re: The plot thickens, further. Robert Metcalfe speaks up on FTTH.
From InfoWorld's 1/31/00 "From the Ether" column, written by Bob Metcalfe:
infoworld.com
[ Note: I was searching the Infoworld site for a possible retraction of the Sierra Power story last week which apparently caused a flap when their top management issued a denial. I found this article, instead. The article not only doesn't retract anything, it actually "adds" to the original story in several places, again mentioning Sierra prominently. ]
Several parts of the following are bolded by yours truly.
Enjoy, Frank Coluccio
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"Faster than DSL or CTM, Fiber Optics to the Home: Build it and They Will Come"
By Bob Metcalfe
CABLE TELEVISION modems (CTMs) and digital subscriber lines
(DSLs) are leading in the race to deploy residential broadband. But we all
know the eventual winner will be fiber to the home (FTTH).
So why not just leapfrog all that monopoly-owned legacy local-loop
copper wire technology and go directly to fiber? Sooner rather than
eventually.
Last week, Ephraim Schwartz scooped me on the secret SpectraDyne
consortium (see "Consortium to power up broadband," Jan. 24., page 1).
He revealed that Sierra Pacific Power Company ( www.sierrapacific.com
) has been installing fibers along its rights of way to residential customers
in Southern Nevada.
Sources say that this summer, which would be a lot sooner than
eventually, Sierra Pacific (along with Hewlett-Packard and Oracle) will
roll out FTTH Internet at 10Mbps for $13.95 per month -- way faster and
way cheaper than CTMs and DSLs.
Telephone, television, and videoconferencing would be offered for
additional fees based on routing and connection time. Initial provisioning
would be at 155Mbps. Some 30 other public utilities are now in
discussions with the group.
It's interesting that a power company -- also a residential copper-based
monopoly -- is installing local-loop fiber. And public utilities are the last
companies I think of as dynamic competitors. But let's hope that at least
half of this Sierra Pacific FTTH secret is true.
Ownership issues, not technology, are pacing deployment of FTTH, says
Brian Reid at Lucent's Bell Labs in Palo Alto, Calif. His solution is not to leave FTTH to cable, telephone, or power monopolies, all of which Palo Alto has, but to have Palo Alto or perhaps some independent agency operate a new FTTH monopoly, giving citizens open access to competitive Internet services.
[[fac ed: If I'm not mistaken, Palo Alto is one of the municipalities that attempted a fiber to the home architecture of their own in the past year.]]
I lived in and around The People's Republic of Palo Alto for 22 years and
can confirm your suspicions that it's not a typical town. It's home to
Stanford University, or as we in Maine call it, the Bowdoin of the West. It
sits atop Silicon Valley. More than 80 percent of Palo Altans use the
Internet from home.
Thanks to Reid and his city comrades, Palo Alto already has a $2 million,
15-mile fiber-optic ring which gets high-speed Internet within a mile of
almost all its citizens. The next step, long in coming, is an FTTH trial in
one or two neighborhoods.
According to Michael Eager, president of Palo Alto Fiber Network (
www.pafiber.net ), the city has been cautious about pursuing the
proposed FTTH trial. And the trial has been steadfastly opposed by --
surprise! -- the local telephone monopoly.
Contrary to a story in The Wall Street Journal Jan. 20, Palo Alto
proponents say their FTTH trial will sign up plenty of citizen subscribers.
They'll have to pay $1,200 for fiber installation plus $45 a month for
10Mbps, or $2,400 plus $100 per month for 100Mbps, plus Internet
service provider charges. These prices are high compared to CTMs,
DSLs, and SpectraDyne fibers, but, ahem, they're nothing compared to the
costs of Palo Alto home ownership.
Palo Alto's cable monopoly, which offers CTMs, is being acquired by
AT&T. And there are DSLs galore, including from Palo Alto's telephone
monopoly, now owned by SBC. So, citizens of Palo Alto have lots of
broadband Internet access.
But copper broadband can't compare to fiber's 10Mbps,100Mbps, or
1Tbps. So hurry up, Palo Alto, and try FTTH.
The Wall Street Journal was right to question whether there's demand for
FTTH broadband. I say build it, and they will come.
To those who say CTMs and DSLs mean we don't have to dig up the
streets to install FTTH, I say the obvious: We are digging the streets up
anyway.
CTMs vs. DSLs vs. FTTH -- let's root for FTTH.
------
Related articles:
Utilities build fiber links
infoworld.com
Enterprise Toolbox: Broadband technology, rich-media apps will bring
about positive organizational changes
infoworld.com
[This last url's message concerning rich media is posted in the following reply here in FCTF.] |
