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“Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

arstechnica.com

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Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#51

Post by samstave »

rayiner wrote: post #7
DiabloD3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly: we already did this. Remember when they overhauled the highway system in a lot of areas back in the late 80s and through the 90s? While they were digging, they dropped a lot of fiber. Almost all of the major routes we use today for teleco/internet routing were laid or substantially upgraded then. Almost all the dark fiber laid was laid then. The hilarious part? Most of the fiber laid could do at lea…

I think the idea is to get fiber into the last mile. Vast parts of the country are still under construction. New subdivisions are being built, and people are moving there from established northeastern/midwestern states. Requiring conduit to be put underground as you build the roads for a new subdivision, for example, would dramatically reduce the costs to deploy fiber in these places.

> think the idea is to get fiber into the last mile. Vast parts of the country are still under construction. New subdivisions are being built

Such an interesting subject is this; we have freaking building codes, regulations and requirements - esp re: elec and structure and such...

We need to take a step back and make a freaking INFRA code that requires what the data line requirements to a building should be.

DATA SHOULD BE A UTILITY - just like the sewer, water, etc...

we should stop bitching about FCC this and that - and REQUIRE that construction includes the data plan as well. This will alleviate much of this kvetching.

Please give me your opinion on the above as I respect your perspective.

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#52

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #47
Retric wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about less than 1/1,000th of our current GDP so no, it's not a question of having a larger GDP. GDP is simply not the problem, it's local monopolies that keep getting funded to fix a problem have no incentive to actually fix the problem. Remember, we rolled out copper wire to every home with a far smaller GDP, doing the same for fiber is relatively speaking a smaller investment.

I'm asking about the economic benefits to GDP of rolling out broadband to the places that don't yet have it, considering that they can get satellite.

[deleted]

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#53

Post by samstave »

iamatworknow wrote: post #45
PaulHoule wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roads regularly get resurfaced in places that are already well-established, so it's not just a "new construction" thing.

Resurfacing, especially in rural areas, is exactly that -- the existing road is scored and then paved over. There's not enough room there to insert a conduit without actually digging a channel. I'm not saying that work shouldn't be done, but it wouldn't be a case of just throwing down a pipe during normal resurfacing work.

wouldnt the equiv be that resurfacing==upgrading optics/lincards... you dont need to replace the actual fiber.

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#55

Post by stronglikedan »

zafka wrote: post #11
stronglikedan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and tore up everyone's lawn in the process They just did this to mine and a few neighbors, even though they weren't supposed to. They had a Ditch Witch (DW) Directional Drill [0] that would tunnel under all the lawns, and only make a little hole every few houses. However, they didn't count on the coral rock, and the DW broke, so they had to bring in a bigger one which was going to take a week or two. Well, they wer…

Where do you live? Miami area?

I'm not a big fan of disclosing my specific location on the internet, so I'll just say South Florida. ;-)

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#56

Post by stronglikedan »

33W wrote: post #14
stronglikedan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and tore up everyone's lawn in the process They just did this to mine and a few neighbors, even though they weren't supposed to. They had a Ditch Witch (DW) Directional Drill [0] that would tunnel under all the lawns, and only make a little hole every few houses. However, they didn't count on the coral rock, and the DW broke, so they had to bring in a bigger one which was going to take a week or two. Well, they wer…

Or for me, accidentally cut the copper line to the rest of the neighborhood and had to dig a trench in my front yard to repair it. I'm on the corner and towards the front of the subdivision, so I had quite a bit of work being done over the past 6 months.

They cut my neighbors water main in the process, and then blamed it on inaccurate (spray painted) markings. I'm a novice, but even I could tell that the markings were accurate. They also managed to put a speed bump in his driveway when they were tunneling under it - big enough to spill a beer. I got pretty lucky with my dead grass and misshapen tree rings.

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#57

Post by scott_karana »

pc2g4d wrote: post #48
jmcdiesel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats why sidewalks are included... having conduit with all new sidewalks would definitely ease the last mile

Does the federal government build many sidewalks?

They don't need to.

Per the article:

> [The bill] requires states to evaluate the need for broadband conduit any time they complete a highway construction project that gets federal funding

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#58

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #47
Retric wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about less than 1/1,000th of our current GDP so no, it's not a question of having a larger GDP. GDP is simply not the problem, it's local monopolies that keep getting funded to fix a problem have no incentive to actually fix the problem. Remember, we rolled out copper wire to every home with a far smaller GDP, doing the same for fiber is relatively speaking a smaller investment.

I'm asking about the economic benefits to GDP of rolling out broadband to the places that don't yet have it, considering that they can get satellite.

[deleted]

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#59

Post by Retric »

rayiner wrote: post #47
Retric wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about less than 1/1,000th of our current GDP so no, it's not a question of having a larger GDP. GDP is simply not the problem, it's local monopolies that keep getting funded to fix a problem have no incentive to actually fix the problem. Remember, we rolled out copper wire to every home with a far smaller GDP, doing the same for fiber is relatively speaking a smaller investment.

I'm asking about the economic benefits to GDP of rolling out broadband to the places that don't yet have it, considering that they can get satellite.

There are a lot of things you can't do on satellite internet right now. VOIP is the most obvious example.

Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US

#60

Post by rayiner »

samstave wrote: post #51
rayiner wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is to get fiber into the last mile. Vast parts of the country are still under construction. New subdivisions are being built, and people are moving there from established northeastern/midwestern states. Requiring conduit to be put underground as you build the roads for a new subdivision, for example, would dramatically reduce the costs to deploy fiber in these places.

> think the idea is to get fiber into the last mile. Vast parts of the country are still under construction. New subdivisions are being built Such an interesting subject is this; we have freaking building codes, regulations and requirements - esp re: elec and structure and such... We need to take a step back and make a freaking INFRA code that requires what the data line requirements to a building should be. DATA SHO…

I think the breakdown should roughly be: developers must wire out to the property line (and if they're building a subdivision, out to the main road). The county should wire anywhere a public road is being built and bring glass to some reasonably convenient place (because otherwise developers would have nothing to connect the other end of the line to). Private companies should handle everything that's not dumb glass.

I think counties are reasonably capable of burying fiber in the ground as they build and repair roads, but that's about all I trust them to do. I live in the DC metro area. Our public sewers dump raw sewage into the Anacostia river every time it rains. The city has an extensive network of old lead pipes that are poisoning kids. The Metro was almost unusable last year because tracks were catching fire. These problems exist all over the country, and are all caused because by prices for services being set too low, because they are set by elected officials and not the market.

Meanwhile, we have had FiOS in MD/VA since 2006-ish. In that time the top speed has gone from 50 mbps to 750 mbps as Verizon upgraded OLTs, backhaul, etc. Yeah, I pay $100 per month for 300/300 service, while my water/sewer bill is so small I don't even know what I pay. But I don't see that as evidence my internet bill should be lower, I see it as evidence that my utility bill is too low.

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