for criticality, while it may seem okay for little Johnny to do without surfing AOL after school lets out, the same can't be said about the lifeline telephone service at 11:30 PM when hubby or momma suddenly has a chest pain. I hate to leave it on that note, but I've already gone on too long at this point. Besides, I owe a few people here some replies on other matters. Comments welcome.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
