Franz, Matt,
Okay, it's time for a reality check.
Where is the money going to come from? If you are referring to money that would support FTTH upgrades to existing systems that "carry" @Home, then the answer, for the most part is, Nowhere.
That erstwhile monetary fund has already been gotten and spent. To wit, TCI/T already shot their wad on their system upgrades when they decided to go with HFC, and there is no going home on this matter.
[[Franz, that last paragraph pretty much answers your earlier questions, too, although I'll go back and look at your post once again.]]
At this point analyzing the major MSOs options is like an exercise in what ifs, what coulda, what shoulda, but where the majority of established cable operators camps are concerned, they've already decided which way they want to go and I don't see any reversal going forward, only retrofits, perhaps, and only by a few who are the first to experience the Internet doing them in. It's been said, and it's absolutely true that the Internet will fall victim to its own success unless adequate resources are put in place to deal with it. This will become manifest first and foremost by the end user who had at one time was satisfied with their providers' performance, but over time, and with more capacious applications, become disappointed due to congestion and the long waits which ensue therof.
Those cable ops who I suspect you are referring to (who else?) will need to wait until the next coming, i.e., Window of Opportunity Two, or strategically implement additional deeper fiber upgrades like T's Lightwire, which may be used proactively in some limited places for show at first (they have yet to upgrade all of their systems to HFC yet), but I suspect the lightwire retrofits will be used to put out fires when the occur at first, instead.
BTW, did T ever come to a decision on whether the Lightwire builds were cost justified? I've not heard anything new on this.
I don't think that anyone here needs to worry about T, or Home's other partners, going out on a limb a second time to this time build FTTH where they already have HFC in place. Others, who are NOT carrying 100 Billion+ in capital upgrades to coaxial-fiber plants on their books, will do the FTTH's, instead. |
