Seems nice but fedarally funded highway projects are not going to affect the last-mile problem at all.
“Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US
61–70 of 114 posts
Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US
#62There is a down side to this. It would use government money to create a new finite resource and there will be battles over it just like spectrum. From TFA: "Dig once requirements are often opposed by deep pocketed incumbent telephone and cable companies, who build their own infrastructure and would prefer that smaller competitors not have access to cheap and freely available conduit," I suspect the big incumbents wou…
I think the government here is taking a good approach by putting down at least empty pipes, which can be filled by anyone who wants to run fiber through them. This is a reasonable compromise in my opinion.
Personally I'd rather they put the fiber in themselves and lease it out, while also giving others the ability to pull their own lines through the pipes.
Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. ;-)
Understood. My contact issue is in my profile. I saw you might be a "neighbor" and wanted to say hello. It is pretty easy to discern where I live, but I have become inured to the risk. :)
Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US
#64Earlier 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.
This would only apply to projects receiving federal funding, which I don't imagine includes most subdivisions. Most likely just interstates, state highways, and maybe county highways. That wouldn't necessarily get fiber through your front door, but it should get it far enough out to provide a viable high speed option for rural households that are currently stuck with dial up or satellite.
But if this goes through on a national level it would spark off local legislation as well. This would be a great half-a-loaf for politicians who can't afford to oppose these monopolies.
Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
$3B is pretty small on the large scale. Especially when you consider the cost of adding them later (while it may not be paid for up front by the government, costs of doing construction, like closures, do add to gov't costs)
According to some sensationalist stories I've read, it's only ~10X what we're spending to protect/transport President Trump on his weekend vacations.
What does this contribute to the conversation?
Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US
#66There is a down side to this. It would use government money to create a new finite resource and there will be battles over it just like spectrum. From TFA: "Dig once requirements are often opposed by deep pocketed incumbent telephone and cable companies, who build their own infrastructure and would prefer that smaller competitors not have access to cheap and freely available conduit," I suspect the big incumbents wou…
I think the government here is taking a good approach by putting down at least empty pipes , which can be filled by anyone who wants to run fiber through them. This is a reasonable compromise in my opinion. Personally I'd rather they put the fiber in themselves and lease it out, while also giving others the ability to pull their own lines through the pipes.
...which can be filled by AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast who use their lobbying firms, teams of lawyers, and war chests to destroy anyone else who wants to run fiber through them.
FTFY.
Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thats why sidewalks are included... having conduit with all new sidewalks would definitely ease the last mile
No, it wouldn't. Because most 'last mile' areas don't have sidewalks. Hell, the roads don't even names beyond "County Road 31".
Ease, not completely solve.
By far most last mile areas do have sidewalks, if you consider population served as opposed to geographic area.
Which is by far the most reasonable metric, because only humans use the internet...
Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US
#68There is a down side to this. It would use government money to create a new finite resource and there will be battles over it just like spectrum. From TFA: "Dig once requirements are often opposed by deep pocketed incumbent telephone and cable companies, who build their own infrastructure and would prefer that smaller competitors not have access to cheap and freely available conduit," I suspect the big incumbents wou…
I think the government here is taking a good approach by putting down at least empty pipes , which can be filled by anyone who wants to run fiber through them. This is a reasonable compromise in my opinion. Personally I'd rather they put the fiber in themselves and lease it out, while also giving others the ability to pull their own lines through the pipes.
>> which can be filled by anyone who wants to run fiber through them.
No, there is only so much space in the pipe. It has a limited capacity so the next logical step is to charge for access.
>> Personally I'd rather they put the fiber in themselves and lease it out...
At that point why not just have the government be an ISP an route any and all packets that come their way? See, they're proposing to take care of the hard part - digging and laying the pipe - on behalf of companies. The biggest companies will have the least trouble filling those pipes with light pipes.
Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
"outside of last mile usage, which this bill is directed at" How is that? It applies only to federally funded projects. Most homes and businesses are not on federally funded roads. This bill is not a FTTH driver.
FTTH is a type of last mile, FTTH is not the only consumer of last mile fiber. The future of America is not, and never will be, FTTH. The future of America is FTTF/FTTDP (fiber to the frontage/distribution point) to a street/basement cabinet that houses current generation micro-headends and micro-DSLAMs that are setup to handle the last 500-1000 feet, speaking G.fast and DOCIS 3.x as very small greenfield installatio…
There is literally no reason why, today, we don't have at least 50/10 to every goddamned home in America.
Where I live in the Texas Hill Country, I get 300MB in the center of town. Outside the town there are a few companies providing wireless Internet connections, but this is limited by topology - the hills for which the region is named tend to get in the way.
I also have a cabin in upstate New York, in the foothills of the Catskills. I can't even get a cell signal there without hiking to the top of the mountain - and even then, a plain voice connection, non-data, is iffy. And I'm doing OK, I know of people up there who don't even have electricity.
Re: “Dig once” bill could bring fiber Internet to much of the US
#70I'm surprised more large planned developments haven't planned for very high speed Internet. CondoInternet up in Seattle, WebPass in SF, and others do well for multi family large buildings, but if I were building out a housing subsidivision, fiber to each house brought back to a central point seems like a no brainer.
I'm specifically moving to a place in WA which has its own fiber network in the neighborhood; hopefully will get involved with the advisory board. I'd love to experiment with 10G on a wave to my cabinet at the Westin. :)