Hi Jack,
"What do you project the timing on ftth. I could use it right now."
We all can. Rollouts of ftth are unfolding right now in small pockets and trials by startups and ILECs, alike. In the ILEC circle, BLS most notably, although Verizon has recently come out with some surprising stats in favor of future dollar spending in this direction. I'm not clear on all of the specifics, but in a release that I read a VZ representative stated that it's actually cheaper at this point to install a fiber in the outside plant (taking into account the economies achieved through fiber muxing to satisfy a multi-service platform, I should add) than putting in new copper plant (and, I would surmise, a comparable amount of DSL plant) to the same target locations.
Much to the chagrin of many pundits and journos who usually blow smoke out of their hidden orifices on this topic, the problems stalling ftth rollouts - by the larger players, in particular - no longer hinge on the comparative costs of fiber and copper, alone. More important than the minute differential that now exists between the latter two media types, are the operations support systems (OSSes) that would be needed to support the new platforms, and those simply don't exist, yet.
In contrast, smaller independent players who are not burdened with all of the issues associated with universal service, equal and comparable availability of services across a wide range of demographics, number portability, E911, etc., are free to go in as a second high-speed feed, and don't share the same headaches that the ILECs do. Hence, their first-to-market position is enhanced, considerably.
As with other evolving platforms, however, we're unlikely to see a big bang effect, such as we experienced with the unleashing of the 'Net, five or six years ago. And even the 'Net took several years to reach critical mass of penetration in residentials.
[[When was that? Anyone care to take a stab at when critical Internet access penetration occurred?]]
Even where it's being put in now, such as new divisions of housing developments, ftth designs are largely emulating HFC, modulating glass instead of last 1000' black coax, with the added distinguishing attraction of 10 Mb/s symmetric, or "10 meg both ways." As opposed to the asymmetrical model afforded by HFC and ADSL, even VDSL.
The 10 Mb/s plateau is arbitrary, I should add, and some are offering 100 Mb/s too, as an option. Future ftth's will offer GbE, as well. But I suppose that those GbE situations will be for professional/soho grade uses, at least in their earliest rollouts.
In some ILEC territories a great deal of the fiber trunk work ["feeder," in telco jargon, "distribution" to the MSOs (from the CO to the neighborhood)] is already in place, but the incumbents are electing to use this fiber for remote DSL provisioning in almost every case, instead of supporting PONs and other forms of FTTH.
Three to five years ago the horizon looked like 2015-2020. More recently, I'm reading the opinions of some 'experts' indicating that it is more like the 2005-2010 frame. Now, in 2001, we are reading with increasing frequency about launches of small ftth networks. And some of them are not so small, such as the WIN rollout planned for several locales in the Southwest.
Eleven years ago it was considered bizarre to run dark into commercial districts. Then MFN shattered that myth. The same ghost now watches over the circumstances that exist in the residential space today, with regards to permitting, buildouts and colocation on poles and in underground conduit systems.
Who'll be the next MFN (could it, in fact, BE MFN?) to shatter the myth that you cannot run fiber into residential districts? Could it be the power companies? A NewCo? The ILEC? The MSO? That's the question. Interestingly, they each, with the exception of the NewCo, have the rights of way already, and they each have fiber trunking into neighborhoods, to boot.
FAC |
