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To: Secret_Agent_Man who wrote (2685)	5/7/1999 7:07:00 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3178

Byron, Your reply made just as much sense as the real thing. It's really a metaphor, and does not represent fiber at all. Explanation: Ccold fiber is a term used to characterize a cabling infrastructure, wherein conduits have been laid in advance and left hollow and vacant for future occupancy by fiber optic cable, always with the qualifiers, "when the time is right" and "possessing the most recent upgrade or improvements." My first experience with such a concept was years ago (about 12 or 13 years ago) when the Summitomo Fiber Cabling system was unveiled. We were costing out a very large trading floor renovation at the time. It consisted, in part, of a pneumatic plumbing scheme, whereby extremely thin tubing was put in place in commercial building structured wiring systems, where fiber was actually "blown" through the tubes when it was needed in a just in time (JIT) fashion, using pneumatic techniques. The considerations here were to keep such hollow tubes in ready until they were needed. Since there was no activity taking place within those tubes, they were considered "cold fiber" cavities. The two advantages here were that (1) costs for the fiber (and the end point labor, a big consideration at the time) could be deferred until connectivity improvements or increases were needed, and (2) taking this approach was considered a hedge against obsolescence, much like the strategies used by today's Fiber Barons for their long term deployments. Perhaps others have heard of the term "cold fiber" where it was used to connote something else? In any event, that's my take on it from years gone by. Must be getting old, when I could talk of such things concerning "fiber-optics" in such historic terms. Regards, Frank Coluccio