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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (7823)	7/30/2000 11:58:56 PM
From: ftth	Respond to of 12823

re: "Utilities in the last mile?" Ah, my second favorite topic<g>. We've tossed this around here and on the old and new FCTF before, but these things often get overlooked among the other posts if they're not in the right context. You may (or maybe not) recall the SpectraDyne consortium announcements from several months back. I solicited for an update a couple weeks ago: Message 14030040 [late edit: it looks like the "www.canarie.ca..." link in the above link changed. After you take the link in the above post, change the ...0012.html in the url to ...0016.html] so if anyone comes across anything please post. Also, here's a fairly recent news item involving utilities and the last mile, but not in the sense of electrical utilities. A while back I believe Frank and Teddy(?) were discussing drainage/sewer systems as routing conduits...was it in France? Anyhoo....here's the article. I think I have a few more bookmarked or printed out somewhere in these stacks of papers surrounding me, so I'll post them if I come across them. ------------ Fiber-optic grid to reach all households. Daily Yomiuri, July 19, 2000 The Construction Ministry plans to extend fiber-optic cable networks installed in underground water drainage systems to provide every household in the country with a high-speed communications link, according to ministry officials. The Fiber to the Home Project, a key information technology project for the 21st century, will initially focus on Tokyo and other large cities to provide households with a potential Internet hookup and facilitate such services as remote utilities meter reading, the officials said. Part of this fiscal year's reserves for public works will go toward the project, and funds for related projects will be requested in the fiscal 2001 budget, the officials said. The ministry already carried out a feasibility study for the plan as Construction Minister Chikage Ogi made clear her objective to launch public works projects that would have an immediate impact on large cities shortly after she assumed her post, the officials said. The Fiber to the Home Project is the ministry's fast-track plan to benefit society through the installation of large capacity communications infrastructure in large cities, the officials said. In 1986, the ministry and 20 local governments, including Tokyo and Yokohama governments, began to install fiber-optic cable networks in water drainage systems. The length is estimated to be 1,000 kilometers now. A revision to the Drainage Law in fiscal 1996 allowed private communications companies to utilize existing water drainage conduits. Such installations previously were prevented by drainage regulations. But hurdles were encountered in hooking the cables up to households, so the smooth, high-speed transmission of some data, such as motion pictures, through the Internet has remained difficult. The ministry will consider how to solve this problem, the officials said. The country's water drainage system covers 290,000 kilometers, and the ministry intends to hook up densely populated urban areas first. It will seek to cover part of the installation costs by charging private communications firms to access the networks, the officials said. ------------------