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Technology Stocks : Qwest Communications (Q) (formerly QWST) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Roger Hess who wrote (2531)	12/14/1998 2:53:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 6846

Cool, Roger! Thanks for post.

To: Roger Hess who wrote (2531)	12/14/1998 5:31:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6846

Roger, I find it somewhat gratifying that you should such delight in the placement of fiber. Couple of things I would like to note. >>1) The fiber on the spool runs between 25000' and 26000'. I wonder what THAT costs? Millions<< Outside fiber of this type can run from between several up to ten bucks per foot, depending on construction and capacity. Take it from there. Overall costs, soup to nuts, for placing fiber per mile can be anywhere between $40,000 per mile and $80,000 per mile, sometimes higher, depending on terrain and materials used. When multiple conduits are laid simultanesouly, of course, you can extrapolate those savings and other advantages based on the number placed. Another factor is the number of innerducts that are actually used per conduit, during the initial implementaion. >> The guy asked me to guess how many phone calls a fiber would handle. I guessed 25000/second, but he smiled and said 240,000. Now, I don't know, he may have been blowing smoke in my face, but that's a lot if true. << He was no doubt talking about their capacity at the OC-192 service level. A T-3 can handle 672 traditional voice channels. An OC-192, by definition is an optical carrier equivalent of 192 T-3s. Therefore, if you take... ...672 circuits * 192 T3s, you wind up with approximately 129,000 voice circuits. This falls short of his 240,000 by some margin. However, if the voice is compressed by a factor of 2:1, say, through the use of ADPCM instead of straight PCM, then you wind up with some 258,000 voice channels... which would not be uncommon. >> I got to see some of the actual fiber. To say it is thin is an understatement. The guy showing it to me tied it in a lose knot, then tightened it a little, and it snapped apart. So, it IS flexible to a point and doesn't kink - it breaks. The 'fiber' actually had a coating of plastic. He burned the plastic off to show how really thin it was.<< Fiber parameters and characteristics are extremely fascinating, granted. But one should always be very careful around this stuff. The problems you can get into go beyond a pin prick of the finger. Especially when specimens are breaking into thin air when you are without adequate eye protection. Some burley electrical union folks I know have spent time in the Eye and Ear Hospital on Second Avenue here in NY City because they didn't wear their safety glasses. They do now. And one of my partners while doing a walk through of a facility under construction once got a piece of glass about a half-inch in length stuck in the sole of his foot by some still inexplicable means.... he suggests that it went through his shoe (construction boots are a must in these environments for this very reason) which his wife had to remove with a flashlight, a jewelers glass, and a set of tweezers, when he got home that night. FWIW, it can get much more serious than that if it enters the circulatory system. Good luck catching them next time during the splicing phase. But make sure you heed what I've stated here, if you are asked to get into the tent to "take a seat" while the oven is on. No Joking. Regards, Frank Coluccio