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To: GST who wrote (136900)	1/13/2002 9:09:01 AM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164685

Gst, maybe the fibre optics glut is only in Seattle. >>Fiber-optic cable was the bold new promise of the 1990s, designed to link us at cyber speed. Goaded by ambitious forecasts, easy money and deregulation that opened the streets to all comers, telecom companies spent billions of dollars laying millions of miles of fiber cable to slake the thirst for high-speed Internet connections. But before they could hook the network to their customers, they ran out of money. Today an estimated 95 percent of that cable lies "dark" — completely unused — often just yards from the homes and businesses it was supposed to connect. After paying $1 million a mile or more to build their networks, many telecom companies are going bust and can't afford to wire the "last mile." The glut of fiber-optic capacity is staggering. A pair of glass strands not much wider than a human hair can carry 10,000 times more data than a conventional copper phone line. That's enough capacity to easily carry television movies to 10 million homes. Better electronics are expected to bump the capacity to 2 billion homes in a few years, far more than anyone here needs. "There's a lot of dark fiber out there that may not ever be lit," says Barry Moore, sales manager of Sprint's Seattle branch. Like most telecom companies, Sprint won't disclose how much of its Seattle network is in use. The oversupply has caused prices for high-speed Internet connections to plummet nearly two-thirds in three years. In theory that should be good for customers. But in fact, it has put fiber networks further out of reach by making it harder for telecom companies to earn back the cost of a last-mile connection. seattletimes.nwsource.com